Time for a rest?

Jesus said, 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… and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light. Matthew 11:28-30

Come with me by yourselves to a quiet place and get some rest. Mark 6:31

Just reading these verses is enough to give you a lift – and how we need that, especially at the time we are living through at the moment in Britain.

The cost of living crisis… strikes, it seems, just about everywhere we look… covid officially over, but still lurking in the shadows… wars, violence, political instability and poverty in many parts of the world… sexual violence and confusion… floods and droughts… the possibility of roasting heat in the coming months… Yes, these are hard times – and yet we know that we are having it far easier than millions of our fellow human beings.

In many ways things were just as bad, probably far worse, in the days when Jesus walked this earth. Certainly, in the intervening twenty centuries, the human race has made massive material progress, for which we should be thankful, but… there is still that big “but”, isn’t there?

Yet he could utter these remarkable words, words which either belong in the world of total fantasy, a cruel too-good-to-be-true deception, or which are breath-takingly true. Let’s take them apart, and then make sure to put them back together again…

First, they are an invitation: “Come…”

Invitations imply interest, a welcome, warmth, love. They are the direct opposite of the experience of so many: rejection, the closed door. I picture a smiling Jesus standing and beckoning to anyone who will heed, rather like Lady Wisdom in Proverbs 8-9.

Second, they are an invitation offered by a particular person: “Me…”

It may seem surprising that he doesn’t point people to God. That, surely, is what any other prophet or teacher might do; anyone who invites people to turn to “me” may be accused of staggering arrogance - or be possessed by some kind of religious mania - or, in fact, be God himself in human form. And that, of course, is exactly the claim Jesus made, and the claim that the church has been making for these twenty centuries. He is the key to the universe.

Third, they are an invitation to a particular type of person: “all you who are weary and burdened…”

Does that mean that Jesus isn’t concerned for the reasonably comfortable and successful? No, of course not; he welcomed anyone and everyone. But he had - and still has - a special heart for those for whom life is particularly hard.

The word “burdened” is striking. If we turn on to Matthew 23 we find Jesus criticising the religious leaders of his day. According to verse 3, his hearers should be obedient to “the teachers of the law and the Pharisees”, but they “should not do what they do, for they do not practice what they preach. They tie up heavy, cumbersome loads (that’s the same word as “burdens”, in Matthew 11:28) and put them on other people’s shoulders…”.

It seems that Jesus isn’t talking only about the  “weariness” and “burdens” which come from the normal hardships of life – earning a living, bringing up a family, coping with stress or illness or difficult relationships, important though those of course are – but is referring also to what might be called “religious” burdens.

He invites his hearers to “take my yoke” on them, with the claim that it is “easy” and “light”, not crushing and demoralising. Jewish literature at the time referred to the Old Testament law as a yoke which they were privileged to carry – well yes, but oh, how heavy it could be!

But Jesus, the carpenter’s son who must have made many wooden yokes in his apprenticeship, offers a totally different kind of spiritual yoke – one that eases the troubles of life, not one that adds to them.

This raises a question for us Christians today: Is my “religion” just another burden I have to carry? Is my Christianity crushing me rather than supporting me? Is it all do-this-do-that-do-the-other?

Have I turned it into a big list of duties to be performed – must pray more… must read the Bible more… must volunteer for more at church… must give more financially… - to the point of sheer exhaustion?

That is never what Jesus intended, for his beautiful promise of “rest for your souls” isn’t only about heaven, be sure of that! It’s about now. Jesus wants us to enjoy our walk with him, not find it a wearisome slog. If that is what it has become, then it’s time to stop and take stock. Time to rest , to take a deep breath, to close your eyes, time to just be in the arms of God.

That may require change, if only for a time. It may require a slackening of the strings, and without feeling guilty. However impractical it might seem, is it time to do as Jesus suggests – to find a “quiet place and get some rest”?

Loving Father, I am sorry I have allowed my walk with you to become a treadmill. Please teach me to enjoy my relationship with Jesus, and to find refreshment every day. Amen.