After our two year old finally fell asleep last night – a feat which required an hour and 6 times of putting him back in his crib – my wife and I wearily went about our routine of cleaning up the day’s mess, talking as we did so. It was 8:30 PM, and we were both tired enough to go to bed despite the fact that the sun would be up for another hour and a half. 

If I’m being honest, I’ve been far more weary in recent weeks than normal. The last year of leadership and ministry has been a challenging one.

As one pastor with 30+ years of experience I talked with put it, leading through the challenges of COVID and the cultural chaos of the past couple of years has been far more difficult than leading through a church split or losing a senior leader to moral failure. 

It’s been an exhausting season for those outside of ministry leadership as well. From teachers to nurses to stay-at-home moms to construction workers, it seems like everyone is tired. 

In the midst of that weariness – whether it’s caused by the chaos of the last year or simply because you worked a double shift yesterday or are parents of a newborn – Jesus’ invitation in Matthew 11 is one we need to attend to.

He says,  

“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

Come to Me

Sadly, for many Christians I encounter the Jesus they have in their imagination offers little by way of rest and lots by way of tasks and requirements. To come to him feels like a burden most days. It ought not be so. 

Dane Ortlund reminds us; 

Consider what Jesus is saying. A yoke is the heavy crossbar laid on oxen to force them to drag farming equipment through the field. Jesus is using a kind of irony, saying that the yoke laid on his disciples is a nonyoke. For it is a yoke of kindness…

What helium does to a balloon, Jesus’s yoke does to his followers. We are buoyed along in life by his endless gentleness and supremely accessible lowliness. He doesn’t simply meet us at our place of need; he lives in our place of need. He never tires of sweeping us into his tender embrace. It is his very heart. It is what gets him out of bed in the morning.

Gentle and Lowly (p. 22-23).

When you’re weary, burdened, or burned out, does coming to Jesus sound appealing? If it doesn’t – if you leave your time reading the Scripture or in prayer and feel a greater weight of burden and exhaustion, it may be that you’re not coming to the real Jesus and taking his yoke. You may be taking on a different yoke. 

Your yoke

The yoke is the burden – the responsibility, task-list, and position – that you carry. We all have a yoke that we bear. Maybe it’s providing for your family despite the fact that you lost your job. Maybe it’s finding a spouse because you’re getting older. Maybe it’s pastoring the 230 people in your church. Maybe it’s meeting the quarterly earnings requirement. 

Whatever that responsibility is, that’s your yoke. Odds are it’s heavy. 

Jesus’ yoke

Jesus offers an exchange; take his yoke instead. His yoke is easy. It’s light. As Ortlund stated in the quote above, it is a non-yoke that will bear you up rather than weigh you down. 

Why is this yoke of Jesus a non-yoke? Because it’s Jesus’s yoke, not yours. You don’t own it. You can receive it from him, but you can never carry it alone. Jesus is always there, yoked with you, carrying the weight of his yoke alone with you, to the point that you have to wonder if you’re even yoked at all. 

Doesn’t that sound appealing? Wouldn’t you love to go through your life with the lightness and freedom of the knowledge that God himself is carrying you along? 

Learn from me

“Take my yoke upon you and learn from me” is Jesus’ invitation. This is a process, not a moment of decision. We must learn from him what it means to live under his light and easy yoke. This invitation and way of life is so radically contrary to what seems right in our world. How could it be that following Jesus would be easy and light? Aren’t we supposed to be working hard, ending our days spent for the Kingdom? 

Perhaps. But I think that may look different than we think it does if what Jesus says in Matthew 11 is true.

Let’s take Jesus’ yoke and learn from him. Let’s lean into the rest of being yoked with Jesus and stop trying to carry the weight of everything that is ours. It just might change everything.  

Benjamin Pontious serves as the Midwest Regional Director with elementum and as the Director of Threshingfloor Communities.