Jesus Brings Us Love
--Matthew 11:28-30
I think I’ve shared all this with you in the past, but it bears repeating today. I love all types of music. My favorite hymn is Charles Wesley’s “And Can It Be”; my favorite gospel song is Fanny Crosby’s “To God Be the Glory”; my favorite praise and worship chorus is “You are My All in All.” My favorite Christmas Carol is “Joy to the World,” and my favorite period of classical music is Baroque with Handel and Bach being my favorite composers.
Since the sixth grade my favorite composition by Handel has been “The Hallelujah Chorus” from THE MESSIAH. I was in the Marion Junior High Band by the second semester of my fifth grade year, but technically junior high was seventh and eighth grades. The Marion Junior High Band and Chorus combined to give their Christmas Concert. However, in December of 1959, still being only in the sixth grade, although I was in the Junior High Band I could not yet be in the Junior High Chorus.
The final presentation of the evening was the Chorus singing “The Hallelujah Chorus” along with the
Program notation, “As is customary, we would like to ask the audience to please stand during the singing of the ‘Hallelujah Chorus.’” I stood with the rest of the band members who were not in the chorus along with the rest of the audience, and I can still feel the goose bumps on my back and shoulder upon first hearing Handel’s great composition.
The custom of standing during “The Hallelujah” dates back to the first London performance of THE MESSIAH in 1743. King George II was present. When “The Hallelujah Chorus” which exalts Jesus Christ as “King of Kings and Lord of Lords” began, the monarch of Great Britain was so moved that he rose to his feet to honor the “King of the Universe” and remained standing until its conclusion. This tradition has continued for 261 years.
Five years later as a junior in high school our High School Chorus presented the entire MESSIAH as our Christmas Concert. I was privileged to serve as an accompanist, sing in the chorus, and play the “Pastoral Symphony” on the organ as part of our 1964 Christmas presentation.
Beethoven once said, “Handel is the greatest composer that ever lived. I would uncover my head and kneel down at his tomb!” [--http://www.ao.net/~jmo/john/music/handel.html.]. I love Beethoven too, but I am inclined to agree with him. The texts for THE MESSIAH were chosen for Handel from the Old and New Testaments by Charles Jennens, an eighteenth century editor of Shakespeare’s plays. Jennens divided Handel’s masterpiece into three parts, similar in format to a Three Act opera. Part One depicts “God’s Promise of Salvation.” Part Two proclaims “Christ’s Redemptive Sacrifice”, and Part Three joyfully anticipates the “Return of Christ, the Bodily resurrection of the Dead in Christ, and the Final Redemption of the human race from Adam’s Fall.”
Part One closes with a soprano solo ”Come Unto Him, All Ye That Labour” and the Chorus “His Yoke Is Easy and His Burthen Is Light,” both taken from our texts this morning from Matthew 11:28-30. Our text and message for the First Sunday in Advent proclaimed “Jesus Brings Peace.” Today’s text for this Second Sunday in Advent declares, “Jesus Brings Us Love.”
What burdens do you carry this morning? What does Scripture designate as burdens? Jesus came to carry your burdens and mine. Hear His kind, loving invitation to you. “Come to Me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.” Literally the invitation “Come” can be rendered, “Come here; come now.” This is a kind, gentle invitation of Jesus to anyone who is “weary and burdened” to come to him now. It is an urgent invitation that calls for immediate obedience and response without a moment of hesitation, delay, or postponement until “some more convenient day.” Are you weary and burdened with care today? Jesus lovingly invites you to “Come here to Him right now, and He will give you rest.”
St. Augustine said, “I have read in Plato and Cicero sayings that are very wise and very beautiful, but I never read in either of them: ‘Come unto me all ye that labor and are heavy laden.’” [--http://www.cyber-nation.com/victory/quotations/authors/quotes_augustine_st.html]. Burdens can entail many things. Literally a burden is a “heavy load or weight.” In Scripture sin is described as a burden. It is the greatest burden of all that Jesus takes away. He promises us in Jeremiah 31:34:
“No longer will a man teach his neighbor,
or a man his brother, saying, ‘Know the LORD,’
because they will all know me,
from the least of them to the greatest,”
declares the LORD.
“For I will forgive their wickedness
and will remember their sins no more.”
As the hymn writer Horatio G. Spafford so gloriously testifies:
“My sin, oh, the bliss of this glorious thought!
My sin, not in part but the whole,
Is nailed to the cross, and I bear it no more,
Praise the Lord, praise the Lord, O my soul!”
[--Horatio G. Spafford, “It Is Well With my Soul,” 1873].
Jesus frees us from the burden of sin because He loves us so. John Wesley
said this is “rest from the guilt of sin by justification and from the power
of sin by sanctification.” [--Albert F. Harper, ed. The Wesley BIBLE: A
Personal Study Bible for Holy Living (Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publishers,
1990), 1433.
There are other burdens we carry for which Jesus will give us rest
This Christmas if we but let him. Burdens are anything that keeps us in
bondage. Burdens are all types of affliction, fear, sickness, financial
problems, an unexpected death in our family, worries, troubles, stress,
anxiety, hardships, sorrows, trials, troubles. Jesus brings us victory in all
these situations. “Take my yoke upon you and learn from me” is His
invitation and promise that He will empower and enable us to deal with all
the problems life may bring our way.
There is another type of burden from which Jesus seeks to liberate
us. He frees us from bondage to religion, for His promise is, “My yoke is
easy and my burden is light.” A yoke Is a wooden harness that connects a
pair of animals, usually oxen, to a plow or cart. But Jesus also accused the
Pharisees of placing a yoke of religious bondage on people’s lives. Turn
with me to Matthew 23:1-4, “1Then Jesus said to the crowds and to his
disciples: ‘The teachers of the law and the Pharisees sit in Moses’ seat. 3So
you must obey them and do everything they tell you. But do not do what
they do, for they do not practice what they preach. 4They tie up heavy loads
and put them on men’s shoulders, but they themselves are not willing to lift
a finger to move them.’”
Religion is a heavy yoke of bondage to laws, rules, regulations,
rituals, but the yoke of Jesus is easy. He invites us, “Take His yoke
upon us and then explains “My yoke is easy, and my burden is light.” In
New Testament times the phrase “take the yoke of” was a common
Expression. It was the invitation of various rabbis for men to follow
Them and become their disciples.” In inviting us to “take my yoke upon
you and learn of Me,” Jesus is gently inviting us to become His disciples
today.
He explains that His yoke is easy. Whereas the yoke of the
teachers of the law and the Pharisees consisted in hundreds of rules and
regulations that no one could keep, Jesus yoke is easy, for it consists in
only one law, “the Law of Love.” Jesus, “on the night that He was
betrayed,” said to His disciples in John 14:15, “If you love me, you will obey
what I command.” Whereas the teachers of the law and the Pharisees
Had hundreds of laws, Jesus laid down only one, “The Law of Love,
expressed in several places, but perhaps no more beautifully and
powerfully than in John 15:9-17:
“As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my
love. 10If you obey my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have
obeyed my Father’s commands and remain in his love. 11I have told you this
so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete. 12My
command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. 13Greater love has no
one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends. 14You are my friends
if you do what I command. 15I no longer call you servants, because a
servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you
friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to
you. 16You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you to go and
bear fruit—fruit that will last. Then the Father will give you whatever you
ask in my name. 17This is my command: Love each other.”
His yoke is easy, for it is the yoke of love.
Jesus brings us love this Christmas. Take His yoke upon you, and
learn of Him. Learn to love as Jesus loves. Throughout Advent and the New Year of 2005 love as He has loved you.
