Jesus said: “Come to me, all you who are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, 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

“Rest for your soul,” Jesus offers us in this gospel reading. Rest for our weary souls. And don’t we need that rest?! Thirty years ago, Thomas Moore wrote a book that I still think about, called “Care of the Soul.” And in the first sentence of his book, he made the claim that “the greatest malady of our time, implicated in all of our troubles and affecting us individually and socially is loss of soul.” “When soul is neglected,” he wrote, “it doesn’t just go away; it appears symptomatically in obsessions, addictions, violence, and loss of meaning.” 

The world has changed a lot in the last thirty years, but not in this respect. The world still neglects its soul. And smartphones, and social media, and everything else that has come along in the last thirty years in the name of progress, has not helped this at all. In fact, it reminds me of a statement made by the author and therapist, Carl Jung, that “people will do anything, no matter how absurd, to avoid facing their own souls.” And when we don’t face our soul, and take care of our soul, it affects every other aspect of our life. Our relationships, our health, our sense of well-being and purpose. When we ignore our souls, no matter how good our life might seem on the outside, it is rotting from the inside. And sooner or later, it will all collapse. The burdens of life become too great to bear. The weariness becomes too overwhelming to ignore. And we begin leading lives of quiet desperation. It is inevitable when we neglect the soul. 

Come to Me

So, what do we do? Simple, really. Jesus says, come to him. Take his yoke. Learn from him. And find rest for our souls. From Jesus. And only from Jesus. We can’t buy it. There is no pill that provides it. Rest for our souls can only be found through our faith, through our relationship with Jesus. Because we were created by God to be in a loving relationship with him. And God actually created our souls to be restless until they find their rest in God, as St. Augustine once famously said. 

But it is only when we realize that our souls are restless that we finally accept this invitation. So, the first step to find this rest is to realize how weary and burdened we are. If you are not weary, and are doing just fine without Jesus, this invitation probably won’t have much meaning. 

It reminds me of a book by Brennan Manning called “The Ragamuffin Gospel.” It is a book, he wrote in the forward, for a specific audience, the same audience Jesus’s invitation is for. The Ragamuffin Gospel, he wrote, is for:

The bedraggled, beat-up, and burnt-out. It is for the sorely burdened who are still shifting the heavy suitcase from one hand to the other. It is for the wobbly and weak-kneed who know they don’t have it altogether. It is for inconsistent, unsteady disciples whose cheese is falling off their cracker. It is for poor, weak, sinful men and women with hereditary faults and limited talents. It is for earthen vessels who shuffle along on feet of clay. It is for the bent and the bruised who feel that their lives are a grave disappointment to God. It is for smart people who know they are stupid and honest disciples who admit they are scalawags.

The Ragamuffin Gospel, he concludes, is for anyone who has grown weary and discouraged along the Way.

And that is exactly who this invitation from Jesus is for today. For all of us who have grown weary. For all of us who are carrying heavy burdens. For all of us who long for true rest for our souls. Come to me, Jesus says, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. 

Take His Yoke

But how does this happen? What happens when we come to Jesus? Well, he says, we take his yoke upon us. A yoke that is easy. A burden that is light. Paradoxically, we find rest for our souls by taking up his yoke. How is this possible? First, let’s remember what a yoke is, in this case. And it is not the yellow part of the egg! A yoke, by definition, is: “a wooden cross piece that is fastened over the necks of two animals and attached to the plow or cart that they are to pull.” This wooden cross piece helps the two animals to pull together. 

Take my yoke upon you, Jesus says. When we come to Jesus, and learn from him, we become yoked with him. He pulls with us. Jesus doesn’t take away whatever we are pulling, but we no longer have to pull it alone. Jesus pulls our burden with us. And he goes on to say that his yoke is easy. Which, in this case, really means “well-fitting.” His yoke is well-fitting. 

I like how the biblical scholar William Barclay explains what Jesus means by this:

“In Palestine,” he writes, “ox-yokes were made of wood; the ox was brought, and the measurements were taken. The yoke was then roughed out, and the ox was brought back to have the yoke tried on. The yoke was carefully adjusted, so that it would fit well, and not gall the neck of the patient beast. The yoke was tailor-made to fit the ox.”

So, think about that: the yoke that Jesus offers is tailor-made for us. Which means that it is not then a burden for us to live as Christ wants us to live. He doesn’t want it to be a burden. And he wants to be yoked with us. What a gift!

Barclay goes on to tell of a neat legend about Jesus that may or may not be true, but is worth hearing:

“There is a legend,” he writes, “that [when Jesus was a carpenter], he made the best ox-yokes in all Galilee, and that from all over the country people came to him to buy his yokes. And, as the legend does, the carpenter Jesus had a sign over his shop that read, “My yoke fits well.” 

His yoke fits well. His burden is light. And when we take up this yoke, tailor-made for us, we begin to find rest for our souls. 

Learn from Him

But Jesus does not just invite us to take up his yoke. He invites us to learn from him. If we are going to find rest for our souls, it will be through learning from Jesus. Jesus, when you think about it, had as much reason to be restless as anyone. His life was incredibly difficult. And he knew it would end on a cross. But his soul was always at rest. He was always at peace in this world. And he wants to teach us how to have that same peace. 

He wants us to take his yoke and learn from him. A soul at rest, in other words, is not a mind at rest. And one of the ways to find rest for our souls is to continue learning from Jesus. Through Sunday School, Worship, through our daily Bible reading and devotions, we continue to learn from Jesus. And by imitating his example, we can continue to learn from him. Spending quiet time alone with God. Putting away our electronic distractions, going out to the desert, or up a mountain, or even just into our closet, but somewhere quiet enough to listen for God’s still small voice. That is what Jesus did. And we can learn from him to do this ourselves. 

A Daily Invitation

So, my question today is: what if we actually did this? What if we actually came to Jesus every day, and took his yoke upon us, and learned from him? What if we woke up every morning and said to Jesus: I can’t carry the burden of this day without you. I need you to teach me. I need you to lead me and to guide me. I need you to place your yoke upon me. 

If you are like me, you need a daily reminder from Jesus to come to him, and take his yoke upon you and learn from him. It’s too easy to get caught up in life and forget to do this. It’s too easy to neglect our soul. It’s too easy to forget that we don’t have to bear life’s burden ourselves. That Jesus wants us to take his yoke upon us so that he can help bear our burden. Most of us need a daily reminder to do this. So, I have a little card to hand out today that includes this verse. I hope you will take one home with you, and put it in your wallet or purse, or wherever you will see it and be reminded of Jesus’ invitation.  Use it as a reminder to come to Jesus, take his yoke, learn from him, and find rest for your soul. 

A Daily Mission

But I don’t want to end there. Because this daily invitation from Jesus can become something even more than that. It can also become our daily mission. What if we approached every day with this invitation in mind for others? What if we kept this invitation in mind whenever we met someone who was weary and carrying a heavy burden? What if we tried to give this little card away every chance we got? What if we tried to live our lives in a way that showed others what it means to have rest for our souls?

We can see plenty of evidence all around our world of this weariness, this burden. We see a world that is weary and heavy laden, and doesn’t know where to turn for rest. We see a world that regularly neglects its soul, and desperately tries to distract itself from all of life’s burdens, and will do anything, no matter how absurd, to avoid facing its soul. Our world needs this invitation from Jesus. Our world needs to know that there is a place to turn when life becomes overwhelming. That there is one who wants to help bear the burden, if we will only come to him.

Many in our world are desperate to hear this invitation, or to be reminded of it. And there might very well be someone in your life who won’t hear this invitation unless they hear it through you. But don’t see this as a burden. See it as your well-fitting yoke. A yoke that is easy. A burden that is light. Because Jesus himself has made it just for you. And promises to help you bear it.

So come to Jesus today and find rest for your soul. And then go in peace to share this invitation with all who long for rest. Amen.