Take My Yoke

 Read Matthew 11:25-29

I have looked forward to this message since we began this Words of Jesus series 4 months ago. In many ways but different words we arrive where we began.

We love the first part of this pericope. 

Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.

That’s some cool beans right there. How many times are we overwhelmed by our circumstances, at least in our hearts and minds? We need rest, respite, relief, and probably some words that don’t begin with the letter R.

We want the rest of the Lord. We want rest like we can find nowhere else. We know that God grants us peace that goes beyond understanding. He grants us peace not as the world knows peace but as only God knows it. We want and need and long for rest that goes beyond what we can get in this world.

We need more than the world can give.

Jesus went up mountains to get his relief from the world.  We go to Jesus.

We love that, but that’s not the part of this pericope that we are focusing upon at the moment. We continue reading to the end of this scripture set.

Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.

And so we come to a word that we don’t use much anymore—yoke.

If I tell you something funny, it’s sometimes called a joke.

If I push my finger into your belly, it might be called a poke.

The white part of the egg is called the albumen. Got ya!

But we are not talking about the yolk but the yoke and we don’t do a lot of yoking these days.  When we did, the yoke was often a wooden crossbar that connected two animals used for pulling something—a wagon, a plow, or a stump that needed to be removed from a field.

A yoke is a cross beam from which bells are hung—at least back in the days when bells needed to be substantial enough to alert a community.

Animals were yoked together. Paul talked about being unequally yoked—bound together with a pagan.  That creates problems just as yoking a huge animal and a small one together might create problems if you wanted your furrow to be straight.

This is western Oklahoma so I probably don’t need to explain furrow. If you don’t know, you can google it or ask a farmer. It’s a plowed row.

There is another form of being yoked. It is being yoked to your rabbi and his teaching of the Torah.

Priests came from the tribe of Levi—the Levitical order. They did the work in the temple, including the sacrifices, incense, and I’m guessing that the junior priest was also in charge of the cleanup. There was surely a lot of blood and some guts on sacrifice day.

Rabbis were teachers.  What did they teach?

They taught how to apply the Torah in the lives of God’s people. It was surely a respected profession or calling. It required work. It required commitment. A heart for God would surely come in handy as well.

To understand the rabbi and his yoke, you need to understand elementary education in Israel.  Great! If Tom sees 2 or 3 teachers gathered together after the service, he always scolds them and says, you better not be talking school on your day of rest.

But Tom gets to talk about elementary education. Yes, we are talking 2000 to 3000 years ago, but elementary education nonetheless.

Everyone went to school. The curriculum was not approved by the superintendent or a committee. It was approved by God.

Education back in the day didn’t involve multiplication and division as much as it did knowing God’s word. Every kid learned the Torah. Every kid knew the first 5 books of the Bible. These young men knew what it said and had much of it memorized.

Sorry girls, but it was a different time.

Some had a natural inclination to learn what God had to say to them. A rabbi might come across such a child and challenge him to follow me and I will teach you the ways of God so you can teach them to others.

If they accepted the call, they were said to have taken on the yoke of the rabbi. They were bonded to him by his teaching and application of God’s word.

What about the other kids?

At some point, those not chosen to take on the yoke of a rabbi were told to go learn to do what your father does: Stonemason, carpenter, a worker in the fields, rocket scientist, or fisherman.

So, what was expected from the student—or disciple—of the rabbi?  Learn from him.

Learn from him!

The disciple was to learn from his master. Just to tie up this part a little more succinctly, rabbi means my master.

The word rabbi was pronominal.  That is, it is a noun meant to be used as a pronoun.

Teacher was a good form of address. My master offered a hint of a deeper relationship.  This was my rabbi. I am yoked to him because I am seeking God and his ways and desire to learn from the one that he sent me.

It was a very special relationship, one in which the rabbi would teach his disciples how to put God’s words into practice.

OK, thanks for that tidbit on history and education. Can we go to lunch early today?

We could, but you will be fed better her if you can hang in there for the charge or challenge.

What about us?

Jesus was teaching. He was speaking to those who followed him or were considering it. He was speaking to some who might one day profess Jesus is Lord!

We say that Jesus is our Savior. Amen and Hallelujah.

We say—or at least we are working towards—saying that Jesus is Lord.  That’s a tough one but we have committed to get there.

·       The Bible tells us that Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life.

·       He is Messiah.

·       He is our intercessor at the right hand of the Father.

·       He is the best hotel manager ever. Our room is already ready for us.

·       He is the light of the world and the bread of life.

·       He is the Gate and the Good Shepherd.

·       He is the resurrection and the life.

·       He is the Son of God.

·       He is Lord!

Are we ready to call him my Teacher and my Master? Are we ready to take on his yoke and learn about his Father’s ways from him?

Are we ready to take on the yoke of our Master and learn from him?

Hear the verse again.

Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.

In taking the yoke of Jesus upon us, we not only learn from the Lord, we receive rest for our souls. We are granted rest beyond what we can get in a good night’s sleep or the best nap ever.

We can rest to the core of our very being.

If we really want peace, rest, the assurance that in Christ we are made whole and complete and completely healed of what is killing us, we need to learn from our Master.

Do we want to have this sort of rest and relief and reprieve from what ails us? Do we?

You kids won’t know the band Badfinger but they had a song that went If you want it, here it is. Come and get it.

Jesus wasn’t quite so glib but he was that simple in his offer.  He was telling those gathered and us, your peace is here for the taking.

The answer to receiving real peace lies in learning from our Master and putting his words into practice.

But that comes with the risk of persecution and being ostracized and not fitting in with the world. Yes, it does and all those things are signs that we are seeking the Lord, not the world and seeking the rest that only he can give.

We are seeking rest that goes to our very souls.

The rest that we can get in the world is great if you can get it, but we need rest that engulfs us and protects us and assures us that we can make it. That can only come from the Lord.

Hear the verse once again.

Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.

God is love and in his love, we may find genuine rest. Let us take his yoke and learn from him and rest from the world.

Let us take his yoke, learn from him, and put his words into practice and know what it is to really rest.

Can we do this?

Jesus said:  My yoke is easy and my burden is light.

Amen.

 

Matthew 11 - Part 5

 

Read Matthew 11

In much the same way that we see in John 11 and 17, Jesus talked aloud to his Father in heaven.  He praised him for revealing the truth to those who were not rich or wise or fully vested in the world.  Those who were like children had eyes to see the truth that came through Jesus.

Jesus is affirming less to his Father than to those who might hear that the Father had vested all things in him.  Again, we see parallels to John’s gospel.  If you know the Son then you know the Father.  Only the Son knows the Father by himself.  We know the Father through the Son.

Jesus did not come to those perched in worldly authority.  He did not check in with the Roman Emporer or his governor in Judea.  He didn’t make an appointment with the Sanhedrin.  He didn’t book his stay at Embassy Suites.

John ministered at the Jordan River.  He wore strange clothes and had a unique diet, but the people came to see him.  People in search of God and his ways came to see him.

Jesus came to those same lost sheep who were searching for their shepherd.  They were weary and worn out.  Jesus came and healed and ministered and taught and those with ears to hear and eyes to see received him.

Some did not receive him.  We have already covered the woe unto you part of this chapter.  Some—not the high and mighty in this world—but the weary and worn out were seeking a shepherd.  Consider these words of Jesus that most appropriately hit this target audience.

“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.  Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.  For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”

These are words of comfort.

Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.

They are words of rescue.

Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.

They are words of invitation.

Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.

They are words that we try to make stand-alone counsel when they are coupled with other very important words that take us from his incredible rest to purpose—God given purpose—which will give us rest and assurance to our very core.

Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.

What is it to take the yoke of Jesus?  There is the obvious metaphor.  Oxen were yoked to pull a plow. When you are yoked, you share a burden.  The task is not yours alone.  Work is required, but you don’t carry or pull the whole load.

That fits.  There is another thought or two on the matter.  The yoke is the prescribed teaching and course of study and ways of a rabbi.  Disciples were yoked to their teacher to learn God’s ways as he knew them.

Hebrew rabbis each thought that their yoke most closely aligned itself with the yoke of the Torah.  There were surely differences among rabbis.  Some might seem more restrictive or burdensome than others.  Surely Sabbath constraints and restraints were among those and would result in interesting encounters with Jesus.

When Jesus said take my yoke, he was indeed charging us—often the weary and worn out of our age—to take his ways upon ourselves.  But his charge did not end with taking his yoke.  We are to learn from him.  Salvation may come in an instant but discipleship comes over a lifetime.

We are to learn from Jesus.  We take his yoke and learn from him.  The verb here is learn.   This learning leads us to real rest.  Yes, our bodies need to rest from our labors.  We need to rest even more from our troubles, but you can’t really rest from your troubles, at least not on your own.

Now consider the last piece of this counsel.

For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.

Jesus is not asking more of us that we can do.  What he asks is so much easier than earning our salvation through our works.

What he asks is light work compared to carrying our troubles and guilt and shame and thoughts of not being good enough around with us.

His burden—what he calls us to do—is not so heavy as to scare anyone away.  His burden is light.

Our modern-day problem is that we want the peace of our Lord without his yoke. We want his rest without his yoke. We want to do things our way and feel assured and full of peace and fully rested as if we had taken on the yoke of our Master.

It’s sort of like desiring salvation without repentance. 

It’s like wishing we had faith while being anchored to our doubts.  It’s wanting to walk by sight not faith.

There is no valid reason not to take the yoke of Jesus.  He said his yoke is easy and his burden is light.  We believe him or we don’t!

Yes, there may be some hate and persecution headed our way because we take his yoke upon us, but the one who brought everything into creation can give us peace in the middle of persecution.

He can give us rest for our souls.

The problem shared among many modern-day Christians is that we try to fit the teachings of Jesus into the patterns of our lives when we are charged to learn from him.  We don’t try to make the word of God fit the world we live in.

When Paul writes that we are not to remain conformed to the world but be transformed by the renewing of our minds, he is charging us to learn from Jesus.

The number of pastors and church leaders preaching to itching ears by conforming the word of God to the cause of the week is beyond belief.  Jesus said learn from him. 

We are to learn from him.  He is not asking for more than he equips us to do.  His yoke is easy.  His burden is light.  He offers rest—real rest that cannot come from what the world can give.

We must not give in to learning the ways of the world.  We must not reinforce the learning that runs counter to the teachings of Jesus.  We must learn from our Teacher, Master, and Savior. 

This entire chapter has a theme of rejecting Jesus in favor of our own understanding, our own expectations, and our own desires.  Reread the chapter once more with this thread in mind.

“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.  Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.  For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”

Jesus tells us in the middle of the craziest year most of us have ever known, that he offers peace and rest and assurance.  We come to him and we learn from him and we put his words into practice.

We set aside our personal expectations of what God should do, what the government should do, and what our friends and neighbors should do and we just trust God like never before.  We do things his way and enjoy his peace and rest.

It’s not too hard for us.

“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.  Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.  For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”

Amen.