Yokes and Burdens

"My yoke is easy and my burden is light." - Jesus

Really?

If I'm honest, which according to adage and Abe Lincoln is a good policy, I have a hard time accepting this verse.

Also, if I look back at the last several months of my life as I have "followed" Jesus.  There's nothing easy or light about the schedule, events, or pace.  Yet, light and easy are the words God himself used to describe it.

On this blog, I've said before that God's laws are designed to drive us to despair and that Christianity is anything but safe and easy, but this is a different angle.  I don't think Jesus is declaring that his followers will have cushy lives nor that they will be marked by unlimited happiness.  He's promised us trials and troubles.

But he's also promised us and easy yoke and a light burden.  So, what does that really mean?

I've got a hunch.  Let's look at more of the passage:

"Come to me all you who are worried and burdened, 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

I've never driven an ox cart, let alone been the ox.  I would assume carrying the yoke is anything but easy even for an ox, so why use this word picture?

Our distance from 1st century agriculture keeps us from understanding Jesus' words.  To his original audience this pairing of oxen, yoke, and "learn from me" would have immediately drawn them to a common image.

The training of a young ox by an older ox.  Apparently, it went something like this.  When a young ox was being trained, a farmer would hook the young'en up next to an adult and go out to plow the fields or pull a load or whatever the task was.  He would use the same equipment, but in reality the ox-in-training would not be bearing any of the load at all.  That ox would just walk alongside the full grown animal, learning the feel of the equipment.  The young ox was not pulling any weight.  It was easy.  It was light.

Unless . . .

Unless the young ox got in its mind that it would be best to pull a different direction.  To go left instead of right.  To slow down instead of speed up.  To go instead of stop.

If the ox-in-training decided to opt for any of those, its yoke would immediately become incredibly difficult and its burden, fantastically heavy, even painful.

Because there was a much larger, much wiser, much more experienced creature pulling elsewhere.  To disobey that animal's will would certainly lead to jarring consequences.  So, the ox-in-training would learn to yield its will to the wiser ox and to go the way he wanted to go.

So, what is Jesus saying in this passage?

I was forced to see it Monday as I sat reflecting how distinctly uneasy and un-light my life felt.

If the Great Physician promises easy and light, and I am experiencing rugged and heavy, the diagnosis says I'm doing something wrong.

And this is it, I'm struggling against a much more powerful being.  He says go left, I keep pulling to the right.  He says slow, I say fast.  He says stop, I try to carry on and pull the weight by my own futile strength.  And predictably, this leads to much pain and fatigue and eventually the less powerful being is going to be tossed to the ground and dragged on down the path against his will, because the stronger being won't fool around with him forever.

He loves him too much to let him wander off that way.  He's too concerned about his own will and glory to let some created being detract from his plan.  He'll have his way in the end.  My option now is the choose to admit, "You're right" and follow him on the easy path or to keep up the fight and get dragged to the finish line.

I'd like to choose the former.

And as I sat on Labor Day (of all days, huh?), I couldn't help to feel a new emotion: Gratitude.  And not gratitude for my realization and potential to change, but gratitude for the difficulty, for the weight, and for the unease.  How amazing is it to have a God who won't let me wander away from him, but who will make the path difficult and will gracefully draw my attention back to him with the realization of, "This all really sucks."

This isn't the first time I've painfully been drawn to this realization and I know it's not the last time I'll end up there.  But I'm extremely glad he brought me to it and that I can climb in next to him, ask him to lead, and follow the light, easy path he promises to plow out in front of me.

For he's promised:

"My yoke is easy and my burden is light."