Mask or no mask? Go out to eat or dine in? Send the kids to school or keep them home? 2020 is shaping up to be one of the most stressful years many of us have experienced thanks to COVID. We want this pandemic to be over! We want to be free to move about and to visit who we want when we want. We’re tired of bathing our hands in sanitizer. Tired of all the extra precautions we take just to go out and buy a gallon of milk.
There is of course another kind of virus that has been invading the world for much longer than COVID. Its infection rate is almost 100%. The virus I’m talking about of course is sin. Sin causes stress in your family, at your school, and in your workplace as sin prompts people to put themselves first…first before YOUR needs and wants! Even Jesus, the only person who was never infected by sin, was still greatly affected by it. In fact sin, our sin, killed him. But there is rest for those stressed out by sin and its effects—a rest that only comes from Jesus. Listen to what Jesus told his disciples. (Read Matthew 11:25-30.)
If your child’s preschool teacher announced that eating animal crackers provided a cure and a vaccine for COVID, would you run out to the nearest store to buy some for the whole family to eat? I doubt it. Only a gullible person would believe that eating a child’s snack could save you from a deadly virus. And no offence to preschool teachers (Miss Hannah and Miss Abby!), but what would a such a teacher know about viruses and their cure that scientists who have spent their whole live studying those things wouldn’t?
That seemed to be what the people in the towns of Bethsaida and Capernaum thought of Jesus. Oh sure, he had healed their sick and had driven out demons from their loved ones, but believe that he could save them from death and hell? “Hah. Nice try, carpenter’s son from Nazareth!”
But Jesus was not fazed. On the contrary, he said: “I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you have hidden these things from clever and learned people and have revealed them to little children... No one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son wants to reveal him.” (Matthew 11:25, 27b)
On the island of Antigua where we lived for three years, we quickly learned that to get things done like get your work permit, it wasn’t about what you knew but who you knew. If a friend could personally introduce you to someone in the Ministry of Immigration, you wouldn’t have to wait as long to get your paperwork completed. Jesus is telling us here that if we want to see God, we can only get a personal introduction through him. Reject Jesus and his Word, and we reject God and his love. It’s really that simple. It doesn’t take a PhD to understand the basic truths of the Bible and for that we can be thankful! There will be no IQ test to get into heaven. God won’t ask how many papers you have published or even if you can say your multiplication tables. That’s good news for most of us and for our really young children. Faith isn’t a matter of intelligence. Faith is a trust that God himself places in our heart through the Word and Sacrament.
But there is a warning in the words that Jesus shared. Since the truth about salvation is really quite simple, do I treat it as simplistic? Now that I’m all grown up, have I come to think that the Word of God is incompatible with the “real adult world”? For example, do I think that while the people of the Bible could expect God to provide for them in miraculous ways, that certainly doesn’t happen anymore. And so if I want to keep food on the table, then I need to make that happen. But that’s also why we end up worrying and stressing so much because we are relying on ourselves to get things done. Or do I think that prayer for God’s protection is pointless? Isn’t God going to do with me what he wants? So if I want to stay safe and healthy, then it’s up to me to eat the right foods and take the right precautions when out and about, right?
But to treat God’s Word as simplistic and incompatible for our life in the modern world is to really say that we know better than God! That’s nothing less than a sin against the First Commandment. In the First Commandment, God says that we are to fear, love, and trust in him above all things—even more than we trust our own intellect and feelings. If we continue to refuse to put God’s Word above our own ideas, we will have to face the eternal consequences for that rebellion as surely as someone who jumps out of an airplane without a parachute will quickly face the consequences of his actions!
Jesus goes on to explain why we shouldn’t jump out of our God’s loving embrace by striking out on our own. He said: “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, because 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.” (Matthew 11:28-30)
Jesus was speaking to people who were stressed by the requirements of their religious leaders. The Pharisees especially liked to pile on the rules and stress that if the people did not follow them, they were doomed. And it’s true, if we willingly turn away from God’s rules, there is no salvation for us. But the way to find salvation is not by keeping God’s laws—we can’t—not perfectly all the time the way that God wants. And so Jesus reaches out to us and assures us that the way to true lasting rest is in him who always put his heavenly Father first.
But how can we find rest in Jesus when he says to take up his “yoke”? A yoke is a heavy wooden contraption used to harness an ox to a cart. So when Jesus says to take up his yoke, it just sounds like we’re trading one burden for another. But look closely at what Jesus says. To take his yoke means to learn from him—to learn how gentle and humble he is. Jesus is so humble that even though he is the Son of God and therefore worthy of our praise and adoration, he came to serve us sinners. Can you imagine a billionaire getting up early every morning to make breakfast for his butler? And then when he was done with that, going out to wash his chauffer’s car? It should be the other way around shouldn’t it? The butler and the chauffeur are supposed to serve the master! If a butler and chauffer worked for such a kind-hearted billionaire, do you suppose they would dread going to work? Hardly!
Likewise, when we take on the “yoke” of Jesus, we are simply learning how he has served us. He gave his life to pay for our sins. And so we find rest for our souls when we give to Jesus the burden of our sins and our guilt. We find rest when we hand to Jesus our failures as a husband, a wife, as an uncle or an aunt, failure as parents, and failures as children. Jesus did not come to add to our burdens but to take them from us! You could say that Jesus is as much of a “burden” as a working parachute is a “burden” on the back of a skydiver! Just as that parachute ensures the safe return of the skydiver back to the ground, so Jesus ensures our safe landing into heaven. And Jesus is a parachute that will never fail. No matter how many times we fall into sin, Jesus will never say, “Here you are again. Will you never learn? Just how many times do you think I’m going to bail you out?” No time and time again, Jesus’ love opens above us like a parachute canopy that keeps us from crashing into hell.
Of course when Jesus says that his burden is easy he doesn’t mean that we’ll never have to carry any burdens. Last Sunday we heard the psalmist complain in Psalm 89 that the Lord had abandoned his people because he allowed them to suffer. As long as we live on this side of heaven, we’ll have to put up with burdens like COVID-19, sharp-tongued customers, and ungrateful coworkers. But our text assures us today that Jesus has taken away the worst burden—the burden of sin. But he’s done more than that. Jesus also helps us bear any other trials that we might have. He’s like the father who, at the beginning of a backpacking trip, will put his son’s sleeping bag on his pack so the boy’s pack is more manageable. And then midway through the hike, when he sees his son still struggling with the weight of the pack, he will take out the boy’s rain jacket and his sandals to lighten the load even more. Why does the father do this? Because he wants the boy to make it to the campsite with him and not give up along the way.
Likewise, Jesus doesn’t want you to give up along the way to heaven. “Come,” says Jesus. “Come to me and find rest.” Actually, the better way to translate the word “rest” is as “refreshment.” Rest, final rest, will come at the end when we get to heaven. But along the way, Jesus continues to refresh us with his promises so that we can go back to carrying the “load” of living as Christians—the “load” of putting others’ needs first and of living according to God’s Word even though the world may scoff. This labor and this load are light because Jesus helps us carry them (Deutschlander). So keep going to him, Brothers and Sisters, and keep finding rest and refreshment. Amen.
SERMON NOTES
(Pre-worship warm up) What current burden in your life is the most stressful?
Why did many people in Galilee scoff at Jesus’ claim to be the promised Messiah who had the answer to all their problems?
Jesus said: “I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you have hidden these [truths about salvation] from clever and learned people and have revealed them to little children...” (Matthew 11:25) How does that statement bring you comfort? How does it also serve as a warning?
Explain: Breaking the First Commandment (“You shall have no other gods”) is as foolish as jumping out of an airplane without a parachute.
Jesus said that we can find rest by taking on his yoke. But if we do that, aren’t we just trading one burden for another? (Explain your answer with an analogy.)
Jesus not only came to give us eternal rest in heaven but also to give us daily “refreshment” so we can better carry our burdens. Go back to the first question and write a prayer entrusting to Jesus the burden(s) you listed there. (When you get home, reach out to a friend and ask what burdens they are carrying. Help them with prayer and with action.)
