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June 29, 2008
A-Pentecost 7
Matthew 11:25-30
Pastor Robert Raasch

"Come to Me"

1. Jesus Offers an Invitation to the Weary
2. Jesus Promises a Yoke that is Light

(Matthew 11:25-30)  At that time Jesus said, "I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and learned, and revealed them to little children. {26} Yes, Father, for this was your good pleasure. {27} "All things have been committed to me by my Father. No one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and those to whom the Son chooses to reveal him. {28} "Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. {29} Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. {30} For my yoke is easy and my burden is light."

It’s a scene that is repeated at many times and in many ways in our lives.  As a toddler, we maybe stumble and hit our head.  Our bottom lips goes out and we start to cry.  And mom says, “Come here, dear,” and we run into her arms.  As a grade schooler, we maybe come home and announce, “Dad, everybody hates me.  Nobody wants to be my friend.”  And Dad says, “Come here and tell me about it.”  And we plop down beside him and star to share our sorrows.  And then as a teenager, we make some poor choices, get into some trouble, and find ourselves feeling embarrassed, feeling guilty, confused, not sure where to turn.  But in the end, it’s the words of our father that provide us with the way out.  “You can always come to me, no matter where you are, no matter what you’ve done.  Just call me.  I’ll be there for you.  Just come to me.”

My friends, you realize that simple invitation “Come to me,” applies to more than just children.  It also applies to each one of us.  And it’s not just our parents who have said it to us.  More importantly, it’s our Savior who said it.  At the very times when we hurt the most, at the very times when we feel the most unloved, at the very time when we feel the most embarrassed and guilty and filled with shame, Jesus utters three of the most beautiful words ever spoken, namely,

“Come to Me”
In these words, recorded for us in Matthew 11, Jesus does two things:
I. Jesus Offers an Invitation for the Weary
II. Jesus Promises a Yoke that is Light

First, Jesus offers an invitation to the weary.  Here in our text Jesus says, “Come to me, you who are weary and burdened.”  The question is, who is Jesus referring to there?  Is he talking to the guy who just ran a  26 mile marathon?  Or maybe he’s talking to the working mom who struggles to raise the kids and pay the rent.  Or maybe it’s the college student who’s putting in long hours to get his degree—even as he worries how he’s going to pay off his student loans.  Or maybe it’s the middle aged couple who are now taking care of their grandchildren, even as they running their own parents to and from the doctor’s office, managing their finances, their parent’s finances and thinking, “Man, where does it end?” 

Are these the kind of people that Jesus is tenderly inviting to come to him?  Sure they are.  Jesus invites us all to cast all our anxiety on him.  And yet, it must be said that in this section of Scripture, Jesus is not specifically referring to those who are physically tired or who are financially burdened.  No, with these words, Jesus is likely referring to a different kind of burden.  He’s referring to the kind of burden that St. Paul described in our Epistle reading today.  Did you hear what Paul said?  Paul writes, “For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out.  For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do—that I keep on doing.  What a wretched man I am!” (Rom. 7:18-19, 24)  Did you catch the burden that Paul is struggling with?  Paul is weighed down by the on-going obligation to live a good life, to do the right thing, to keep the commandments, to live up to God’s standards.

Tell me, can you relate?  Don’t we all face this internal struggle to be a better person?  You know, to keep our cool when everything seems to be going wrong.  To be supportive of other people, building them up rather than tearing them down.  We face the daily struggle of maintaining pure thoughts and keeping our sexuality within God-pleasing limits.  We struggle to show respect toward those in authority, be it our parents, our boss, or government officials.  To be a loving spouse, a devoted dad, a caring mom, a diligent worker, and honest citizen—all the time! 

And of course, if all those obligations and expectations aren’t enough to weigh us down, we can add the weight of all the times that we’ve failed to live up to those standards.  Times when we’ve lost our cool, or crossed the line, or fell into the same sin that we vowed we’d never do again.  And in the end, we feel even more embarrassed, more ashamed and beaten down.  We hate who we are.  We hate who we’ve become.  And we’re sure that God must feel the same way about us. 

You know, it’s at times like these that our first inclination is to run away from God.  Just like the little boy who accidently bent his dad’s favorite golf club and then decides he’d better go hide under the bed for about a week, so it is with you and me.  When we know we’ve blown it, know we’ve disappointed God, when we figure he’s mad at us and wants nothing to do with us, what does God do?  Does he say, “Get out of my sight?”  No, he says just the opposite.  In love, Jesus says, “Come to me.”  Yes, you, the one who made a mess of things, the one who failed, the one who feels unworthy of his love—Jesus invites you to come to him.

My friends, do you realize how counterintuitive that is?  Jesus’ invitation goes against what we normally think.  Our human reason would think, “If I want to be accepted by God, I’m going to have to live a better life.  And if I do live a better life, then God will love me and want me close to himself.”  But with Jesus, it doesn’t work that way.  Jesus doesn’t say, “Come to me, if you got it all together; come to me if you are a good Christian.  Come to me, when you have overcome all your personal demons, when you’ve stamped out your bad habits, when you have the strength to do what is expected of you.”

No, Jesus says just the opposite.  He says, “If you are weary, if you are worn down by the fight to be a better person, if you have failed miserably, if you are feeling the weight of a conscience burdened by your sins, if you feel like you’ve been treading water far too long and you’re about to go down, then to you Jesus offers that precious invitation, “Come to me, you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.”

And when you do that, when you come to Jesus, what does he promise to give you?  II. He promises to give you a yoke, but notice, a yoke that is light.  Now, I realize that sounds like a bit a contradiction.  We come to Jesus weary and burdened and what does he do?  He gives us a yoke to wear?  Oh great!  Just what I need.  A six by six across my shoulders.  Another burden for me to carry.  In fact, from a distance, that’s what many people perceive Christianity to offer.  They say, “If I become a Christian, that will mean just more rules for me to obey.  I’ll be expected to go to church and fork over some of my money.  I don’t want that kind of burden.  I don’t want that kind of yoke across my back.  I want to be free.  I don’t want anybody telling me what to do.”  Tell me, have you ever heard that—or maybe thought it yourself?

Do you know what’s wrong with that kind of thinking?  It fails to take into consideration one very important point.  The fact is, everyone has a yoke to wear.  Whether you believe in God or you don’t; whether you are a churchgoer or you aren’t; whether you are a blue-blooded conservative or a free-spirited love child, the fact is, every human has a certain set of laws to obey.  Every human being has Gods’ law imprinted on their heart, and are subject to that law—and their conscience bears witness to that fact.

Well, if that’s true, if everyone is under God’s law, if nobody can perfectly keep that law, and therefore we’re all feeling guilty in one way or another, then what possible relief can we ever have?  Is there a solution to this universal yoke of God’s law?  Yes, there is.  And you heard what that solution is, in today’s children’s lesson.  The solution is to let someone else carry the yoke for you.  That someone is, of course, Jesus.

In Galatians, chapter 4, we read these words, “When the time had fully come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under law to redeem those under law.”  Did you hear that?  When Jesus was born as a human being, he was suddenly subject to all the same laws that we’re subject to.  Jesus had to obey his parents, pay his taxes, remember the Sabbath Day, all the things that God expects us to do.  Only in Jesus’ case, he met all those expectations.  He perfectly fulfilled all of God’s laws.  The Bible says that Jesus “tempted in every way, just as we are--yet was without sin” (Heb. 4:15).

And yet, what’s even more important than the fact that Jesus kept all of God’s law is the fact that he kept them all on your behalf.  He has obeyed them all in your place.  He has upheld every law that you were supposed to uphold, but couldn’t.  Or to put it in terms of our children’s lesson, Jesus is holding up your yoke. 

Do you realize what that means?  It means that your yoke, the one that was once so oppressive, has now become light.  It’s light because Jesus is holding it up for us.  That’s what Jesus means when he says, “My yoke is easy and my burden is light”

In fact, that very act of lifting the burden of God’s law from our shoulders also means that our attitude about those laws can change.  Rather than seeing God’s law as something I have to do, something God is forcing me to do, now that Jesus has lifted that burden from my shoulders, I now see those commandments as something I want to do.  I now want to keep the law to show my love and thanks to Jesus who lifted that burden from my shoulders in the first place.  Isn’t that exactly what St. John means when he says, “This is love for God, to obey his commands.  And his commands are not burdensome” (1 John 5:3).  In other words, as a Christian, I no longer regard God’s commands as a burden, but rather as an opportunity to show my love for God.  Or to put it another way, even though God’s laws haven’t changed, my attitude toward them has changed—and so has by desire and ability to joyfully fulfill those commands.  

In fact, if you think about it, isn’t that God’s purpose, his goal, in lifting the burden from our shoulders?  Jesus freed us from the obligations of the law, freed us from the guilt of our sins, in order to put us in the perfect position to freely, willingly, energetically serve him with our whole lives. 

I mean, just imagine the difference between a child who is forced to carry that 6 x 6 on his shoulders, and the child who’s had it lifted from his shoulders.  One is going to be tired and sullen and lifeless.  The other is going to be free and happy and full of life.

So, the question is, which child are you?  Maybe you came today, feeling especially weighed down, cumbered with a load of care, as the hymn-writer puts it.  Maybe your struggles with that pet sin have left you feeling tired and weary. 

And yet, I pray that today you heard the words of your dear Savior saying, “Come to me, you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.”  Let Jesus have your failures.  Let Jesus meet all your obligations.  For in fact, he’s already done that.  Believe him.  Trust his promises.  Trust that he loves you, cares for you. Trust that he has set you free.  For then you will know his strength, his hope, his power to live a life that pleases him.  As the Prophet Isaiah once said, “Do you not know? Have you not heard?  Even youths grow tired and weary, and young men stumble and fall; but those who hope in the LORD will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint.”  May God your walk, yes your run, in the Lord, as you come to him for a yoke that is easy and a burden that is light.  To God be the glory.  Amen.