The Gospel passage on which this sermon is based is not the one appointed for this Sunday, 26 April. I therefore include the Gospel passage here.
Matthew 11:25-30
At that time Jesus said, ‘I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and the intelligent and have revealed them to infants; yes, Father, for such was your gracious will. All things have been handed over to me by my Father; and no one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him. ‘Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, 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.’
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“I will give you rest,” Jesus says.
Rest. Some people are getting lots of it these days. Staying at home, “cocooning,” perhaps, as the saying goes, they are able to sleep in, take naps during the day, sit and watch Netflix as much as they want, do a little gardening, maybe sit in the back garden in the beautiful weather we’ve been having, and listen to the birds sing. I have spoken with a number of people who are living this way these days.
Other people are getting precious little rest. Health care workers, delivery drivers, teachers learning to teach online, priests and undertakers conducting funerals in ways we never could have imagined, parents juggling various tasks, such as working from home, perhaps, home-schooling the children, cooking and maintaining the house — you name it. Some people probably long for some rest.
And then there’s another kind of rest. Rest for our souls. Some people are too anxious to get any rest. They endure sleepless nights, days spent glued to the news (a bad idea, by the way — watch it once and turn it off), financial worries, grief over the loss of loved ones, uncertainty about how and when we will emerge from this lockdown and what the world will look like.
And into this world comes Jesus, saying, “Come to me, … and I will give you rest.” Rest to the hard-workers, rest to the overburdened, rest to the worriers, rest for all of us. What Jesus offers is rest for our souls.
During normal times, before Covid-19, I often have read this passage when I have visited people in hospital, when I bring them Communion. It tells us that Jesus is there with us, through whatever we are suffering. It is also a passage that can be read in prayers before going to bed at night, as we seek a peaceful rest. It is like a prayer, asking God through Jesus to take our burdens from us for the coming hours, so that we might sleep.
Our world is carrying a heavy burden right now. Covid-19 is like a weight upon the entire world: all countries, all peoples. I was at the Crescent in Dooradoyle the other day, buying a few items from the stores that are still open, and I could feel the weight. The weight of anxiety, the weight of grief, the weight of uncertainty. It is around us almost everywhere. There has not been a pandemic — a worldwide disease epidemic — for more than 100 years. The world is so much more complex now than it was during the 1918 flu epidemic. Now, we have more travel among countries, we have a more global economy; everything is interconnected. Such complexity brings an added weight from this disease: How do we recover from this? What kind of cooperation do we need?
And into this world, especially into this world, Jesus still comes, saying, “Come to me, all you who labour and are overburdened, and I will give you rest.”
Then he says something else. He says, “Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me.” Learn from me. During troubled times, we have to drop our usual ways of operating. We have to, because if we just cling to the old ways, we will just bring more suffering upon ourselves.
We are having to learn all sorts of new things right now. How to do church differently, with webcams and podcasts and live-streaming, and computers. Teachers and students are learning how to do class online. My 89-year-old father in the States is having to learn how to shop online, with all the user names and passwords that requires. Everyone is learning how to stay connected with those they care about and love, despite the fact that we cannot get together.
These are just a few of the things we are having to learn, but Jesus invites us to learn something else. It has nothing to do with our minds, our intellects. After all, he has just prayed to God, “I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and the intelligent and have revealed them to infants.”
What Jesus invites us to learn is instead about our hearts: to turn to him and ask him for help. Jesus says, “Take my yoke upon you,” but he also says, “For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”
So many people think it’s such a hard thing to be a Christian. You have to spend time going to worship, you’re supposed to pray, you’re supposed to give money to the church to help support it, and isn’t being a Christian awfully hard in terms of how we’re supposed to behave? Aren’t we supposed to be good all the time?
But the strange thing is, turning to Jesus in all things actually makes life so much easier. A yoke is something that binds two things together so that they work together. The two things become as one. When we put on the yoke that Jesus offers, we bind ourselves to him and he helps us through the difficulties of life — including Covid-19. Instead of the heavy burdens of work, and fear, and uncertainty weighing us down, all on our own, we are yoked to Jesus, and the burden becomes light, because he carries it.
Does life become easy? Not exactly. There is nothing easy about this time that we are living in. There is never anything easy about life. But it is as though life becomes lighter, with less weight on our shoulders, less weight on our souls and spirits. “You will find rest for your souls,” Jesus says. And the funny thing is, when we have rest for our souls, even our bodies can weather so much more. When we have rest for our souls, we are sustained through all sorts of troubles.
Rest. “Come to me,” Jesus says, “… and I will give you rest.”