The Republican Party mistakenly sent an invitation to an Ohio prisoner for a $2,500-a-plate fundraising dinner in Washington with President
Bush. The invitation was sent to Robert
Kirkpatrick at the Belmont Correctional Institution in eastern Ohio . Kirkpatrick, 35, had been sentenced to three
years for drug possession and escape.
He said: "I'm going to write
and tell the president that I'd be happy to attend, but he's going to have to
pull some strings to get me out of here."
Sending and receiving invitations are a part of life. In this morning's text Jesus extends a
personal invitation: “Come unto me!” Jesus our risen Lord and savior extends this
invitation to you and me this morning - come unto me. What comes to your mind when you hear Jesus’
words? What is your response? Jesus' words touch our hearts. And when we respond, we open ourselves to a
whole new spiritual world. When we admit:
“Lord, I can’t go it alone, I need you, I
surrender myself to you,” Jesus’ words penetrate our hearts like a song in
our soul, they are the most welcome and comforting and hopeful words in the
world.
Jesus says: “All who are weary and are carrying heavy
burdens!” To be human is to carry burdens, we understand that well. The question is not if you are carrying
burdens? The question is what burdens
are you carrying or have you carried?
Burdens of broken relationships, burdens of guilt and shame, burdens of
unrealized hopes and dreams, burdens of stress, burdens of pain and hurt,
burdens of failure, financial burdens, burdens of grief, burdens of addiction,
burdens of loneliness, burdens of jealousy and anger, burdens of ill health, burdens of feeling lost and
aimless. How ironic that burdens seem
to have a way of inserting themselves into our relationships and activities no
matter how noble, meaningful and joyful.
Sooner or later, they appear with parenting, friendships, marriage,
being single, employment, health, to name a few.
Sometimes, even religion becomes a burden. This was the context in which Jesus spoke to
the people. From the time the Law was
given to Moses, where the fourth commandment instructed the Jews to remember
the Sabbath and rest from work, over centuries Jewish teachers had written
hundreds of additional rules and regulations regarding Sabbath observance – the
time between sundown Friday to sundown Saturday. The Hebrew word Shabbot or sabbath as we pronounce
it in English means “a time of rest.”
But it was difficult to rest when you were worried about not
breaking the religious rules of the day.
For example you were prohibited from working on the sabbath, but how was
work defined? You couldn’t carry
anything, you could only walk a certain number of steps, you couldn't cook, you
couldn't talk about business, and you
could only help people or rescue animals, if their lives were in danger,
because in all these things you were exerting energy and violating the command
to rest. Yes, anything, even religion,
can become a burden.
Jesus continues: "Take
my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble of heart." Jesus is gentle and humble
and offers us the opportunity to take upon ourselves his yoke and to learn from
him. Do you find it surprising
that Jesus offers burdened people a yoke?
When we are burdened we need an escape, a party, a day at the beach, not
a yoke.
What is Jesus saying here?
He offers to ease our strain, to share our burden, to shoulder our load,
to be our burden-bearer. Nobody else can
do that quite like Christ because he is portrayed in the New Testament as the
supreme burden-bearer. Jesus bore our
burden of sin on the cross by His sacrificial death. Scripture says: "Behold the Lamb of God who bears our sins away."
Jesus offers us a new kind of yoke. Jesus compares the crowds he is addressing to
oxen struggling under a heavy load. He
is borrowing an image from the agriculture of his day. A yoke is the piece of farm equipment that
binds the ox to the plow. Whenever a
young ox needed to be trained, he would be attached to the yoke of an older ox.
The older ox would pull the yoke and the younger ox would follow in his footsteps
and learn all the steps, even though he wasn't actually pulling any of the
load.
Jesus calls us to take on his yoke: to submit to his
authority, to learn his teaching, to receive his Spirit, to obey his word, to
follow his way, to surrender our hearts and minds to him, to turn to him in
prayer. Jesus is saying: “Yoke yourself to me. Let me help you carry your load and I will
lead you and teach you how to live."
"My yoke is easy and my
burden is light."
Jesus' words call to mind the poem “Footsteps in the Sand.” “One
night I dreamed I was walking along the beach with the Lord. Many scenes from my life flashed across the
sky. In each scene I noticed footprints
in the sand. Sometimes there were two sets of footprints, other times there
were one set of footprints. This bothered me because I noticed that during the
low periods of my life, when I was suffering from anguish, sorrow or defeat, I
could see only one set of footprints. So I said to the Lord, ‘You promised me
Lord that if I followed you, you would walk with me always. But I have noticed
that during the most trying periods of my life there have only been one set of
footprints in the sand. Why, when I needed you most, have you not been there for me?’ The Lord replied,
‘The times when you have seen only one set of footprints in the sand, is when I
carried you.”
And Jesus concludes his invitation – “I will give you
rest. You will find rest for your
souls.” What a comforting word - Rest.
Jesus here uses the Greek word anapauo, which means “to cease from any
activity or labour in order to recover and collect one's strength.” It means “to refresh, to keep quiet, calm, to
take one's ease, a time of rest. Does
that word appeal to you? Are you tired,
physically, mentally, emotionally or spiritually?
Well it's no secret as to why. Do you realize that in the last 24 hours your
heart beat 103,680 times? Your blood
traveled 168,000 miles. You breathed
23,040 times. You inhaled 438 cubic feet
of air. You gave off 85.6 degrees in
heat. You turned in your sleep 25-35 times. You spoke 4,800 words. You moved 750 major muscles. And you exercised 7,000,000 brain cells. If you weren't tired before how about now?
In 2013 the news reported that many orthopedic surgeons have
noticed a disturbing trend—a serious spike in debilitating knee injuries among
teenaged athletes. Dr. Frank Cordasco
calls it "an epidemic." Cordasco said that he and his team are
operating on 200 to 300 kids a year, unheard of even a decade ago. Since the
year 2000, there has also been a fivefold increase in the number of serious
shoulder and elbow injuries among young baseball and softball players.
What's causing this epidemic of reconstructive joint
surgeries? The article put the blame on
one factor, the lack of rest. The
current emphasis on playing one sport all year long leaves virtually no time
for muscles and joints to recover from the microtrauma that occurs during
practice and play.
You see our bodies, our minds, our souls were not designed
by God for overuse. We need time to
recover from the "microtraumas" of life. Jesus invites us to find rest for our
souls. The Greek word here literally
means “an intermission.” Jesus makes a
promise: “If you accept my invitation and
come to me; you will have an intermission, a respite, a break from the
day-to-day struggles of everyday life.
You will experience spiritual renewal, relief, refreshment, a time of
peace.”
It takes humility, it takes swallowing our pride, to say:
"Jesus, I need your power and your
strength. I accept your invitation.”
Resting in Christ is like feeling the
heartbeat of God.
I close with Jesus word's from the Message, a contemporary
paraphrase of the Bible: “Come to
me. Get away with me and you'll recover
your life. I'll show you how to take a
real rest. Walk with me and work with
me, watch how I do it. Learn the
unforced rhythms of grace. I won't lay
anything heave or ill fitting on you.
Keep company with me and you'll learn to live freely and lightly.”
Jesus' gracious invitation is before you. Let us prepare our hearts to come to the
Lord’s Table. Amen!
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