My Yoke is Easy, My Burden Light

Mt 11:25-30

At that time Jesus exclaimed: “I give praise to you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, for although you have hidden these things from the wise and the learned you have revealed them to little ones.  Yes, Father, such has been your gracious will.  All things have been handed over to me by my Father.  No one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son wishes to reveal him.”

“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.”

Revaluation…it more than just a word.  It is an event which happens every day.  The news the world reveals is often the kinds of revelations we dread learning about the most: violent crimes, terrorism, scandal and corruption.  President Nixon used to call the five O’clock news. "the five O’clock blues.”

In the gospel today, we learn another, more important, form of revaluation: Divine Revaluation and we learn that Jesus is the exclusive revelation of God.  That is why Jesus says, “come to me” and “learn of me” because trying to know and understand God should be easy; God wants us to know who He is, and when we look at Jesus we hit the bulls eye.

Most of us learn from an early age that if we want something in this world it will not simply be given to us. 
We have to work hard to get good grades in school, we know that making a living will come by the sweet of our brow, not by the seat of our paints.  The American dream will happen only if we work hard, strive to achieve, and think only to succeed.
 
Yet, many people have worked hard, and fail.  There are plenty of people who have played by the rules
and have gotten nothing for it.  There are those in life who have tried, and tried, and tried to make life work only to experience bitter disappointment.

Where do we go when things are at their worst?  Who do we turn to when we have so many hurts and disappointments?  Does God really care if He lets so many bad things happen to us to begin with?  For those who’ve had heavy burdens placed on their backs, Jesus has an invitation to take his yoke upon our shoulders instead.

The scholar William Barclay writes, "There is a legend that Jesus made the best ox-yokes in all of Galilee, and that from all over the country men came to him to buy the best yoke that skill could make.  In those days, as now, shops had their signs above the door; and it has been suggested the sign above the door of the Carpenter’s shop in Nazareth may well have been, “My yokes fit well.”

The life Christ has for us is not meant to burden us to exhaustion; Jesus does not set us up for failure; God's name is not disappointment - our task will be measured to fit us.  Whatever God sends us is made to fit our needs and our abilities exactly, and when we find that our burdens have been lifted and new life is experienced, then we respond by making the burdens of others lighter.