“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.” Matthew 11:28-30
“Remember the word that I said to you: ‘A servant is not greater than his master.’ If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you. If they kept my word, they will also keep yours. But all these things they will do to you on account of my name, because they do not know him who sent me.” John 15:20-21
The two verses above seem to be in conflict with each other, but how can that be? How can we have restful persecution? Christ told his followers that they would be persecuted because of Him, but also told them to take His yoke upon them because it was light. Christ told His followers that they would find rest in Him, but that they would be harassed, beaten, and even killed. That doesn’t seem like a very light yoke to carry!
It is sometimes very difficult to come to terms with these seemingly conflicting ideas. Paul expressed the same conflicts in all of the epistles. He talked about the safety and peace and freedom in Christ as he wrote from prison after experiencing beatings, shipwrecks, and stonings. His burdens seem far from easy and light. The amount he had to suffer was astonishing. The amount the apostles had to suffer was equally difficult. Yet they were still able to rejoice because they “knew Christ, the power of his resurrection and participated in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death” (Philippians 3:10)
When we are serving God there are times when we feel like the burden he has placed on us is more than we can bear. Like a runner we ‘hit the wall’ and feel we can’t carry on. But when we take a fresh look at what we are aiming for, and remember the finish line and the rewards that wait there, we somehow manage to push through. We may ‘feel the burn’ but we know we are gaining ground and the burden no longer seems as impossible as it first did.
Paul tells us, “Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already arrived at my goal, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus. All of us, then, who are mature should take such a view of things. And if on some point you think differently, that too God will make clear to you.” Philippians 3:12-15
The key is that in everything we do we needs to focus on Jesus. Even the mundane daily tasks need to be seen as serving him. That is how His yoke becomes light. If we are working for him instead of ourselves – if it is His burden we are bearing – then he will share it with us, and help us understand that the burden is actually “easy and light .“ It may not be easy and light as the world sees easy and light, but with God sharing the burden, nothing is too heavy.
If we have a heart for the Lord, and we put the Lord into all we do, then our hearts will be strengthened in our difficulties as well. Like it says in Luke, “For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” If our hearts are in Jesus the loads we carry will not seem such a burden. This is especially true when we realize the reward that awaits us in the end.
Robert Louis Stevenson tells of a storm that caught a vessel off a rocky coast and threatened to drive it and its passengers to destruction. In the midst of the terror, one daring man, contrary to orders, went to the deck, made a dangerous passage
to the pilot house and saw the steer man, at his post holding the wheel unwaveringly, and inch by inch, turning the ship out, once more, to sea. The pilot saw the watcher and smiled. Then, the daring passenger went below and gave out a note of cheer: “I have seen the face of the pilot, and he smiled. All is well.” If we find ourselves in a life storm but see the face of Jesus and His hand upon the wheel of our lives, we can say to ourselves and others “All is Well.”
So our burden is light, not because it is light, but because it is being borne by the same shoulders which took the sins of the world upon them, and nothing is heavy after that.