Matthew 11:25-30. 25 At that time Jesus said, “I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and learned, and revealed them to little children. 26 Yes, Father, for this is what you were pleased to do. 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.
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.”
When Jesus was here physically walking among us, there were two kinds of people that were drawn to him – three really.
There was first of all, those who were sick. They came to Jesus for healing because there was no one else and they were desperate. And their desperation was even greater because the good healthy people were saying that their sickness was caused by some sin in their lives and so they couldn’t even ask God for a miracle. But there was something different about Jesus. He healed people without questions, without condemnation, without cost. Come to me, Jesus invited them. And I will love you, I will forgive you. I will give you rest. And people came.
In our gospel for today, there are two other kinds of people that are coming to Jesus. There are first of all simple people, common people, people without a theology degree who were just trying to make a living. A lot of them had a lot of questions. The teaching of the scribes and Pharisees made no sense to them. All of the convoluted explanations about the sacrifices and the temple and all of the ritual, the new moon and the Sabbath and the Jubilee year, all of the symbolism and robes and incense, and when exactly Messiah was supposed to come. It made no sense to them. They were so confused. But Jesus was different. They could see God in him, the God they needed, the God they experienced in their everyday lives, the God who created everything good, who provided and protected. The God who loved them.
“I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth,” Jesus said in our gospel, “because you have hidden these things from the wise and learned, and revealed them to little children. 26 Yes, Father, for this is what you were pleased to do.”
In Jesus God was pleased to show people what he was like and what was important and how he felt about us all, the true religion. This is true religion, it is Jesus. 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.
Jesus reveals in his life and his relationships with simple ordinary people what God is like. They didn’t need a big theology book. They just had to see Jesus. Jesus said once, “If you have seen me, you have seen the Father.” Come to me, all you who are weary of trying to figure it all out. I will show you God and what is important to God. The Father is kind and good and he loves you. And people came.
The third kind of people that were coming to Jesus were those who were just so burdened down by trying to keep all the rules. Religion back then, according to the scribes and Pharisees, was about rules. Rules for how to wash your hands. Rules about what foods you could eat. Rules about what foods you could eat together. Rules about what kinds of dishes you could eat that food off of. Rules about how far you could walk on the Sabbath day. Rules about what kind of cloth you could make your clothes out of.
Even the rabbis saw this. There was a kind of parable told by one of the rabbis in Jesus’ day that described how all-consuming the religious leaders taught that the Law of God was:
‘There was a poor widow in my neighbourhood, Rabbi Korah taught, who had two daughters and a field. When she began to plough, Moses [i.e. the law of Moses] said: “You must not plough with an ox and an ass together.” When she began to sow, he said: “You must not sow your field with mingled seed.” When she began to reap and to make stacks of corn, he said: “When you reap your harvest in your field, and have forgotten a sheaf in the field, you shall not go back to get it” [Deuteronomy 24:19], and “you shall not reap your field to its very border” [Leviticus 19:9]. She began to thresh, and he said: “Give me the heave-offering, and the first and second tithe.” She accepted the ordinance and gave them all to him. What did the poor woman then do? She sold her field and bought two sheep, to clothe herself from their fleece and to have profit from their young. When they bore their young, Aaron [i.e. the demands of the priesthood] came and said: “Give me the first-born.” So she accepted the decision, and gave them to him. When the shearing time came, and she sheared them, Aaron came and said: “Give me the first of the fleece of the sheep” [Deuteronomy 18:4]. Then she thought: “I cannot stand up against this man. I will slaughter the sheep and eat them.” Then Aaron came and said: “Give me the shoulder and the two cheeks and the stomach” [Deuteronomy 18:3]. Then she said: “Even when I have killed them I am not safe from you. Behold they shall be devoted.” Then Aaron said: “In that case they belong entirely to me” [Numbers 18:14]. He took them and went away and left her weeping with her two daughters.’
Come to me, all you who are heavy burdened, Jesus invited. Religion is not about rules. It is about love. Come to me, and receive my love, Jesus says. Join yourself to me by faith. Take my yoke upon you, Jesus says, for my yoke is easy.
The word easy in Greek is chrëstos, which means well-fitting. In Palestine, 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 chafe the neck of the patient animal. The yoke was tailor-made to fit the ox.
So when Jesus says, “My yoke is easy,” he means it fits well. The life I give you is not a burden to bring you to your knees. It is a life that fits you and is measured by your circumstances, your gifts and abilities, your resources. So in everything there is only one rule: what can I do here in this situation, for this person, with the gifts and resources God has given me, what can I do to love, to show love? Because there is really only one rule for the ones who have received God’s love and that is to love.
And so people came.
Come to me, Jesus invites us today too.
If you are worried about whether God loves you, whether you are good enough, whether your sin has just made him mad at you, come to Jesus, look into the Gospels, see how much God loves you. Jesus came into the world to show us the Father, so we could have a relationship with God. He died in our place to pay for our sin and rose again to forgive us and bring us back into the loving embrace of God, no matter who we are or what we have done. God is not mad at us. The trouble that we go through in this life is not because God hates us. He is with us to help us, to give us strength, to get us through. Come to me, Jesus says. Let me assure you, let me forgive you, let me love you.
Come to me, Jesus says, if you are confused by religion. If you have doubts or questions. It’s not wrong to question and it is good to study and try to figure out all that you can. But the heart of our religion is not a doctrine or a concept. The heart of our religion is a person. It is Jesus. Come to Jesus and get to know him. Read the Gospels and focus on him. Who was he? What did he do? What was he like? How did he live? What does he mean for you now? Come to me, Jesus says, and see what true religion is all about.
And then finally, if you are feeling burdened by a lot of rules, come to Jesus too. Read the Gospels and learn from Jesus. A lot of times when we go to read the Bible we start at the beginning with Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, where the Law is. Where all the rules come from. And then we say to ourselves, I can’t do all this stuff and we quit reading.
But all of that is just a prologue to the real story, the heart of our religion, which is Jesus, which is love and mercy, not rules and regulations. We should start reading the Bible by starting with the Gospels, with Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. Go to the heart of it all and focus on Jesus because as he said, when we see him we see the Father, we see God. We see what is really important and how to live. And that way is love. As simple as that. Loving the best we can in every circumstance. Not always easy, but well-fitting.
There is an old story which tells how a man came upon a little boy carrying a still smaller boy, who was lame, upon his back. ‘That’s a heavy burden for you to carry,’ said the man. ‘That’s not a burden,’ came the answer. ‘That’s my little brother.’
Come to me, Jesus says. Let me love you and let me help you love too.