The power of choice

An oppressed people. A people who are tired. They are taxed beyond reasonable measures, beaten for slight infractions, held in check by remote  leaders. They are ill. Some are blind, some bleed, some are just heartbroken. There is rioting. Their days are spent in a struggle for basic necessities. The people, speak to God's deliverance but spend their days deciding who among them is worthy for such mercy.  It is a bleak and broken world.

It's an old song. Moses, David, Jeremiah, Job. Simon the Zealot: they all heard it. We hear it. It is the song of misery and despair. Our ears and hearts ring with exhaustion.

In both Jesus's day and contemporary rural parts of the world, it was and is common to use a yoke to carry burdens. A yoke, or beam, placed across the shoulders allows the weight to evenly distribute through our bodies. A heavier load becomes possible, theoretically allowing for more work to be accomplished.
What if though, the tasks one chooses to elevate, are the very things that weigh down and oppress? What if the weight threatens to wear not just a path, but a trench?

We each hear the call of things that demand our attention; our jobs, our families, our community. Environmental and  political activists lobby for our hearts and dollars.  Then there's church: Sunday school, service, choir, bake sales, altar guilds, day of service. the list continues.  Each of these, in itself, is a fine thing. The problem is that we each have a finite bucket. We see these noble and fine tasks, and we do long to better ourselves.

We are collectors, and thus, we collect. We see the paths and we want to walk them all.  Even with a yoke, even with a schedule, even with a budget, the yoke can become unbearable. Exhaustion!
There is good news!  Jesus invites us to swap, our yoke for his. Our collar and bucket for His. That's a hard thing though. We know our load, but what exactly is His?

Matthew 11:29 says His yoke is light. He is gentle and meek. Matthew 22:36-40 says that all Jesus asks is that we love the Lord our God with our hearts, souls and minds and love our neighbor as ourselves.  Micah 6:8 says we are "To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with our God." Everything else? Perhaps we have, unnecessarily chosen a heavier load. Jesus said, Come and accept His yoke.

It is an old song. The people of Jesus's time knew it: In and out of enslavement; Constantly waiting for a Messiah. They structured their lives to  distract and ease the day to day suffering. They Invented rules to pretend that  they, themselves, were in control of the Kingdom of God. They fought amongst themselves and resented their leaders.

On this day, Jesus met his people, those who had risked so much. He met the curious and the critical. He met the scholars that envisioned an orderly life, full of goodness that earned God's deliverance. He met those who looked for answers.

They looked to the sacrificial life and radical promise of John the Baptist. They looked to the revolutionaries, prepared to use violence to usher in justice. Jesus spoke to a hungry people.
For so long, the people had carried a load, from which,  they could not free themselves. They began their journey with empty buckets, but had added so many tasks, they were beaten, exhausted.  They had taken up causes that had grown heavy. Their paths became ruts. They wrestled seemingly unbeatable demons. They established rules and rituals meant to guide them into glory.
 They were young, old and everything in between. They carried a burden that threatened to eat them alive, when all they had ever wanted to do was get by and maybe get a little ahead.

Jesus knew. He knew how we humans would fill our buckets. We are collectors: Things, projects, tasks, people.
We wear our to do lists, our obligations, our pride as a scarf, jacket, mantle, and yes, a yoke. We mean for them to enrich our lives and to bring us structure. We mean for them to win us favor. We mean to better ourselves, perhaps even to God's glory.
The people of Jesus's time did not know the way out of their lives. Their lives, their struggles were so out of balance. They imagined something better, just around the bend and mostly of their own making. We are not so different.


Hope rests in a Messiah, a Redeemer. One who sees, hears, embraces and delivers. Jesus was and is the Redeemer. He bade them and us, Come. We can exchange, we can redeem: our oppression, our  tired, heavy yoke for His.

  Through Jesus, God offers an eternal promise. His Son, His Ambassador, Jesus invites us to come. He will give us rest. His yoke will be light.
Jesus knew.

It is not our strength or merit that wins the match. It is His Grace, His leading, His yoke that carries  burdens


On this day, we remember, receive and celebrate the gift of the Messiah.

Buckets hold so much. Too much.
 If the bucket we carry scarcely resembles the God given bucket we received when we began the journey, we can trade it in.

If we have embraced tasks and obligations that drag us down, not with a glorious end, but in perpetual distraction from God's true liberation, Jesus says lay it down.
In John 14:27,  Jesus promises peace for those who would choose Him. He knows the struggle to have and be all.

Our God has seen our hearts, heard our cries and carries our burdens. He is our Creator, our Power, and our Redeemer.  All we have to do is trade our yoke for his. Thanks be to an everlasting and gracious God.