Jesus speaks
into the weariness of our lives in His famous words of Matthew 11:28-30, “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, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and
you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”
Ours is a weary world, isn’t it? Weary for a thousand reasons, all of them
rooted in the fact that we live in a fallen, broken, longing world. The stress, the strain, the everyday-ness of
things, not to mention the weight of managing our own lives, crash into our
world so consistently that peace and calm seem light years away from any hope
of personal reality. Yet, Jesus
speaks. Everyday, day in and day out,
moment-by-moment, He stands before us and speaks into our longing, always
calling us into His life. He bids us
come and find the rest we so much seek.
I sometimes wonder if He
is not standing before our lives almost as if the way He stood before the grave
of His friend, Lazarus. Deceased and
hidden away in a grave, the story of Lazarus was over. Or was it.
Jesus stands before the place of death, cuffs His hands to His mouth and
speaks a ludicrous word to a dead man, “Come forth” (See John 11).
What’s that about? Dead men don’t hear words or follow
commands. Yet, surprise, surprise,
Lazarus comes forth from the grave, still wrapped in the grave clothes. Suddenly we are faced with a new
reality. Maybe death isn’t necessarily the
final word about our lives, after all.
Maybe Jesus stands before our lives and says to us, “Come forth.” Maybe
He weeps over us and calls us to life.
Maybe there is a whole of lot of living for us to do before they wrap us
in grave clothes and hide us away in a grave.
Maybe Jesus was totally serious when He
cuffed His hands to His mouth and called out, “Come to me, all you who are
weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.”
Maybe He is calling out to us, “No longer be yoked to the things that
weary you and burden you down. Take my
yoke to yourself, the yoke of mercy and grace and divine love, and let them be
the driving force in your life.”
Wouldn’t it be a wonderful thing if we could find rest for our
souls? Could God possibly be that good
to us?
In his
book The Divine Conspiracy, Dallas Willard
translated the famous John 3:16 this way: "God's
care for humanity was so great that he sent his unique son among us, so that
those who count on him might not lead a futile and failing existence, but have
the undying life of God Himself."
Who are we
counting on in this thing called life?
That’s our question. Is a futile
and failing existence to be our lot in life?
I think not. The God whose care for humanity was so great that He sent
His unique Son to give us “the undying life of God Himself” is calling us to “Come
forth! Take the yoke of My mercy and grace and love. Come forth and live.”
