“Come to me, all you who labor and are burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am meek and humble of heart; and you will find rest for yourselves. For my yoke is easy, and my burden light.”
Today’s reading is placed in Matthew’s Gospel between the headings “The Praise of the Father” and “Picking Grain on the Sabbath.” The heading for today is “The Gentle Mastery of Christ.” Although Jesus says in today’s reading that in coming to him you will find rest, really all three passages relate to resting in the Father and his Son.
In praising the Father, there is childlike rest in what is hidden from the wise and the learned; in picking grain on the Sabbath, the disciples satiate their hunger in picking the heads of grain as Jesus, the Lord of the Sabbath, defends the mercy he shows them. And the gentle mastery of Christ is the yoke of authentic humility and the burden that is light of loving one another. God, help me desire and understand how to take the yoke and burden of your son in a way that pleases you.
Jesus addresses the already burdened and offers to take the burden off of others’ shoulders, replacing it with his: “For my yoke is easy, and my burden light.” I think God is teaching me in today’s readings that by the countless burdens I bear (some placed on myself), I will gain nothing unless the burden is his. If I lose mine to bear his—for his sake, for the glory of God—the weight will be feather-light; in it, I’ll find rest.
Today let me rest in the gentle mastery of Christ, being able to recognize his yoke and burden when I come to him.