Wednesday in the 2nd Week of Advent, December 11, 2024

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.”

“Come to me, all you who labor and are burdened.”  More literally, this could be translated from the Greek as: “Come to me all you who are laboring and have been burdened.”  “You who labor” addresses people who have jobs but are not necessarily doing them at the time, while “You who are laboring” does.  In the first case, the laborers might be resting or eating.  In the second, the laborers do not rest or eat; they labor continuously.  “You who are burdened” does not reveal how long the laborer has been loaded down; it might have just occurred and might be a temporary state of affairs.  “You who have been burdened” tells us that this state has persisted for some time.  The Lord Jesus could have had in mind those who had been burdened by the Pharisaic interpretation of the Jewish Law since birth and are laboring under it up to the present and for the foreseeable future.  We can also understand this verse to pertain to anyone who is struggling to make sense of their lives and to realize that only God gives life meaning.  Very many people today have accomplished careers, have traveled, have done many interesting or significant things but find themselves wondering if that is all there is.  They struggle, they change careers, they are wracked with doubt.  The verses in today’s Gospel Reading are for them too.

“I will give you rest.”  Only the Lord God can give us rest from anxiety, doubt, pain, and fear, as he did with King Solomon: “But now the Lord my God has given me rest on every side; there is neither adversary nor misfortune” (1 Kings 5, 4).  Solomon did not waste this peace God had given him but used it for building his magnificent Temple in Jerusalem.  When God gives us rest, we should look at it as Solomon did and use it in God’s service.  He gives us rest for a purpose greater than allowing us to feel safe for a while.

“Take my yoke upon you and learn from me.”  Now, to take up one’s “yoke” and to “learn” from another do not go together.  There seems no logical progression here.  So we consider what it means to learn.  The Greek verb means “to acquire understanding through studying”.  If we next compare this to taking on a yoke, we can see that the Lord is telling us to study hard and turn over in the mind the Lord’s teachings and his manner of life.  “For I am meek and humble of heart.”  This “for” indicates causation and so should be translated as “because”.  Jesus is not saying, Learn from me because, being meek and humble of heart, I will not chase you away.  He is saying, Learn from me because I am meek and humble of heart — you need to become meek and humble of heart too.  “And you will find rest for yourselves.”  You need to learn how to be meek and humble of heart, and in becoming so you will rest for yourselves: rest from your anxieties and pain.

“For my yoke is easy, and my burden light.”  When we read this we should keep in mind that the speaker, as a carpenter, had constructed and repaired many yokes over the years.  A carpenter would have been employed mainly in this work in a place like Nazareth where much of the populace worked on small farms.  A yoke that is “easy”, that is to say, “gentle” would allow the oxen wearing it to pull a plow with less difficulty.  A “burden” that is “light” is hardly a burden at all.  Christ’s yoke binds us to him and through him to one another, just as a wooden yoke joins two oxen together in order to pull a plow or cart.  His burden is the law which he sets upon us: the commandment to love God with all our being, and the commandment to love our neighbor as ourselves.