²⁵At 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; ²⁶yes, Father, for such was your gracious will. ²⁷All 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. ²⁸“Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. ²⁹Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. ³⁰For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”

 - Matthew 11:25-30             

You have to think that there were times when the disciples had had enough.  When the going was rough, when the locals weren’t friendly, when they missed the comforts of home…  Or when Jesus was bafflingly cryptic in his teaching…  “The first will be last and the last will be first.”  “If you gain your life, you will lose it, but if you lose your life for my sake, you will gain it.”  “The wise are foolish; the foolish are wise.”  You have to wonder if the disciples ever just all kind of nodded their heads in agreement, hoping that Jesus wouldn’t call on them to rephrase or explain what he’d just said. 

 “Hey Peter, sorry I’m late.  What’s Jesus talking about this morning?”

 “Oh, hey John.  It’s more of that ‘opposite stuff.’  You know—first and last, alive and dead, heavy and light…”

 Connie was in her mid-20’s when it finally dawned on her that she was carrying… something heavy.  She’d never noticed it before, or maybe she had.  It wasn’t like she didn’t have other things going on:  high school and then college, work, a social life…  But then it happened that she was starting a career, paying rent, thinking more concretely about her future, and dating a man that she thought she could marry…  It happened then that she realized she was carrying… something heavy.

 It was the weekend, and she and her boyfriend were visiting his parents.  They’d been to the grocery store, and the four of them, along with her boyfriend’s younger sister, were standing around the kitchen peeling carrots, talking, setting the table, when suddenly and without warning, an argument started. 

 It all happened so fast.  And it wasn’t completely clear.  Maybe her boyfriend’s mom was mad at his dad because he’d forgotten to make a call or do something he said he’d do earlier that day.  At any rate, his mom looked furious, but then it got worse.  Somehow her boyfriend got into it too—how he was frustrated about something his mom had said, and his sister looked like she was mad at everybody.  There was yelling and arms crossed, and eyes rolling… and then it happened.  They stopped.  The argument stopped.  And then someone started peeling carrots again.  And then there was some more talking.  And her boyfriend’s mom took the casserole out of the oven and said, “Well, looks like we’re ready to eat.”

They sat down together in the dining room and they started to eat.  And everything at the table was pretty normal:  peas getting passed around, clink of forks on plates, some talking…  Everything was normal, except for Connie, who sat quietly.  Her heart was still beating so hard it felt like it could jump out of her chest, and when she went to sip her water, her had was shaking a little.  And she realized that she was carrying something heavy.  “Are you ok?” came her boyfriend’s voice. 

“Yeah, I’m fine,” she said, but later on that night the two of them took a walk.  “Remember that argument you all had before dinner?  That was weird, because growing up in my family, we never would have made it to the table.”  And then Connie told him about how in her house, arguments were skirmishes in an endless war between anybody and anybody else.  She told him about her dad who always walked out after a fight, and she told him about her mom, who stayed home to drink and fall apart, and she told him about her older brother, the good son, who took care of mom and got the rest of them fed.  And she said, “I don’t know what to do.”  But years later she would describe that night as the moment in her life when she realized that she was carrying something heavy.

It’s strange how we can forget about the heaviest things.  In my mid-twenties, I did some backpacking in Colorado, California, and Montana.  I don’t know how much my pack weighed when it was full—maybe 40, 45 pounds—but once you get hiking and chatting with the person next to you and taking in the scenery, you tend to forget it somewhat, and it isn’t until you stop to camp and you take that pack off that you realize just how heavy it was.  Sometimes it happens that we forget about the heaviest burdens.

Jesus is with the crowds, and he makes an invitation.  “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.”

I don’t know about you, but I tend to think that there are people in this world who have light burdens, and Jesus is not one of them.  Had anyone in the crowd that day known what Jesus was going to go through, they might have said, “Really, Jesus?  Your burden is light?”  Temptation, rejection, betrayal, denial, doubt, incarceration, and crucifixion… yeah, that’s pretty light, Jesus.

Michael was sixty-two when the burden really started to wear him down.  And the problem was that the burden was hard to understand.  Basically, Michael wasn’t happy.  He had a job, which was ok, wife, kids on their own, thinking about retiring in a couple years.  He had a friend or two and a hobby or two.  Weeknights were full, weekends were full usually.  Maybe there were enough distractions to keep him from thinking about it most of the time, but when he thought about it… he was not happy.

On his own—he didn’t want to worry anybody—he made a call.  He hadn’t picked up an actual phone book in years, but he looked up “counselors,” which told him to look under “therapists.”  I don’t need a therapist, he thought to himself; I just need to talk to someone.  But he made the call.  And on a Thursday afternoon he walked into a building he’d never been in before and he sat down in an office with a person he’d never met before and the person asked, “Why don’t you tell me a little bit about yourself” and all he could think to say was “I’m not happy” and for the first time in at least a decade he burst into tears.  It had been that heavy.

But sometimes we forget about the heaviest things.  Sometimes it isn’t until we take it off that we realize just what we’ve been carrying.

Jesus seems to be offering an exchange.  “Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest…  Take my yoke upon you…  My yoke is easy and my burden is light.”

It’s strange, though, isn’t it?  Jesus’ burden doesn’t look light.  It looks heavy.  “You carried a cross, Jesus!  Given the choice, I just might stick with the burden I’ve got.”  Then again, our heaviest burdens don’t always look heavy because we get so darn good at carrying them. 

The burden of trying not to think about your past

The burden of believing that every relationship in your life is meant to fail

The burden of fear that the world is judging you just as harshly as you judge yourself

“Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest.”  But that can be terrifying.  Sometimes we’d rather shoulder the burden than admit that it’s there.  Maybe we’re afraid to find out how heavy it really is.

The burden of admitting your mistake

The burden of knowing that you need to talk to your son about his addiction

The burden of putting off a meaningful conversation with a dying parent

“But Jesus, I can’t carry your burden on top of everything else.”  “You don’t have to.  Let me help you take that burden off.”

The burden of guilt

The burden of persistent anger

The burden of walking around on eggshells because of someone else’s anger

“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.”

The burden of sadness

The burden of having to admit that she’s dying

The burden of fear about what lies ahead

“For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”  There is a burden that God would have you bear, and it’s the burden of Christ’s way in the world.  What if you dropped what you were carrying?  What if you let Jesus help you drop whatever it is that you’re carrying?  What if you let this family of faith help you drop whatever burden it is that you’re carrying?  And what if you began to shoulder Christ’s burden?  You just might find that, as heavy as a cross is, in light of what you’re carrying now, Christ’s burden is surprisingly light.  Amen.