Thursday in the 15th Week of Ordinary Time, July 18, 2024

Matthew 11, 28-30

Jesus said: “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.”

Today’s Gospel Reading is taken from the words St. Matthew quotes the Lord as saying after his condemnation of the wicked unbelievers in Galilee and his praise of the Father for revealing his plan of salvation not to the proud but to the lowly.  These words then, can be understood as addressed to “the childlike”, or, more precisely, those  who followed him and were unlearned in the Law.  

“Come to me, all you who labor and are burdened.”  St. Hilary of Poitiers (d. 367) taught that by “labor” and “burden”, the Lord meant those who were bent down by adherence to the Law (at least in its interpretation by the Pharisees).  Other Fathers understood this to mean, on a deeper level, those who were burdened by sin and guilt who, in the time before grace, had no means of obtaining forgiveness from God.  “Come to me,” Jesus says, “and I  will give you rest.”  Jesus does not say, Go to the Father, and he will give you rest.  He says, Come to me.  Jesus reveals himself as divine, for it is God who sets us in a place of pasture and who brings us to the water of refreshment (cf. Psalm 23, 2).  We see the mercy of Jesus in this verse as well, for while the Father may seem remote, he himself is right in our midst, having taken on our humanity: “For we have not a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin. 16 Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need” (Hebrews 4, 15-16). 

“Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am meek and humble of heart.”  The “yoke” of Jesus is the Cross, which he shares with us.  This is a very different yoke from our former yoke of slavery to the devil for we take this upon ourselves in imitation of our Lord, who does not abandon us to bear it alone but who bears it with us, and so his yoke is easy and his burden light.  His sweet company makes the Cross not only bearable for us but even delightful: we are with him whom our hearts love.  From his company we learn to be like him, “meek and humble of heart”, who “came not to be served but to serve” (Matthew 20, 28).  As the Father’s servants and handmaids, we look to him for direction and seek his interests and not our own.

In taking on the yoke of the Lord Jesus, “you will find rest for yourselves.”  We will find rest for ourselves when we have finished plowing the plot of ground allotted to us, living out our lives in accord with God’s holy will.  In what will this rest consist?  “I, John, saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a great voice from the throne, saying: Behold the tabernacle of God with men: and he will dwell with them. And they shall be his people: and God himself with them shall be their God. And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes, and death shall be no more. Nor mourning, nor crying, nor sorrow shall be anymore, for the former things are passed away” (Revelation 21, 2-4).