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. (Matthew 11:28-30).
What does this mean to take my
yoke? What is a yoke? A better question is, what is the Lords yoke?
A yoke is usually a wooden beam that is joined to the neck of 2
animals to pull a load such as a cart or plow. It makes the work easier for the
animals as the weight of the load is dispersed between the two. An animal
doesn’t know the mind of a man and it doesn’t understand a man when a man
speaks. They are 2 different species. The man can tell the animals to go plow a
field but the animals will just ignore him or stare at him dumbfounded. It
doesn’t mean that the animals are
deliberately being disobedient to the man’s will or his words; it is just that
they have no idea what he wills or what his words mean. Now when you put a yoke
on the animals, and lead them to the field you want plowed, they have a better
understanding of the man’s will and then they plow the field.
This gives a better understanding of a yoke when applied to the 2
different species of man and animal. But what is the Lords yoke?
It is the same. It is a wooden beam. It is called a cross!
Wait a minute, you may say. How can the Lords yoke be a cross when He
says His yoke is easy and His burden is light and if you come to Him that He
will give you rest?
That doesn’t sound like a cross to me. As a matter of fact, a cross
will make my burden even worse. It is a strange paradox
that an already weary and overloaded man must take a new weight upon himself in
order to be eased and to find rest. You will find many of these paradoxes when you
look at things from an earthly perspective. From our earthly perspective we see
a cross as an instrument of torture and pain and suffering that leads to death
and we see a yoke as something that will make everything easier and better
because there is now someone else sharing the load.
From a heavenly perspective we will see that the cross is the Power of God. When we can truly see and understand the cross, we will then see why it is a requirement for those that want to come to Jesus.
If anyone would come after me,
he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. (Luke 9:23).
I don’t see a choice in our Lords words here. He didn’t say you should
deny yourself and take up your cross; He said you must. The cross is an
instrument of death. The wages of sin is death. Your sin and my sin must
collect its wages. When we come to Christ, we are a different species from Him.
He is God life and we are fallen human life. We do not understand His will. We
cannot hear Him speaking, let alone understand Him. We come to Him and take His
yoke, the cross that He specifically designed for us. I’m sure that Jesus as a
man, the carpenter in Nazareth, had made many yokes in His time. He knows
exactly the kind of yoke (cross) that will fit you perfectly. We follow Him. It
is His yoke and we are now bound to Him by a cross as He
now leads us. We no longer struggle or fight
as He carries most of the weight. Our burdens were to heavy because we tried to
carry our sins alone. Our struggle was only the avoidance of the cross. We
became weary. He waited patiently. We now follow Him to His cross.
It is here at His cross that we see how in trying to save our lives
that we lost it and now in the losing of our life, we are saving it. It is here
that we become a new creation, we have the very life of God and we can now
understand His will. Our cross is now immersed in His cross. His cross envelops
all. Our sin is now a part of Him and His cross. Our burden is made light as
the pure and innocent One is paid the wages for our sin. We have found rest for
our souls as He becomes sin, while death claims its prize. It is here that we
now see the sinless one become sin. We are horrified at the sight of our Holy
God bearing our sin. The agony of seeing Him in agony over our sin is greater
than carrying our sin ourselves. We have entered into His suffering as we see
Him suffer in our place. We agonize over our sin that we have placed on Him. We
cannot bear to see Him suffer and we cry out to take our sins back from Him so
that He no longer has to bear it. Our love for Him is now so great that we cry
out to take others sins upon ourselves so that His burden is easier. This we
cannot do as only He can accomplish this task. He alone is worthy. But through
this, we have taken on His nature. We are willing to bear the burden of others
out of love for Him, thus we are conformed to His death. We are in Him and we share in His suffering
as we are conformed to His death. And just as surely as He is resurrection life
which death has no power over, we also are resurrected with Him and are now
seated with Him in heavenly places. We are not weary and we have no burdens as
we are forever yoked to our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ.
But now we who are still stuck in time may still carry heavy burdens
and be too weary to go on. He still calls to you from the deep. His yoke awaits
you. The weight of your sin is much greater than the weight of your cross. This
is why you must deny yourself and take up your cross daily. You will only
follow Him when you are yoked to Him. Your cross is His yoke that allows you to
follow Him. This is why Paul said that it is only momentary, light suffering
and it is producing and eternal weight of glory that is far beyond comparison.
The result of His yoke is producing this eternal weight of glory and that is
why He can say it is easy and light in comparison. His burden was the weight of
all of ours combined and when you came to Him with your cross and sins, He
added them to His weight out of love for you. You must continue now to do the
same out of your love for Him.
He did not quit so you must not quit. He did not give up so you must
not give up. His nature is in you by the very fact that you have taken His
yoke. His life now flows through you. His yoke connects you to Him like a
branch in the vine. I, like you, cannot go on. As I fall to one knee I look
over to you and see your struggle as you see mine. We both know that we must
continue. We look to the one we are yoked to and we are carried along by His
strength. We rejoice as His Grace flows into us in order for us to persevere.
Indeed, His yoke is easy and His burden is light. Now if our Lord entered into
His rest after He completed the work given to Him by the Father, then it seems
reasonable that the same rest will be given to you once you complete the work
given to you by our Lord when you come to Him. Press on…
Dana Leonardi
Aug. 2012
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