説教
“Come to me, all you who labour,
and I will give you rest.”
The October Meditation on the Gospel
according to St. Matthew 11:28-30
October, 2020
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
“Come to me, all you who labour and are overburdened, and I will give you rest. Shoulder my yoke and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. Yes, my yoke is easy and my burden light.”
These must be quite the special words from Jesus to you, with which you may have often been comforted whenever you were too much overburdened or you lost all the powers to support yourself. These words are, however, something amazing, aren’t they?
None of us wants to shoulder any yokes or burdens in our lives. We have, nevertheless, often to shoulder our yokes and burdens like our ‘cross(es)’, which are even beyond the human capacity in our lives for we are weak not only bodily but spiritually as well, and, above all, we are not free from the sins against others, and particularly against God.
On the contrary, there should not be any of ‘His’ yokes or ‘His’ burdens, which our Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, even God Himself, should shoulder Himself. In today’s Gospel, however, what does Jesus Christ say? Amazingly, He says,
“Yes, My yoke is easy and My burden light”.
He surprises us as Jesus does not say to us of ‘our’ yoke and ‘our’ burden, but of ‘My’ (that is, Jesus’) yoke and ‘My’ burden. Even Jesus claims ‘our’ yokes and ‘our’ burdens, that is, our ‘crosses’, as ‘His’ yokes and ‘His’ burdens, that is, ‘His’ Cross, which He is to shoulder. Then, Christ, now, tells you, “I will give you rest” as you remember.
“Come to me, all you who labour and are overburdened, and I will give you rest”.
I have lost my word before these moving words of Jesus, but what I can do now is simply and sincerely to worship him in tears. For these words of Jesus are true as He has really shouldered ‘our’ yoke as ‘His’ yoke. He has laboured for ‘our’ burden and has born through these as ‘His’ Cross, even on the real Cross at Golgotha.
Then, Jesus invites us to join Him to shoulder ‘His’ Cross with Him, by saying;
“Shoulder My yoke and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls”.
‘Our’ yokes and ‘our’ burdens are no longer ‘ours’, but now those ‘of Jesus’. We are, now instead, asked by Jesus to join Him to “shoulder ‘His’ yoke and learn from ‘Him’. What we now should learn from Him? The answer is obvious as He continue to tell you that “Yes, ‘My’ yoke is easy and ‘My’ burden light.”
Let us, then, respond to His invitation, by joining Him in shouldering ‘His’ yoke and ‘His’ burden with Him on our shoulders, and to learn the truth in our hearts that “Yes, ‘His’ yoke is easy and ‘His’ burden light” as Jesus, Almighty God, Himself shoulders with us and for us.
Before having seen Jesus and having listened to Him, we simply thought that we were shouldering ‘our’ yokes and ‘our’ burdens by ourselves, which were too much for any of us and were unbearable, but ‘that was life’. On the contrary, Jesus Christ surprises us by saying that those yokes and burdens are not ours but His, then, by inviting us to help Him to shoulder ‘His’ yoke and ‘His’ burden with Him, that is, ‘His’ Cross, in our lives as our honour and, even, our pleasure. That will change our lives utterly and completely.
Following Jesus in His words, we will be surely blessed and be really comforted by Him, learning of the truth that “He is gentle and humble in heart, and we will find rest for our souls”. Indeed, Jesus is Christ, our Saviour, our God Himself, who is gentle and, even, really humble in His heart and He gives us rest for our souls and fulfills our lives to the full with His Grace and His blessings and His mercy.
“Come to me, all you who labour and are overburdened, and I will give you rest. Shoulder my yoke and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. Yes, my yoke is easy and my burden light.”
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
