Have you ever wondered where some of the idioms we use come from? For instance, we all know what it means to “chew the fat” with someone. But where did that phrase originate? Did a group of Eskimos sit around gnawing on whale blubber while they informally chatted and somebody saw them and thought, “You know, I think I’ll use what they’re doing as a figure of speech to refer to casual, friendly conversation.”? I doubt it! But I also don’t have a better explanation.
A lot of the familiar expressions we use have a similarly vague story behind their origin. For instance—“read someone the riot act” … “beat around the bush” … “feeling under the weather” … “the proof is in the pudding” … “I’ve got it in the bag”—we know the meaning of each of these phrases. When someone uses them, we understand the point they’re trying to make. But as to what precipitated these expressions finding their way into our everyday language, we have no idea.
Another such murky idiom is the phrase “carrying the weight”—i.e., “Her opinion carries a lot of weight with that person. His opinion carries a lot of weight with that group.” Obviously, we all know what this means—that someone has a level of influence with another person to where their opinion is valued. They have a level of clout and standing to where their belief and thinking shapes the belief and thinking of others. But still—how did the words “carry the weight” come to be connected with the notion of someone’s opinions and judgments having influence on the opinions and judgements of others?
It’s interesting the number of times the word “carry” is used in the Bible. There are some things it says we’re supposed to carry, and others we’re not supposed to carry. There are some things God indicates He wants to carry for us, and there are some things we look for Him to carry and He says, “No—that’s not my job! That’s something you need to be responsible for and carry for yourself.” There are some things we try to carry that we shouldn’t. And … a number of biblical stories center around someone carrying something or shouldering the load for someone else. In many ways, the word “carry” and the different settings in which it’s used gives us a pretty clear sense of not only how our relationship with God is supposed to work, but also how we’re supposed to relate to each other.
But one of the most familiar passages that alludes to this idea of carrying—one most of us know and have often taken refuge and found solace in … one we’ve turned to when we feel like we’ve been carrying too big a load for too long and we need to get out from under the weight—is Matthew 11:28-30:
“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.”
This passage is a wonderful promise that really gets to the heart of who Jesus is and what Christianity is about. But it’s also a statement that, on the surface, is a bit puzzling and perplexing. For when Jesus talked about taking up a yoke, he was drawing on an image that would have been familiar to the people of his day but is largely lost on us. The people of his day would have been well-acquainted with this analogy, but it’s foreign and unfamiliar to most of us. For a yoke referred to the wooden harness that was placed over animals that served to keep them in sync when they were plowing a field. It connected then to each other as well as the exceptionally heavy farm implement they were using to break up the ground. In fact, the reason why the yoke was needed is because the implement was too heavy for a person, or a single animal, to pull on its own.
So what Jesus is saying to people that are weary, burdened, and desperately needing rest is that the solution to their problem is to don an apparatus that was used to pull heavy loads. Doesn’t it sound a bit strange that Jesus’ idea of getting us to rest in Him involves putting on a yoke? For a yoke wasn’t created for rest; it was created for work. The suggestion sounds borderline outrageous and, at the very least, counterintuitive. For the last thing folks who are weighed down and overloaded need is to have something used for toting a heavy load attached to them. They need a pillow, or a bed, or a hammock. They need a weekend getaway or a vacation. They need to spend time in a jacuzzi or get a full-body massage. This notion of fatigued and overloaded people being connected to a yoke so they can experience rest is illogical.
But there are a couple of things, when we factor them into our thinking, that helps Jesus’ words make sense. First, when He speaks of rest, he’s not talking about something we need because we’ve physically exerted ourselves and are exhausted. He’s talking about rest for the soul—the kind of respite we need when confronted with the restlessness of life … a peace we can draw on in the face of a turbulent, chaotic world. For Jesus knows that everything we intuitively look for in life to provide rest is eventually going to be taken away from us. Everything we turn to in hopes of experiencing rest—our money … our relationship with our spouse and/or family … our life accomplishments and professional success—is eventually going to go away. All if it will be taken from us. We are going to die, or they are going to die. And when that happens, those things will no longer be a part of our lives. We can’t take our money with us. Death will separate us from our loved ones. Our academic achievements and professional successes won’t be valued or considered important when we make our exit from this world. Everything we enjoy and find contentment in will eventually be taken away from us, which causes an inner sense of angst and anxiety. Even though we may be experiencing a measure of contentment on the outside. There’s a nagging sense of agitation that comes from knowing this is the inevitable outcome that we simply can’t escape.
Second—the people of Jesus’ day were part of a religious system that was exacting and rigorous. Living according to the Jewish law was all about trying to measure up to an impossible set of expectations. It placed overwhelming demands on people, and they could easily get drained and exhausted from trying to check all the boxes and meet all the requirements. And while some of us have experienced a level of legalism as part of the religious system we were raised in, we never experienced it to the degree that the people of Jesus’ day did. But we experienced enough of it to know the mental fatigue and burnout that comes from connecting our sense of self-worth to the level of our performance. We experienced the exhaustion and weariness that comes from trying to measure up and feeling, no matter how much we try and apply ourselves, it will never be enough. Maybe it’s a sense of bondage to what other people think of us. Maybe it’s a servitude to being a professional success, or an enslavement to being the consummate, perfect parent. Regardless, when we believe that being cherished and valued depends solely upon the level of our performance, the weight of that yoke can be crushing. When we come to believe that the quality of our work forms the measure of our worth, we can easily find ourselves at a place of deep emotional fatigue. And when your belief system leads you to believe that being pleasing and acceptable to God is tied to how well you do what you do and that if you fall short you only have yourself to blame, you typically want very little to do with the God that’s behind it all.
But there’s one more thing about this word “yoke” we need to factor into our thinking if we’re going to understand what Jesus is saying. To embrace a yoke meant to make a whole-hearted, thorough commitment to someone. In the rabbinic thought of Jesus’ day, a yoke referred to the scope and substance of a rabbi’s teaching. The system of education in that day didn’t work like ours does where you go to classes for two or three hours a week for a semester and then take some tests to show that you’ve mastered the material so you can move on to something else. In that day, you made a commitment to a person—a rabbi—and then you accompanied him for an extended period of time. You went where he went … you served at his disposal … you were at his absolute beck and call. The commitment to the yoke of a rabbi was a commitment that was comprehensive and unconditional.
Point being: There is much more involved in taking on “the yoke of Jesus” than praying a prayer and claiming to believe in Him. To take on the yoke of Jesus is to surrender and allow Him to control every aspect of your life … to yield yourself unreservedly and fully to Him … to give up your right to self-determination and allow Him to have complete authority over you. It’s these people, Jesus says, who will experience the rest He offers. It’s these folks who will enjoy the sense of wellbeing He said is available.
And, it seems to me, the big reason a lot of professing Christians live lives that make them look frazzled, stressed out, and unrested is because they’ve never really taken up Jesus’ yoke. They prayed a prayer and professed to a belief, but they’ve never gone all in. When you drill down into their lives, something else is in charge. Something other than Jesus is in control and calling the shots.
When Jesus invites us to take up His yoke, He’s not asking us to surrender our freedom so He can mistreat, or victimize, or toy with us. He’s not asking us to voluntarily raise a white flag and open ourselves to divine gamesmanship and manipulation. Jesus is asking us to let him sit on the throne of our lives, because there’s no such thing as a person who goes through life unyoked. Whatever it is that we’re living for—whatever it is we give our ultimate allegiance to—we’re yoked to it. And we’re all yoked to something. It’s like the old Bob Dylan song says—"You gotta serve somebody”. Something—it may be productive or unproductive … it may be beneficial or detrimental … it may be life-giving or life-draining—is going to fill that space. We all have some organizing principle we ultimately orient our life around. We all have something we look to to provide fulfillment and meaning and a sense of inner peace.
What Jesus is saying in these verses is that our only hope of finding a genuine sense of contentment and rest is to be firmly anchored and grounded in Him. For He made us; we were built by Him and for him. He knows precisely what we need. He knows that if we fail, or fall short, or mess up, we need forgiveness. And he’ll provide that. But he also knows that if we truly embrace Him, He will delight us and satisfy us like nothing else on this planet can. Of all the things we can yoke ourselves to, Jesus is the only one that won’t ultimately abuse or take advantage of us.
How do we know that? Consider what he says about himself in v. 29: “For I am gentle and humble in heart.” And … where do we see the humbleness of Jesus most clearly? Where does His humility shine forth most brightly? In the cross! Listen to how the apostle Paul frames it in Philippians 2:5-8:
“In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus: Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage; rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death—even death on a cross!”
The way we can know Jesus won’t prey on or take advantage of us when we yoke ourselves to Him is because of what He’s done for us. For you don’t get any more humble than what He was when He—the all-glorious, majestic, and acclaimed Son of God who had the vast resources of heaven at His disposal—went to the cross in the manner that He did and laid down His life on our behalf … when he chose to walk the path of weakness, pain, and suffering without so much as putting up a fight. Why would a God who willingly chose to do that for you relate to you in a manipulative, exploitative, or heavy-handed fashion?
Next time you think about the cross, reflect on that fact that what Jesus did represents the depth of His commitment to you. It shows the esteem He has for you and the value He places on you. As you reflect, ask yourself, “Am I reciprocating? Does my commitment match His? Is my to pledge and devotion to Him as full and complete as it can be? And if it isn’t, choose to consciously and intentionally yoke yourself to Him. Choose to go all in! For it is only those, Jesus says, who will experience the rest and deliverance from the turmoil and chaos of life that He has to offer.