Matthew 11:30

THE YOKE OF CHRIST

For My yoke is easy, and My burden is light.’

Matthew 11:30

It is beautifully instructive how, in this incomparably winning invitation of Jesus, the call to rest, and the call to labour, are blended. The rest of faith, and the labour of love!

I. The easy yoke.—The ‘yoke’ of a Christian is not always necessarily ‘easy.’ Then how are we to reconcile the contradiction? Beyond a doubt, the explanation is to be found not in the character of the ‘yoke,’ but in the state and condition of the man who bears it. The secret lies not in the thing, but in the person.

The result is an act of Divine power. I shall scarcely exaggerate if I call it ‘a miracle.’ It is the fitting of the man to his position. The ‘yoke’ is hard till the love with it takes away the hardness. He who put it on walks at his side. And the yoke-bearer hears his Master’s voice, hears Him all the way.

II. The light burden.—Let us look at the great reason why God’s ‘burden is light.’ The ‘burden’ of sin is taken out of it! That heavy, oppressive, crushing ‘burden’ of unforgiven sin,—that is gone, quite gone. And when that ‘burden’ is taken off, whatever is left does not deserve the name. It would not be too much to say that the ‘burden’ of every ‘burden’ is the ‘burden’ of the sin that is in it! How can that ‘burden’ be heavy, which we bear with Christ? Do you think He will not take the largest share? Will He not take all your ‘labour’? Is not He the Burden-bearer, and the Care-bearer, no less than the Sin-bearer of all His people? Do not monopolise your sorrows. Do not drag your cross. Do not flinch from duty. Do not forget Who is carrying it with you, in you, and for you.

—The Rev. James Vaughan.