Matthew 11:28-30
The yoke must first be taken, grasped and lifted up.
The yoke means so much more than rabbinical teaching, a system of theology and religion, with its laws. It does not mean culture, nor a school of thought, neither a system of teaching - though Jesus makes a comparison here with other rabbis. In fact, he makes a contrast. He calls into question and undermines the whole rabbinical school and how it indocrinated and treated its pupils. He redefines the relationship between pupil and master, teacher and taught, and turns it upside down.
The yoke is not the written code; the yoke is His yoke, it is the one He wears for He learned obedience from what He suffered as He performed the will of His father.
Submit and yield to me, as I yield to the Father.
He only asks of us what He Himself has performed to perfection, that He would perfect it in us.
The yoke is His Cross, the wooden and splintered beam that sat so seemingly heavy across His shoulders. How could such a yoke be easy and light? How could the true Rest and Shalom spoken of here come by wearing a yoke, a burden? His statement is full of irony and contradiction.
I have been before you and born what you will bear, and more.
A yoke must be grasped with both hands and, in so doing, other burdens of our own are dropped: our self-interest, our own dead weight of self, like a cadaver - the body of sin. Old yokes of expectation go by-the-by and the impossible, demanding written code, like a black hole, is dropped to drift in space. The weight we carry is the self-life like Jacob Marley's chains; it is the slavery to sin and our desires, imprisoned to be tortured by Satan on a whim, for apart from Christ we are owned by Lucifer - this is the weighty burden; anything else seems light by comparison which makes us candidates for chasing any yoke that promises freedom.
He who puts his hand to the plough and looks back is not worthy of Me.
The yoke we take is the Lord's and not our own. We have made an exchange; we have changed identities and slipped away into another man's skin. We have hidden ourselves in Christ; the old has gone the new has come. The self has not been simply hidden to survive - but annihilated. This is the liberation, the light and easy yoke. We have taken Christ and clothed ourselves in Him as Him with Him. To live is Christ for He is our Righteousness and our Wisdom and our Redemption. To live for Him and not self permits the sigh of reclining in Christ and doing away with self-dom. Only the Cross is severe enough to strike the death-blow once and for all. To grasp this yoke is to unite oneself with Christ and to state that the way of the Cross is the only way. We become Christ - or should I say, "like Him".
My food is real food and my drink is real drink.
Then this wooden and sculptured beam of weather-proof timber is shaped for each shoulder and sits perfectly like an aching foot in a bespoke orthotic in a shoe. Rest at last! Comfort for our sufferings. Side by side in rhythm and in step feeling the yoke tug and pull whenever a step is mistimed. An unspoken reciprocal empathy ensues. Imperceptible communication. The inner and outer lives begin to synchronise. We experience what the other feels, the other thinks. We become one. It takes all of the concentration of our effort, not in large movements but in the subtlest minute proprioception. We sink into a reverie of breathing and wordless being that is a being of His Word, its embodiment and incarnation.
Deep calls to deep.
And transmitted down that smooth yoke? A teaching and a learning. There is always a lead oxen who sets the pace. We learn what it takes through that practise in each step along the way: the inward leaning and disposition, that attitude and response - His nature, the nature of the One who labours alongside us, for He is in the yoke too and we must and can only join Him there.
If we are to do what He did, we are to live as He lived. If we are to partake of His divine nature then we must come under that disciplined yoke that He impart and we learn the nature of His divinity.
The burden is the temporary service performed, which in time will be replaced by another, but the concentration of the mind is not in the burden but in Him who it is done for and with.
When you enter the yoke, you enter the Rest.
I am humble and gentle in heart.
The yoke must first be taken, grasped and lifted up.
The yoke means so much more than rabbinical teaching, a system of theology and religion, with its laws. It does not mean culture, nor a school of thought, neither a system of teaching - though Jesus makes a comparison here with other rabbis. In fact, he makes a contrast. He calls into question and undermines the whole rabbinical school and how it indocrinated and treated its pupils. He redefines the relationship between pupil and master, teacher and taught, and turns it upside down.
The yoke is not the written code; the yoke is His yoke, it is the one He wears for He learned obedience from what He suffered as He performed the will of His father.
Submit and yield to me, as I yield to the Father.
He only asks of us what He Himself has performed to perfection, that He would perfect it in us.
The yoke is His Cross, the wooden and splintered beam that sat so seemingly heavy across His shoulders. How could such a yoke be easy and light? How could the true Rest and Shalom spoken of here come by wearing a yoke, a burden? His statement is full of irony and contradiction.
I have been before you and born what you will bear, and more.
A yoke must be grasped with both hands and, in so doing, other burdens of our own are dropped: our self-interest, our own dead weight of self, like a cadaver - the body of sin. Old yokes of expectation go by-the-by and the impossible, demanding written code, like a black hole, is dropped to drift in space. The weight we carry is the self-life like Jacob Marley's chains; it is the slavery to sin and our desires, imprisoned to be tortured by Satan on a whim, for apart from Christ we are owned by Lucifer - this is the weighty burden; anything else seems light by comparison which makes us candidates for chasing any yoke that promises freedom.
He who puts his hand to the plough and looks back is not worthy of Me.
The yoke we take is the Lord's and not our own. We have made an exchange; we have changed identities and slipped away into another man's skin. We have hidden ourselves in Christ; the old has gone the new has come. The self has not been simply hidden to survive - but annihilated. This is the liberation, the light and easy yoke. We have taken Christ and clothed ourselves in Him as Him with Him. To live is Christ for He is our Righteousness and our Wisdom and our Redemption. To live for Him and not self permits the sigh of reclining in Christ and doing away with self-dom. Only the Cross is severe enough to strike the death-blow once and for all. To grasp this yoke is to unite oneself with Christ and to state that the way of the Cross is the only way. We become Christ - or should I say, "like Him".
My food is real food and my drink is real drink.
Then this wooden and sculptured beam of weather-proof timber is shaped for each shoulder and sits perfectly like an aching foot in a bespoke orthotic in a shoe. Rest at last! Comfort for our sufferings. Side by side in rhythm and in step feeling the yoke tug and pull whenever a step is mistimed. An unspoken reciprocal empathy ensues. Imperceptible communication. The inner and outer lives begin to synchronise. We experience what the other feels, the other thinks. We become one. It takes all of the concentration of our effort, not in large movements but in the subtlest minute proprioception. We sink into a reverie of breathing and wordless being that is a being of His Word, its embodiment and incarnation.
Deep calls to deep.
And transmitted down that smooth yoke? A teaching and a learning. There is always a lead oxen who sets the pace. We learn what it takes through that practise in each step along the way: the inward leaning and disposition, that attitude and response - His nature, the nature of the One who labours alongside us, for He is in the yoke too and we must and can only join Him there.
If we are to do what He did, we are to live as He lived. If we are to partake of His divine nature then we must come under that disciplined yoke that He impart and we learn the nature of His divinity.
The burden is the temporary service performed, which in time will be replaced by another, but the concentration of the mind is not in the burden but in Him who it is done for and with.
When you enter the yoke, you enter the Rest.
I am humble and gentle in heart.
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