Wednesday in the Second Week of Advent, December 7, 2022

Matthew 11, 28-30

Jesus said to the crowds: “Come to me, all you who labor and are burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am meek and humble of heart; and you will find rest for yourselves. For my yoke is easy, and my burden light.”

The words of the Lord Jesus in the Gospel Reading for today’s Mass come after he has upbraided the people of Capernaum and other Galilean cities for not believing in him and repenting from their sins.  In effect, they “got used” to Jesus living among them, and their complacency dulled  their consciences from the need to repent.  Following this rebuke, the Lord prayed to his Father regarding the little ones who did follow him, who did believe.  These were not the comfortable fishers and merchants of the towns along the trade route from the east or among the Pharisees, but were the poorer folks, day laborers, and those overlooked by the rest of society.  It is to these that he speaks: “Come to me, all you who labor and are burdened, and I will give you rest.”  The Lord does not say, All you who labor and are burdened will receive rest.  He says, Come to me.  I will give you rest.  The Lord speaks as the Lord of all, who assigns tasks to his servants and holds them accountable for carrying them out.  But unlike a mere earthly lord, Jesus himself will refresh his workers.  How will he do this?  He himself says that “he will gird himself and make them sit down to meat and passing will minister unto them” (Luke 12, 37).  He will refresh his laborers in prayer and the sacraments now and in eternal life after the work has been concluded.  The little ones listening to Jesus had seen him heal the lame and the blind and the lepers.  These afflicted people did not simply recover, but they were instantly cured.  They knew that if Jesus promised to refresh them and they labored for him, they would be given the best refreshment: the best food, the best drink, the best rest.  Thus, we who work for him receive his Body and Blood to eat and drink at Holy Mass, or we are refreshed and strengthened by the Sacraments of Penance or of the Sick.  Grace pours into us, limited only by our will to receive it, and makes us capable to rendering further service.

“Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am meek and humble of heart.”  The image we should have here is of the Lord sharing his yoke with us so that we pull the plow together.  In doing so, the work is lighter than if any one of us alone were pulling it, and because it is the Lord’s yoke, we are sure to be doing the Lord’s work.  In pulling the plow the field is tilled, and then others can come along and seed it, and later others will come and harvest the crop that comes up.  All of us who belong in the Lord’s workforce then share in the bounty as we have shared in the work.  And if we pull the yoke along with Jesus, the experience becomes one of joy and fulfillment.  There is no greater work, whatever it is, than that which is done in the company of the Lord Jesus.  Working along with him we work with one who is “meek and humble of heart”, one who has truly come to serve, who puts his obedience to his Father above all else.  And alongside of him as we persevere in the day’s labor, we do learn from him by his example, and we are enabled to imitate him by the grace we receive from his proximity to us.  Becoming meek and humble of heart, we will “find rest” for ourselves, for the angry and proud never find rest.  Only meek and the humble do.

“For my yoke is easy, and my burden light.”  The Greek word translated here as “easy” also means “pleasant”.  A yoke is easy and pleasant and a burden light when we love the work and when we love the one for whom we work, the Lord Jesus Christ.