A Lesson from Little Menotomy
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. 3 0 For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.
OPENING
Sometimes we need to pause, breathe, take in the scenery, and just enjoy the presence of the Lord. Sometimes we need to … REST IN CHRIST.
There are many ways to tell if you are at that point, but one might be to take this quiz. Can you fill in the blanks? In fact, if you know the answer, feel free to shout it out-loud.
• I’m ready to throw in the…
• I’m at the end of my…
• I’m just a bundle of…
• My life is falling…
• I’m at my wit’s…
• I feel like resigning from the human…
If you could finish those sayings you might need to take Jesus up on his invitation to come. Apparently you’re experiencing the rat race. Just when you thought you were getting ahead, along come faster rats!
Can I tell you a story this morning? It happened on a very famous day, April 19, 1775, the day the Revolutionary war began. You know the story of “The shot that was heard around the world” where the Redcoats and the American Patriots met in Lexington and Concord, Massachusetts. But there are some lesser known details that made that day end the way it did. They happened in little Menotomy, Massachusetts.
A Lesson from Little Menotomy
(Taken from the book “The Best Little Stories of the American Revolution”)
In little Menotomy, Massachusetts about two o’clock the morning of April 19, 1775 the townspeople heard the tramp, tramp, of passing soldiers. They heard and felt the measured tread of hundreds of feet. In one house by the road running through the town, the rattle of pewter plates on a dresser awoke a man and sent him scurrying to his window. He saw the British … out of Boston and on their way to Lexington and Concord.
And here, in the town later known as West Cambridge and today named Arlington, Massachusetts, there are lesser known incidents that made that day end the way it did.
After the first British column marched through in the dark hours of early morning, there would be three more British incursions at Menotomy. Between nine and ten o’clock that morning, Lord Hugh Percy’s relief column of one thousand men came tramping through town to meet the original expedition as it fought its way back to Lexington from Concord beyond. Eight-year old Ephraim Cutter watched in awe- and many years later told his grandchildren that the marching men, their bayonets glittering in the sunlight, looked like a river flowing through the small village.
Next to come along, also headed outbound, would be Percy’s supply train … fated, as events turned out, never to catch up with him and his troops. And finally, late in the afternoon, would come the two British columns seen earlier, but returning to base now, badly battered, many of the men exhausted, others wounded, and all fighting their way home through the swarms of angry militiamen harassing them from both sides of the road.
But let’s focus on the fate of that supply train.
At one time it had been close on the heels of Lord Percy’s marching troops. However, the supply rain and its cumbersome wagons did not have such an easy trip
An alerted Menotomy at this hour did not necessarily mean a Menotomy in full fighting fettle, since most of the town’s young men, its Minutemen, had galloped off in the direction the British had taken, both during the night and again in mid-morning. Those remaining were the so-called “old men” of town – who were certainly older and exempt from militia duty but in some cases combat veterans of the French and Indian War.
Several of these old men met at Cooper’s Inn, on the corner of the Medford and Charlestown roads, and decided to ambush the supply train as it passed through the very center of the village. They elected David Lamson, described as part Indian, as their leader, then took cover just down the road from their meeting place.
When the supply convoy drew abreast minutes later, Menotomy’s “old men” rose with their firearms aimed at the horses – Lamson shouted orders to stop and surrender. But the teamsters instead urged their horses ahead. A crackling volley of rebel fire brought down several horses in their traces – and may have killed two of the British. The result was capture of all the supplies and provisions, an unexpected windfall for the area’s militiamen.
The remainder of the drivers and guards, it is said, then fled to a nearby pond and threw their weapons into the water. The local story is that they gave themselves up (surrendered) to an old woman digging dandelions nearby. She turned them over to a group of local men at the home of Captain Ephraim Frost on the Watertown Road, telling them: “If you ever live to get back, you tell King George that an old woman took six of his grenadiers prisoners.”
They later were exchanged and the story, if not all six men, did get back to England. It appeared in various newspapers with the line: “If one old Yankee woman can take six grenadiers, how many soldiers will it require to conquer America?”
I tell you this story because it emphasizes the need for the supply train. The redcoats became vulnerable to the patriots as the day wore on because they did not have the resources they needed to fight on. As a result they were victims of sniper fire and further attacks as they retreated back to Boston – they had no ammunition left to speak of!
We, too, become vulnerable to attack when we have been cut off from the supply train. If we let a distance develop between us and the Savior we will have no resources to carry on with life’s calling. We become easy pickings then for the enemy’s snipers.
If you can finish the sentences then you may need to hear from Jesus this morning.
• I’m ready to throw in the…
• I’m at the end of my…
• I’m just a bundle of…
• My life is falling…
• I’m at my wit’s…
• I feel like resigning from the human…
Jesus offers us a solution.
1. COME TO ME.
I notice that Jesus FIRST tells us to come to HIM.
• Not religion
• Not works
• Not duty
• Not other people
• Not your own ingenuity
• But HIM … a personal relationship with the Christ is offered.
Some faiths view God as “other than” as unapproachable.
Through Jesus we know God as the One who makes Himself available and approachable.
14Therefore, since we have a great high priest who has gone through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold firmly to the faith we profess. For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet was without sin. Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.
{Hebrews 4:14-16}
There is no rest, no peace, apart from a personal relationship with Christ.
• That is the reason Jesus began with this offer – to begin anywhere else will be a temporary salve at best and increase your frustration at worst.
• To begin anywhere else is venture off on a mission without your supply train in tow.
There is no better time than now to secure that relationship with Jesus. You don’t even have to wait until the end of this sermon. It’s as easy as A-B-C.
A Admit you are a sinner.
Romans 3:23 says: For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God;
B Believe Jesus died on the cross for you.
Acts 16:31 says: And they said, Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved, and thy house.
C Confess your sin to God and turn from it.
Ro 10:9 and 10 says: That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.
May I implore you to come to the Christ and find His rest? Just as there is imminent danger when an army gets separated from its supply line so our sins (which separate us from God) assure us that destruction is ahead.
Isaiah 59:2 says:
But your iniquities have separated you from your God; your sins have hidden his face from you so that he will not hear.
2. TAKE MY YOKE.
Are you still with me? Are you weary? Are you:
• ready to throw in the…
• at the end of your…
• just a bundle of…
• is life falling…
• at your wit’s…
• ready to resign from the human…?
Good News. In Christ’s grace he offers us his yoke.
YOKE: “a type of harness that connects a pair of oxen.”
Jesus’ yoke is a yoke of relationship.
• It is easy “well fitted.” -- It fits the need.
• Rules and religion don’t fit the need for personal relationship.
• His yoke is easy compared to man made religious yokes.
• His burden is light compared to the burden of human effort.
A Yoke Pictures Two Things:
1. Connection
• Yokes are made for two, not one.
• We were not meant to go through life living apart from God.
• His yoke fits well and is lighter than the one we’ve been pulling by ourselves.
2. Direction
• The idea of a yoke pictures forward motion.
• You cannot be yoked to Jesus and go your own way anymore.
• We follow Him and His direction for our life.
J.H. Jowett summarized the yoke this way…
The fatal mistake for the believer is to seek to bear life’s load in a single collar. God never intended man to carry his burden alone. Christ therefore deals only in yokes! A yoke is a neck harness for two, and the Lord Himself pleads to be One of the two. He wants to share the labor of any galling task. The secret of peace and victory in the Christian life is found in putting off the taxing collar of “self” and accepting the Master’s relaxing “yoke.”
WRAP-UP
• I’m ready to throw in the…
• I’m at the end of my…
• I’m just a bundle of…
• My life is falling…
• I’m at my wit’s…
• I feel like resigning from the human…
Jesus offers rest, recovery, and resources. All we must do is come. As we willingly submit to him he will teach us, transform us, and provide us with rest.
I must ask --- what are you waiting for?
The redcoats at got separated from their supplies train and it cost them lives and gave the Patriots the upper hand. Don’t make the same mistake and give your enemy the upper hand. Come to Christ today.
