7th Sunday after Pentecost
Proper 9
Matthew 11:25-30
"Carrying our Burden’s"
This morning I would like to call your attention to the last two verses of our gospel lesson where Jesus says,
28 "Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls .28* Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.
29* Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.
30* For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light." For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light."RSV
In this day and age when it seems all of us have some sort of burden to bear, some sort of troubles and problems to carry with us, this text brings us some assurance that we are not alone with these burdens. There are many of us who face the burden of bodies that don’t do exactly what we want them to do. Others face the prospect of living life alone after the death of a loved one, the burden of coping with this world all alone can be a very large one to bear. Still others have the burden of broken relationships with either their children, their spouses or their relatives. When one is in tension with someone one cares about, that burden can be extremely heavy to carry. Still others face the burden of making choices in this world. Wondering what they will do with their lives, wondering when they do make a decision if it is the right one. There are other kinds of burdens we face, burdens of sin, or temptation, burden of guilt, burdens of conflicting loyalties, burdens of providing for our families, this life is filled with stress, with cares, with worries, with situations that call for us to make choices that sometimes are not pleasant to make.
Jesus is saying in our language, come to me all who who are struggling with life in any way and those of you who have burdens that you cannot carry alone, and I will help you with your struggles. Jesus knew that all people have a difficult path to follow in life. Life is not easy because we live in a world that is filled with sin. Sin makes life difficult for us because it has put into our world all those things that God would have kept from us because he knew these things would make life difficult. But we want to be like God, to know what he knows, so now we have to know all the ways in which life will make us carry burdens, will load us down with problems , with guilt, with broken relationships, with not so perfect bodies, and a whole host of other things.
But Jesus says he will help us, he will walk besides us, he will help us carry our load. When our daughter Melissa was 2 she wanted to help around the house and for a 2 year old she could he very "helpful" if you know what I mean. She liked to help move things around, but she needed my help.
She liked to help move chairs around, but when she does, I need to pick up the chair in such a way that I am carrying most of it and she is helping by carrying a much smaller load.
Jesus uses in our text an illustration from his day and age to explain his helping carrying loads. He says that the yoke that is used on the oxen is similar. He puts the heavy part of the yoke on the stronger oxen, and the lighter part on the oxen that is not quite as strong.
In a like manner, his yoke is made after the same pattern, the heavy end is upon his shoulder, and the lighter one is upon ours. Our father bears the most weight of our problems as I bore the most weight as Missy and I move chairs. Our father in heaven bears most of the weights of our chairs in life, our burdens, our cares, our struggles we have.
Jesus tells us loud and clear this morning, we don’t have to live life alone, we don’t have to life with all of our failures, with all of frustrations, with all of our burdens, but we must bring them to him. And then he will shoulder them with us, in fact, he will take most of the weight of our burdens upon himself. He will carry our burdens, he will lighten our loads.
Jesus goes on further to say mat he will not make our load heavy by adding other things in place of those he has taken away. No, for he tells us he is gentle and kind and he will give rest for our souls. Jesus tells us he doesn’t replace our burdens with any of his, he won’t put demands upon our lives, he won’t give us things we have to do. It seems though that a lot of people have a view of Christianity in in which Jesus will replace one set of burdens with another life of always doing good, of living a perfect live, of being somber, or being a person who walks with their head hung down, not smiling, not enjoying life. But on the contrary, Jesus relieves our burdens so that we can smile, so that we can enjoy life, so that we can live in his love, so that we can walk with heads held up tall, looking around and enjoying all the creation that God has made for us. He carries our burdens and replaces them not with the strictness of the law of do this and don’t do that, but he replaces it with the security of love, with the gentleness of compassion, with the tenderness of forgiveness. And when our lives are filled with that, with love, with compassion, with forgiveness, then we will be free to look around us and reach out with Jesus’ love to those who are hurting, to those who need our help in carrying the burdens of life.
Jesus helps us carry our burdens because he wants us tofree to enjoy life, to reach out to others, to share with others his great gift of love.
This concept is important for all of us because everyone has his or her own life story that is filled with burdens, filled with problems, filled with heartache. Over the years as I visited members of my congregations, I have come to know your life stories, you have shared something of your selves with me, and I can appreciate even more the great news of the gospel message for everyone here. All of us need to hear over and over again that we are loved, we are not alone in this would. We do have someone to share our burdens with, we have someone to truly cares for us that someone is Jesus He says come. The invitation is given to each of us, Come to the Lord come to him with your cares, come to him with your problems, comes to him with all the burdens of life and he will help you carry them. I hope you will heed his invitation this morning, I hope that even during this service maybe in the quiet time of the bell ringing at the end of the service, you will share with him some of your cares, some of your concerns, you will share with him something of yourselves so that you can enjoy life and feel somewhat free from allthe brokenness of this world.
Our hymn of the Day says it very well for us in these words
" I heard the voice of Jesus say
Come unto me and rest
Lay down, thou weary one, lay down
Thy head upon my breast
I came to Jesus as I was,
Weary, and worn and sad
I found in him resting place
And he has made me glad."
Jesus wants us to come, to place our burdens on him add then we will be free to live life, to enjoy life, to take risks for others, to share Jesus life with others so that they might experience the great good news in their lives.
Everyone in this room needs someone to share something with. And as people who have shared with Jesus, we can be willing to listen to the life stories of others, to shares with them their brokenness, to walk besides them in their journey and share something of ourselves and share something of Christ with them to make their burdens lighter. We are called together as the body of Christ, not as an isolated islands, but as a living working body which shares with each other, the hurts, the heartaches, the problems of life.
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 no burden," came the answer. "That’s my wee brother."
Jesus takes our heavy burdens of brokenness from us, and replaces them with the burden of caring for someone out of love and the amazing thing is that a burden carried out of love will seem much lighter than one that is carried because of all the brokenness of this world. Jesus helps us carry our burdens, so that we can be an instrument of love to others, to help others carry their burdens, to share with others their life story as we have shares our live stories with Jesus. Jesus says,
"Come to be, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your should. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light."
You will heed his invitation????
Written by Pastor Tim Zingale
