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Christ's Easy Yoke
Dear Friends,
One of the most comforting passages of Scripture is where Jesus invites all who are weary to come to Him for rest (Mt. 11:28-30). There is sweet and simple profundity in this invitation. Yet, there are also qualifying features that we do well to understand if we are to draw true and lasting comfort from these words of our Lord. A common misconception that is drawn by many from this blessed call is that our Lord is inviting the weary to a life of ease. Such misunderstanding of the true character of what Jesus offers results when we focus largely on the promised rest of v.28 while paying less attention to what our Savior has to say about His yoke in vv.29,30. If we understand Jesus to be calling us to easy living, we shall soon be disappointed to find that our coming to Him does not, in fact, transform our lives into flowery beds of ease. Then, in face of this blessed promise and our experience of difficult and painful realities, we can conclude that our Lord’s promise is not so precious and certainly is not practical. But the problem here does not come from any defect or failure in our Lord’s promise or provision. It arises from our practical tearing asunder that which Jesus has joined together, namely, our rest and His yoke.
At the same time Jesus promises rest, He also instructs us to take His yoke and to learn from Him. These modifying features of His promised rest seem to reduce the proposition to our exchanging one set of wearying burdens for another set of burdens. Why can He not simply relieve us of our burdens and not impose upon us the burden of His yoke and His instruction? The answer is that it is because we are naturally our own greatest burden and the only hope we have of relief comes from our being united to Christ by faith and growing in His grace and knowledge.
The writer of the Hebrews epistle puts this matter in the paradoxical terms of our striving to enter into the Lord’s rest (Heb. 4:11). The striving we do consists in our steadfastly believing that without Jesus we can do nothing except spend ourselves working for what can never satisfy us (Is. 55:1-3). On the other hand, when we exercise the faith God has given us for our salvation and preservation, we fix our eyes, minds, hearts, and souls on Jesus and experience security in the protection He provides and refreshing delight in Him, the One who is our peace.
The image of a yoke does conjure notions of work as opposed to reposing ease. But it also conveys the truth that we work in tandem with the Son of God who lovingly has given Himself for us and is with and for us in all of our throes, exerting His infallible wisdom and almighty power for our good (Rom. 8:28). Therefore, the rest Jesus promises is not that of our being in a state of isolated inactivity so much as it is one of our being swept into the caring and effectively conveying arms of our God. Our true rest and ease we do not derive from our indolence but from our diligence that arouses us to come to Him and to walk and work out our salvation with Him. We should come to Jesus as we would put ourselves to the trivial exertion of coming to our cars or an airplane as a means of conveyance to our destination with a speed and ease that far surpasses what we would experience if we relied on our own feet to take us there.
There is more, however, than an easing of our tiring labors and a making light of our crushing burdens when we come to Jesus. There is joy that makes our hearts glad and brings healing to our bones (Prov. 3:5-8). There is strength that empowers our minds, our emotions, and our bodies (Neh. 8:10). There are these things for us because unlike a car or an airplane, Jesus is our living, loving Lord whom to know is eternal and abundant life (Jn. 17:3). The yoke that our Savior invites us to bear is the potent and pleasing power of His love, from which nothing can separate us (Rom. 8:35ff). In fact, the word translated, easy, in Mt. 11:30, is best translated, kind, or pleasant. It is a word that differs from the Greek word we translate, Christ, by only one central vowel.
The yoke of Christ is not simply easy, as our ceasing to work would be easy; it is kind and pleasant, a much more positive conception. It is like the invigorating delight a man takes in his bride; it is the delight the Bride of Christ takes in her saving God, in whose presence is fullest joy and in whose hands are eternal pleasures (Ps. 16:11).
Yours learning to bear His sweet yoke,
William Harrell
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