“My
yoke is easy and my burden light.” My
yoke.
A
yoke is a wooden beam placed across the neck of beasts of burden, usually
oxen. It provides discipline, and control,
so the animal goes where the farmer wants it to go.
But
a yoke is designed to join two animals, as you can see from this picture. It’s a harness that joins one animal to
another, so that both will go together, work together, side by side. Go in the same direction. And I assume because one animal can’t do the
job alone – it takes two.
When
Jesus is saying “take my yoke upon you” I think he means that we are to yoke
ourselves to Him. He is the other
one, right beside us, yoked with us. He
means that if we harness ourselves to Him, He will always be beside us. He will help us carry our burdens. He’s not saying that we won’t have our share
of burdens in life. What He is saying is
that harnessed to Him, they will be lighter, easier.
But
despite Our Lord’s promise in this Gospel, life also offers us alternatives -
others to harness ourselves to. We can
choose to take on the burden of sin, with its attractions, its illusions of
lightness, its promise of happiness and even fun. But we know from experience that the burden
of sin is heavy indeed. All that we need
do to experience the lightness of Jesus’ yoke compared to the heaviness, the
burden of sin is think of the confessional –we enter weighed down with guilt
and anxiety. After hearing the words of
absolution, realizing that the Lord Himself is giving us His tender mercy and love,
we feel the lightness and joy of a free
conscience.
By
receiving His Sacred Body and Blood this morning, may you and I freely accept
the yoke that is Faith in Jesus Christ, and by His grace may we always have Our
Blessed Lord right by our side as we toil in the fields of life.
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