Yoking with Yahshua
Jackson
Snyder, July 7, 1996 upd. July 26, 2002
based on a message by Marc Kolden
Snyder
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Matthew
11:16-30
A Familiar
Passage
Our gospel reading contains one of the most
familiar passages in the Bible. Most of us probably know it from the words of
one of the older translations, but most of us do know it. "Come unto me,
all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest" (Matthew
11:28, KJV). For centuries this passage has been used for comforting the
grieving, encouraging the struggling and giving hope when all else seems to
have failed. We read it; we underline it; we memorize it. We trust these words
when nothing else seems trustworthy.
"Come unto me." This is a
wonderful invitation from our Master himself.
Come to me, all you that are weary and are
carrying heavy burdens, 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 (11:28-30).
It's not
only an invitation; it's also a promise: "You'll find rest for your souls
for my yoke is easy." The words themselves can ease our anxiety and
enliven our hopes.
It's strange, then, that though we know
these words so well, we have little sense of their original setting. Clearly, Yahshua couldn't have meant that in
this life all our weariness and burdens of work, poor health, poverty and the
like, will disappear like magic. The life of the Believer is not a sedentary
life of constant leisure, excellent health and prodigal prosperity. The life of the Believer is not just soaking
in the soft, sudsy bath water of blessings! Indeed, it’s true that the day will
come when all our burdens will be lifted, but this passage isn’t speaking of
eternity. Rather, it’s words are to those participating in his urgent mission
to humanity -- those who are on the cutting edge of evangelism – often on the
bitter edge of persecution for the Savior's sake.
What rest can he possibly offer his
restless harvesters? And what is this yoke that even we here today are to take
upon us, a yoke that is supposed to be easy to bear? To make meaning of his yoke and his rest, come and see.
The Context
of the Passage
Yahshua is discouraged, maybe even angry --
as we see from the earlier parts of chapter 11. Even John the Baptist, his
closest ally, seems not to understand Yahshua’s mission and method. So he discharges his righteous indignation
against some of the cities round about -- cities that were refusing his
blessings and his message. If such
miracles had been done in pagan cities (even in Sodom!) the people would have
repented, he says. Nobody is paying attention!
Nobody is heeding the message!
In his disappointment, what does Yahshua
do? He prays. Okay, that's not
so hard to understand. But though he's mad, his is a prayer of thanks, of all
things.
I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and
earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and intelligent and
revealed them to infants (11:25).
Yahshua may
be disappointed and angry but he is not discouraged by an unresponsive
world because he trusts in the Father's providence and power over creation.
"Thank you, Father. You've hidden
the Gospel from the wise and well-educated and revealed it only to the little
ones," Yahshua prays (11:26).
Just What
Things are Hidden?
What's he talking about? What are these things
hidden from the wise? He is talking
specifically about the divine word and work of Yahweh focused in the
person and ministry of one man. That’s what’s hidden. That's what the smart and privileged and
headstrong and godless of every age have such difficulty seeing -- that the sum
total of all of their g-d’s works, authority, ability, love and sovereignty --
are wrapped up in that offensive little fellow with the long hair who
was executed by the government 2000 years ago.
Imagine... all Elohim revealed in a single man – a man who, besides
those things hidden within him, had little to commend himself to us!
May we exclude ourselves from his
rebuke? No. Aren't we also offended or at least puzzled by what Yahshua says
next?
My Father handed everything over to me; No
one knows Me except the Father, and no one knows Him except Me and those to
whom I chose to reveal him (11:27).
The point is not just that the
Father's ways are not our ways or that the Father is mostly unknown to folks
like us. There’s some truth to that but it's not the truth Yahshua is speaking
about here. He is saying that the Father has given everything over to
Him -- even his deity, his divinity, his EL-ness, if you will. We can't see it
on our own; only the Father knows the incredible extent of the Son's résumé.
But even more important, despite all the people of all ages who have claimed to
have known G-d, despite all the religions which profess that they have the
"real" truth, despite all the well-intentioned folks who write books
about returning from death after meeting "G-d" face-to-face, no one
really knows the Father except Jesus, the Son, and those chosen few to whom the
Son reveals Him. The many may know of
the Father and Son, but only the few, the elect, actually know him.
Finding God
Through Yahshua Savior Only
It's at this critical point, with the whole
reality and power and being and authority of Elohim concentrated in Yahshua,
that the little man speaks these over-familiar words, "Come to me and I
will give you rest." He is not
talking about a vacation; he is not referring to some eternal rest far in the
future. He is speaking of our being connected, plugged in, united with,
fueled by, and engrafted onto the Creator of the universe, Yahweh
Elohim, the Father of humankind. That’s
what it means to know him.
Somebody said to me this very week, “I don’t know who this Yahweh
is.” To that statement, Saint Augustine
would reply, “Yes, our hearts are restless until they find their rest in Him.” We find our rest, our assurance, our hope,
our strength, our power, our witness, our proof, our truth, our reason to be,
in Yahweh, but only when we come to Him through Yahshua, his Son. We find
everything there is to know of Yahweh in Yahshua, and there is absolutely no
other way to know Him.
Not in Islam, not in Judaism, not in the
Mormon Tabernacle, not in the Jehovah Witnesses' Kingdom Hall. Not in Christian Science. Not in the Masonic Lodge or Shiner’s
Temple. Not in Catholicism,
Presbyterianism, Holiness, Pentecostalism or even Methodism. In fact, you can't know Yahweh in any form
of Christianity. Not in any synagogue, temple, fellowship, sanctuary, assembly,
cathedral, tabernacle, or little ol' church in the wildwood. No, you can't
know Yahweh from the Bible, nor from doctrines or teachings or beliefs or
the Ten Commandments. Millions of believers know OF him, but it’s only by the
expressed permission and introduction of the world’s Messiah that one can know
and be known by Yahweh. Yahshua
only. ONE WAY! "Come to me," he implores.
Of course, we learn of G-d and J-s-s through
our faith or the church or the Bible. But insofar as all of these things --
religion, Christianity, church, denomination, Bible, doctrines, commandments --
have been created and articulated with the help of humans and communities, they
themselves are not a revelation of the personhood of Yahweh. Even the 613
commandments of the Bible were not given to define Yahweh's nature, but the
nature of sin.
Obstacles
Many things, some of which I’ve spoken, may
be instruments that the Spirit can use to reach us. But these same ‘things’ may just as well be obstacles -- we may actually put ‘good’ things between
Him and us. It's no wonder some folks say they can't believe in G-d because
of the Church. Horrible things have
been done by Christians and in the name of Christianity that certainly aren't
conducive to gaining knowledge of the Father. Hideous and diabolical
abominations are still being done today by those who claim to be born
again, or claim to be Methodists, or claim to be believers in Yahshua
-- even in our country's highest political and ecclesiastical offices. As long as presidents and bishops are
elected, they will be corrupt.
Likewise, the same is true of religion:
many have found the church and its teachings, structures, practices and
traditions to be anything but godly; people spend years getting over the
psychological damage they have suffered from some church or some
“Christian.” Likewise, the Bible,
misguided use of the Bible, and the resulting false impressions of the nature
of Yahweh can be used like clubs to beat us down and make us feel
worthless. Or godly things can be
interpreted in such irrational ways that thinking persons simply throw
up their hands in despair and disbelief.
That’s the way I feel when I hear television preachers distort truth to
make place for their fictions. I just
want to throw up my hands.
Church as an obstacle to true faith is
nothing new. [Complicated religion and legislated morality have always verged
on the oppressive, most likely because they come with so much attached
"baggage." And we help the
deception along by believing that these peripheral things have something to do
with the nature of our g-d (quote of the day).] It was no different in Yahshua’s time. When he spoke of being
weary from carrying heavy burdens, he was referring specifically to
(1) The idolatry of religion with its man-made demands,
pagan traditions and godless trappings;
(2) The superstition of religion that something bad always
happens if certain conditions aren’t met;
(3) The hobby of religion that is but a form of godliness
that becomes a mindless, spiritless habit.
Those who
practice such have a slim chance of ever actually knowing Yahshua and
Yahweh. What they will come to know as
G-d is a impostor manufactured to intentionally mislead and keep those chosen
them from full election as saints.
True
Yoke-fellowship
Really?
Sounds too radical for me? Well,
I hope you question every word! The
clue to this interpretation is in Yahshua’s use of the word "yoke." A
"yoke" is a wooden frame that holds two oxen side-by-side so they can
work together to pull a plow. A yoke is a heavy burden under which the yoked
oxen grow weary from work. The shape of a yoke was also an ancient symbol of
defeat and slavery; conquered people were made to wear a yoke. So a yoke is
both an actual burden and a symbol of oppression and is often
used in that symbolic way in the Bible.
In fact, the Bible speaks of its own
teaching as a "yoke" (Acts 15:10).
But Yahshua contrasts our coming to him and "putting on
Messiah" (Romans 13:14) with
the heavy yoke of all kinds of meaningless religious practices expressed
in religious dogmas or in religious institutions. "Learn from me," he says, “not
from the crowd.” "Take my yoke
upon you and learn true yoke-fellowship from me. My yoke is easy and my burden is light."
Yahshua doesn't mean that following him is
as easy. He still uses the word "yoke." We might think of it as a new way of carrying on with life, a new
way of bearing responsibilities, a new way of seeing life and our world. As
we learn of him and from him, as we take his words seriously and act upon
them (which is what taking his yoke upon us means), as we emulate and imitate
his life, we find a new kind of peace and balance and assurance and lifestyle
that will not be a burden, but more liberating and more
refreshing the more yoked we become.
Before long, we know him.
That is our final objective.
Unbalanced
Yoke
Mark Guy Pearse once preached a sermon on
this text. He writes: “I had finished
my sermon when a man came to me and said, ‘I wish I had known what you were
going to preach about. I could have
told you something. You see, when I was a boy at home, I used to drive the oxen,
and the yoke was never made to balance as you said. Father's yokes were always
made heavier on one side than the other.
Then, you see, we would put a weak ox alongside a strong ox; the light
end would come on the weak, the heavier on the stronger. That's why His yoke is
easy and His burden is light, because the Savior's yoke is made after the same
pattern, and the heavy end is upon His shoulders.’"
His yoke is easy in the sense that it
becomes not only our duty to take it (yes, we must do something), but our
delight in taking it, knowing we have the lighter end. The greater responsibility for carrying the
yoke and pulling the plow is his, not ours.
O, but we want to take the heavy end, with all its worry, doubt,
and dissatisfaction. That’s the reason
for so many of our problems. When we
take away Yahshua’s heavy burden, yoking ourselves with his responsibilities,
then the yoke's on us! The Gospel of
Thomas has Jesus saying, “Give me what is mine!” So, if you can’t carry it, give it up!
Yoking is
also Learning
Yet to take the Savior's yoke also means to
learn from his example - to do our upright best to imitate him in his
labor, insofar as we are strong enough in faith to do so. His yoke is not a religious system, not a
church, but an abiding union and communion with a living person
who overcame death. We take
his yoke upon us by conscientiously accepting yoke-fellowship with him in
prayer, then partaking often of his word, in fellowship with his saints, in the
eating of his body and drinking of his blood. Then we labor under his easy yoke
to do the works that he did for the sake of the Father and our fellow human
beings. And through him, we see and
know the Father, and Father Yahweh comes to know us up close rather than from a
distance. It’s the ones you work with
or live with every day that you come to know the best.
As if to underscore the personal aspect of
his yoke-fellowship, Yahshua adds, "For I am gentle and humble in
heart" (11:29):
Yahshua is "God with a human face," as someone said. In the Savior,
the Creator bends low to us in compassion and becomes available and
approachable. The yoked person, the lover of the Father and his Son, then lives
each and every moment of every day by faith and trust, and receives in return the
blessed assurance that divine providence is securing and influencing the
future for good. Here faith and trust
can only be describing a personal relationship, a relationship to a
living person, a living Savior. And that's what Yahshua invites us
to do -- to walk with him in service, to talk with him in prayer, to dine with
him at his table, to fellowship with him in our gatherings, to labor alongside
him in his harvest, and to discover our rest in his security. That's a most promising invitation ... from
the Master of heaven and earth himself ... to you and me. Amen.