The Open Door: Jesus’ Welcome for the Burdened
Come to me, all you who are weary 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, NIV)
We’ve gathered today because we cared for, we loved Tyrone. Some of us knew him from way back, long before church was ever on his radar. Some of us came to know him later, as part of this faith community.
All of us feel the weight of his absence. In moments like this, we need words that are honest about how hard life can be, and at the same time full of real hope. That’s why I’ve chosen the words of Jesus from the Gospel of Matthew, chapter 11.
Jesus doesn’t say, “Come to me, all you who have your life neatly together.” He doesn’t say, “Come to me, all you who have no doubts, no fears, no qualms, no addictions, no mental health struggles.” He says, “Come to me ALL you who are weary and burdened.”
That’s a wide-open door.
If you knew Tyrone, you know that life was not simple for him. He carried some heavy things—struggles with mental health, struggles with addiction, and all the complicated questions that come with that.
He was not a polished person trying to impress anyone. He was too genuine for that. He never put on airs, never tried to appear more put together than he was.
He WAS a real human being, with real battles, who slowly found his way into a safe place, and he found an embrace and a welcome and arms wide open in his church community at Church at the Mission, and into Dismas, which played a significant part in his journey, as we have heard.
When he first came among us at the church, he didn’t arrive as a convinced believer. He came as someone with deep reservations about religion.
Being a former ardent atheist myself, I fully understood his perspective, and I appreciated that he was forthright with his views. We had many good conversations.
It was clear though in a short time that Tyrone came to love the sense of community at Church at the Mission. He appreciated the welcome, the kindness, the conversations, the feeling that he belonged, even if he wasn’t sure what he believed yet.
Quite early on, Tyrone started to volunteer with William’s team, who are responsible for the set up of the church - the chairs, the PA system, the banners - the overall ambiance of the church.
It’s a busy, very dedicated, and close-knit team. He would come in quite early, chat with William and the rest of the team - Eric, Francis, Tonia and others, and then make a concrete and practical contribution to the life of the Church, as I said, preparing our space to be a sanctuary. He did this for a number of years.
At one point he was asked by my assistant, many years ago, to read the main Scripture during the worship service. He agreed to do so.
He read so well, with such a strong voice, and with such feeling, that for a long while he was the preferred Scripture reader at the church.
It was interesting to watch his face up close as he read and processed what he was reading. I wondered what was happening in his heart as he read the Holy Scriptures.
During the pandemic, when we were not meeting in person, Tyrone joined a weekly online men’s Bible study.
Week after week, he showed up on screen with other men, opening Scripture, listening to people sharing their perspectives on life and on whatever we were studying, asking questions, offering his own thoughtful insights and wrestling with what it all means.
And those of us who were there noticed a quiet but important shift. At the beginning, he would talk about “those Christians” or “you Christians” and “what they believe”—as if faith was something other, something other people did.
Over time, that language began to change. He started to talk about the Christian faith as “us” and “we.” He began to volunteer, slowly and tentatively, “this is what we believe.”
That might sound like a small thing. But it isn’t.
That is the language of someone whose heart is softening, someone who is moving from the outside edge of faith toward the centre, someone who is starting to say, “These might be my people; this might be my Saviour.”
There’s another prayer in the Bible that captures that kind of journey. In Mark’s Gospel, a father says to Jesus: “Lord, I believe; help me overcome my unbelief.” (Mark 9:24)
It’s a very honest prayer. “There is faith here of a kind, but it’s not perfect. I am reaching toward you, but I still have questions and fears and hesitation.” I think that’s a good way to describe where Tyrone was in his later years with us: not a man who had every doctrine sorted out, but a man whose heart was turning toward mystery, toward faith, even in the middle of struggle.
And I want to say this clearly: Jesus is not threatened by that kind of fragile faith. Jesus is not scared off by people who are tired, or addicted, or anxious, or unsure, or doubting.
He calls people like that—people like all of us—to come to Him. “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.”
When someone like Tyrone finds himself drawn into a worshipping community, drawn into Bible study, drawn into saying “we” instead of “they”, that isn’t an accident.
We believe that is Jesus Himself quietly at work, calling a weary and burdened soul closer.
Now, we’re also not going to pretend that all of his struggles disappeared. They didn’t.
And many of us here know, first-hand, that life with mental illness or addiction can be messy and painful. There are relapses. There are regrets. There are less than ideal behaviours. There are questions we wish we could answer.
But today, our hope doesn’t rest on how perfectly Tyrone managed his battles. Our hope rests on the character of Jesus—the One who says He is “gentle and humble in heart,” the One who offers “rest for your souls.”
We trust that the same Jesus who invited him, week by week, into this community and during Covid into that Bible study, also saw the whole story of his inner life.
We trust that when a person, even tentatively, leans toward Christ and starts to articulate, “this is what we believe,” Jesus does not shrug and walk away. He receives them.
And that hope is not just for Tyrone; it is for every one of us in this room.
Some of you are people of faith. Others might feel, today, a bit like he did in the early days—curious, doubtful maybe, suspicious, uncertain; more comfortable talking about “them” and “their beliefs” than “us” and “ours.”
Some are carrying your own burdens—grief, anxiety, addiction, depression, loneliness.
If that’s you, hear this as a personal word from Jesus Himself: “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.”
Not “clean yourself up first.” Not “earn your way in.” Just “come.”
Jesus is gentle with those who struggle, and kind to those who have been bruised by life.
He makes room for people like Tyrone, and people like you, and people like me. With arms wide open, He extends a loving invitation: simply come, and follow Him.
The prophet Isaiah, writing roughly 750 years before Jesus walked the earth, gives this striking description that sounds so much like Him: “A bruised reed he will not break, and a smoldering wick he will not snuff out.” (Isaiah 42:3)
That’s a picture of Jesus. It tells us that those who are battered, fragile, and barely hanging on will find in Him not harshness, but a safe harbour.
When we choose to rest in Jesus’ loving embrace, we discover that He holds us gently, and does not let us go.
So as we commend Tyrone into the mercy of God, we do it with humility—we don’t claim to know everything about what happens in the last moments of a person’s life or in the depths of a person’s heart.
But we do know this: God’s love in Christ is deeper, wiser, and more merciful than ours. And we entrust our friend to that love.
