Dear friends,
Jesus’ words for us this morning are words I needed to hear. Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest.
As I walked and prayed this morning, this beautiful Dan Forrest piece came to mind. Perhaps you’d like to listen to it today.
I invite you, also, to share in today’s worship service:
If you’d prefer to listen only to the gospel reading and sermon, you may do so here:
Today’s sermon is based on Zechariah 9:9-12 and Matthew 11:16-19, 25-30.
Zechariah 9:9-12
9Rejoice greatly, O daughter Zion! Shout aloud, O daughter Jerusalem! Lo, your king comes to you; triumphant and victorious is he, humble and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey. 10He will cut off the chariot from Ephraim and the war-horse from Jerusalem; and the battle bow shall be cut off, and he shall command peace to the nations; his dominion shall be from sea to sea, and from the River to the ends of the earth.
11As for you also, because of the blood of my covenant with you, I will set your prisoners free from the waterless pit. 12Return to your stronghold, O prisoners of hope; today I declare that I will restore to you double.
Matthew 11:16-29, 25-30
[Jesus spoke to the crowd saying:] 16“To what will I compare this generation? It is like children sitting in the marketplaces and calling to one another,
17‘We played the flute for you, and you did not dance; we wailed, and you did not mourn.’
18For John came neither eating nor drinking, and they say, ‘He has a demon’; 19the Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say, ‘Look, a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners!’ Yet wisdom is vindicated by her deeds.”
25At that time Jesus said, “I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and the intelligent and have revealed them to infants; 26yes, Father, for such was your gracious will. 27All things have been handed over to me by my Father; and no one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.
28“Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. 29Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. 30For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”
How can the burden of Jesus be light? Easily carried? Easy to bear?
Isn’t the burden of Jesus to love God and love our neighbors, love this hurting world wholeheartedly, love one another, love ourselves? How can that responsibility ever be easy? How can that burden ever be light?
It feels heavy to me, especially now. How do we love wholeheartedly when the ways we’ve grown accustomed to caring for one another are no longer available to us? When a hug or a simple handshake carries such risk, how do we communicate our compassion for one who’s hurting? How do we show up for one another when we have to keep six feet between us?
How do we love the world when we’re so deeply divided, when something as seemingly simple as putting on a mask out of love for our neighbor has become politicized, when we can’t even agree that systemic racial injustice is real let alone commit to dismantling it?
How do we keep on caring when every day brings new struggles of our own? Can we bear to keep on caring deeply, to keep on allowing ourselves to be vulnerable to the suffering of others, to be moved by compassion?
I’m reminded of the Real Hero StoryPeople print by Brian Andreas: Anyone can slay a dragon, she told me, but try waking up every morning & loving the world all over again. That’s what takes a real hero.
How do we live as real heroes in this hurting world?
The words of scripture remind us that we are not unique in our struggle. Our reading from Zechariah this morning is especially compelling. As one commentator has written, the words of comfort in Zechariah…emerge from long decades of yearning for restoration…They reflect the persistence of hope, even when its fulfillment seemed less and less likely.1
The people have emerged from a time of forced exile, but life is still not back to normal. They’re weary of waiting. Their burdens are impossibly heavy.
Into the midst of their yearning for a new life, God reminds them of the promise—the covenant—God has made with them. Because of the blood of my covenant with you, I will set your prisoners free from the waterless pit.
From that place of unjust incarceration…
From that place of hopelessness and despair…
From that place where there is no water to quench your thirst, nor justice rolling down like an everflowing stream…
From that place where you cannot climb out on your own…
I will set you free. I will set you free, my beloved. Return to your stronghold, O prisoners of hope.
We are not imprisoned by death, no matter how relentlessly it strives to keep us locked in waterless pits. We are not imprisoned by fear. We are not imprisoned by despair. We are, by God’s covenant relationship with us, prisoners of hope. We are bound to hope.
This world’s Savior has come. Rejoice greatly. Shout aloud.
Yoked with Christ—united with him in baptism—there is no burden we carry that isn’t shared by him. The full weight is never ours to bear alone. And when I picture being yoked with Jesus, I actually imagine an endless yoke circling the world, all God’s people united by Christ–the church on earth and the church in heaven–carrying that burden of love for the world together.
We learn, together, from the one whose yoke we wear. Jesus is gentle and humble in heart. The Greek word translated here as humble describes one who depends on the Lord rather than self, one who is God-reliant rather than self-reliant.2 We learn from Jesus how to entrust all our burdens to God.
On the cross, as Jesus bore the full weight of loving this world to the end, he cried out to God: Father, into your hands I commend my spirit (Luke 23:46). Jesus lived and died—loved and lost, wept and rejoiced—relying on God’s love for him and for the world.
Today, beloved one, you are held in the hands of the one who created you, calls you, and empowers you to wake up and love the world over and over again. It’s a heavy burden made light by your Savior, Immanuel, God with us. Amen.