Jesus said in Matthew 11:28-30:
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.”
At the end of a normal day I am usually tired and in need of some rest. Some times I experience this need for rest at the beginning of my day. I am weary of the details that need to get done. I am burdened by the stress of what I am dealing with. It never seems to go away. Each day has a weight of its own that is difficult to deal with.
Here in this passage, Jesus is inviting all the weary and burdened to come to him in order to find rest. “Take my yoke upon you… my yoke is easy…” Growing up in church I heard this verse several times and wondered what in the world Jesus was referring to when he said yoke. The only yoke I knew of was that in the middle of an egg. Surely he was not saying to egg oneself (oh what young men think about sitting in church)
To Be Yoked
The illustration was lost on me for a while because Jesus was using a common farm analogy to illustrate our relationship with him. Farmers would take a mature oxen and pair it with a younger, immature one. This pairing was done using a yoke- a wooden piece that went around each of the oxen’s neck and tied them together. There were two reasons for this: The first is that the immature oxen, not wanting to work, would try to wander off and graze, but the mature oxen was stronger and would keep it from doing so and eventually break the younger oxens will into following along with the plowing. Secondly, the two animals together could literally pull more weight than each one on their own. By pairing them together, the multiplied their strength for the load. There is strength in numbers!
Jesus is saying that we are to be yoked with him. To allow his strength to help you carry the burden that you cannot carry alone. Also, for his will to break yours and keep you walking in the direction that he wants you go. When we yoke ourselves with Jesus, he reminds us that he is gentle, and humble, and you will find rest for your souls. This is not something he forces on us, but a submission of ourselves to him. If you are weary and burdened, allow the strength of Jesus to give you rest. You may still need to work and do your part but everything gets a whole lot easier.
