Yoke

Getting lost in Jesus, I’m learning, means I’ve got to let go of some things. One of the things I have had to let go of is the sense that I need to write about things so regularly. I want to but just can’t. I would love to chronicle this whole thing as it develops, and I plan on doing some of that, but now isn’t the time. The rigors are too much.

I will say this…Jesus has an incredible way of working with us. I think I now understand why Malachi projected the Messiah as a “refiner” (Malachi 3:1-3). I’m no blacksmith, but I know a little bit about metals. I know the refining process requires heat, time and patience. It’s a messy process. I don’t know why I thought the transformation from one image of glory to another (2 Cor. 3:18) or losing my life in his (Colossians 3:3) would be easy. Just goes to show how out of touch some of us can be.

I think the hardest thing to accept is that Jesus meant what he said when he declared, “My yoke is easy, my burden is light (Matthew 11:30). The struggles of getting lost in Jesus are experienced in the pains of accepting his ways over man’s. It doesn’t feel right, and I’m fighting it hardcore. But then why did he say it if he didn’t mean it?

A while back, a friend of mine sent me an email that has stuck with me since. It was something penned by the late Henry Drummond. It’s about the word yoke. Take it in.

Did you ever stop to ask what a yoke is really for? Is it to be a burden to the animal which wears it? It is just the opposite: it is to make its burden light. Attached to the oxen in any other way than by a yoke, the plow would be intolerable; worked by means of a yoke, it is light. A yoke is not an instrument of torture; it is an instrument of mercy. It is not a malicious contrivance for making work hard; it is a gentle device to make hard labor light.

[Christ] knew the difference between a smooth yoke and a rough one, a bad fit and a good one… The rough yoke galled, and the burden was heavy; the smooth yoke caused no pain, and the load was lightly drawn. The badly fitted harness was a misery; the well-fitted collar was “easy”. And what was the “burden”? It was not some special burden laid upon the Christian, some unique infliction that they alone must bear. It was what all men bear: it was simply life, human life itself, the general burden of life which all must carry with them from the cradle to the grave.

Christ saw that men took life painfully. To some it was a weariness, to others failure, to many a tragedy, to all a struggle and a pain. How to carry this burden of life had been the whole world’s problem. And here is Christ’s solution: “Carry it as I do. Take life as I take it. Look at it from my point of view. Interpret it upon my principles. Take my yoke and learn of me, and you will find it easy. For my yoke is easy, sits right upon the shoulders, and therefore my burden is light.”

… Henry Drummond (1851-1897), Pax Vobiscum