My yoke is easy and my burden is light

Thursday 16 July

Gospel Matthew 11.28 – end

²⁸ "Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. ²⁹ 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. ³⁰ For my yoke is easy and my burden is light."

Sermon

When we feel we have failed, when we feel rejected, when we feel it is not worth going on with what we had planned – it’s worth flipping open chapters 11 and 12 of Matthew’s gospel and reading about the rejection of his ministry that Jesus felt.

These two chapters recount the failure of this generation to accept God’s message about the Kingdom of Heaven. They describe the failure of this generation to recognise the deeds of the Messiah. “The Kingdom of Heaven, from the days of John the Baptist until now,” Jesus says, “has been subjected to violence, and violent people have been raiding it.”

John’s ministry ended, as we know, in a humiliating death as we heard in our gospel reading on Sunday.

¹⁶ "To what can I compare this generation? They are like children sitting in the marketplaces and calling out to others:

¹⁷ " 'We played the pipe for you,
       and you did not dance;
       we sang a dirge,
       and you did not mourn.'

Jesus is in a reflective mood. But in between the apparent failure and rejection there are bright spots. Not all is bleak. Yes, it will be a bleak prospect for those towns which refused to listen to Christ’s message. For them, the fate of Sodom and Gomorrah awaits. But for those who hear his word and accept it with joy, the prospect is very different.

Jesus praises the Father for revealing the truth to little children, whilst hiding it from the worldly wise.

²⁷ "All things have been committed to me by my Father. No one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and those to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.

The tone of rejection fades from his mind. Whatever seems to have happened on earth, Jesus and the Father are one. And just as Moses In Exodus prayed that he might know God, so we can pray this morning that we might know the Father. The reward of knowing the Father, revealed in the incarnate Christ, is rest – a lightening of the burden.

²⁸ "Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. ²⁹ 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. ³⁰ For my yoke is easy and my burden is light."