IN CHRIST THERE IS A BLISSFUL REST FOR YOUR TROUBLED SOUL
We are wearied and burdened by so many things: twisted dreams or desires, financial burdens, sickness, political and social instabilities, inter-tribal conflicts, religious conflicts, insecurities, children delinquency, marriage wahala, family demand, fidelity to committed stands, trials and temptations, as well as many life´s uncertainties.
DISTURBING STATISTICS ON STRESS:
A few years ago, Comprehensive Care Corporation of Tampa, Florida published a booklet about stress in our modern world. The facts are disturbing.
(1) One out of four (that’s 25% of the world) suffers from mild to moderate depression, anxiety, loneliness and other painful symptoms which are attributed mainly to stress.
(2) Four out of five adult family members see a need for less stress in their daily lives.
(3) Approximately half of all diseases can be linked to stress-related origins, including ulcers, colitis, bronchial asthma, high blood pressure and some forms of cancer.
(4) Unmanaged stress is a leading factor in homicides, suicides, child abuse, spouse abuse, and other aggravated assaults.
(5) The problem of stress is taking a tremendous toll economically, also many countries of the Western world are now spending $64.9 billion a year trying to deal with the issue of stress.
(6) The number one killer in the world is stress through stress relating diseases like cardiovascular etc.
Hence, that is why Jesus shared the “Good News” with us a long time ago when He said: “Come to me all of you who labour and are heavy laden and I will give you rest” (Matthew 11:28). Amidst all the stresses of life, Jesus offers us how to live distress life.
OUR THEME
Today’s readings, especially the Gospel, give the same message in a more powerful way: “Take my yoke… . and you will find rest.” We need to unload our burdens before the Lord in prayer through the sacraments especially the Holy Eucharist and reconciliation.
One of the effects of Worship for many of us is that it gives us time for rest and refreshment when we let the overheated radiators of our hectic lives cool down before the Lord.
Secondly, we need to be freed from unnecessary burdens: Life’s greatest burden is not having too much to do, nor having too much demanding our attention and care. Some of the happiest folk are the busiest and those who care the most.
Rather, the greatest burden we have is our constant engagement with the trivial and the unimportant, with the temporary and the passing, and with the ultimately uncontrollable and unpredictable.
FIRST READING: ZECHARIAH 9:9-10
The Prophet Zechariah 9:9-10 reminded Israel’s broken and heart-fainting sons that all is not lost as it seems to be. Instead, the Mighty Lord of victories will overcome all evil and proclaim or establish everlasting peace for all.
Therefore, the prophet Zechariah consoles the Jews living in Palestine under Greek rule, promising them a “meek” Messianic King of peace riding on a donkey, who will give them rest and liberty.
SECOND READING: ROMANS 8:9, 11-13
In the second reading, Paul tells the first-century Christian community in Rome about two yokes, namely, the “flesh” and the “Spirit.” He challenges them to reject the heavy and fatal yoke of the flesh and to accept the light yoke of the Holy Spirit.
Christian spirituality, according to Paul, proceeds from the initiative of the Holy Spirit and means living in the realm of the “Spirit” instead of the “flesh.”
Thus, St. Paul visualized this victory and proclaimed peace as a release of burden as a life grounded in the Spirit, or Christ, where evil, sin or nature has no domination over us.
THE GOSPEL: MATTHEW 11:25-30
Hence, Jesus in the gospel invited us to come and let go of our labours and burdens and we should imitate and learn from him because not only is he humble, meek and gentle of heart, but also because in him we will find rest and have light life and light carriage for the journey of life. Mt. 11:25-30
GOD’S REVELATION: MATTHEW 11:25-27
Here Jesus is speaking out of the experience, the experience that the religious authorities of his time: Rabbis and the wise men rejected him. While the simple majority of the people of Israel and Samaritans or pagans accepted him.
These religious intellectuals had no use for him, but the humble welcomed him. We must be careful to see clearly what Jesus meant here. He is very far from condemning intellectual power to seek and know God. What he is condemning is intellectual pride to admit and submit to the will and purpose of God without assuming self-importance.
This affirms the fact that the heart, not the head, is the home of the gospel of God. For these religious leaders or supposedly religious intellectuals, it is not cleverness which shuts them out of the mystery but their pride. They failed to understand that it is not their religious sense of self-importance or stupidity which admits them to grace in God but true and genuine humility and meekness of heart in life.
This is the danger of intellectual religious pride in modern times; there are many religious leaders and Christians who are rich intellectually in the knowledge of God but lack true faith encounter with God. They might be at the hem of affairs of things in the Church but they are not people nearer God like the humble and simple of heart.
THE IRONY OF THE CHRISTIAN FAITH
This passage closes with the greatest claim that Jesus ever made, the claim which is the centre of the Christian faith, that he alone can reveal God to men. Other men may be sons of God; he is The Son.
The Evangelist John put this differently when he tells us that Jesus said, “He who has seen me has seen the Father” (Jn.14:9). What Jesus says is this: “If you want to see what God is like if you want to see the mind of God, the heart of God, the nature of God if you want to see God’s whole attitude to men–look at me!”
It is the Christian conviction that in Jesus Christ alone we see what God is like, and it is also the Christian conviction that Jesus can give that knowledge to anyone humble enough and trustful enough to receive it.
Hence, it is paramount that we come or approach God and life with simplicity and humility of heart and not with a sense of egos or self-importance.
FIND REST AND FULFILMENT OF LIFE IN CHRIST JESUS.
The second paragraph of the gospel of today Matthew 11:28-30 presents to us Jesus’ profound invitation to men who are desperately trying to find God and who are finding the tasks impossible and sometimes driven to weariness and despair.
1. He says, “Come unto me all you who are exhausted.” His invitation is to those who are exhausted with the search for the truth. Jesus claims that the weariness of life’s search for God ends in himself.
2. The way to know God is not by mental search, but by giving attention to Jesus Christ, for in him we see what God is like.
3. He says, “Come unto me all you who are weighted down beneath your burdens.” For Jesus, the Scribes and Pharisees turn religion into a burden rather than freedom of mind and spirit. “They bind heavy burdens, hard to bear, and lay them on men’s shoulders” (Matt.23:4).
4. To the Jews religion was a thing of endless rules. A man lived his life in a forest of regulations which dictated every action of his life. He must listen forever to a voice which said, “Thou shalt not.” These demands were indeed a burden.
5. Jesus invites us to take his yoke upon our shoulders. The Jews used the phrase the yoke for entering into submission. They spoke of the yoke of the Law, the yoke of the commandments, the yoke of the Kingdom, and the yoke of God.
6. But it may well be that Jesus took the words of his invitation from something much nearer home than that. He says, “My yoke is easy.” The word “easy” is in Greek chrestos (GSN5543), which can mean well-fitting: “My yokes fit well.”
7. It may well be that for Jesus, “My yoke fits well.” What he means is: “The life I give you is not a burden to gall you; your task is made to measure to fit you.”
8. This is the fundamental truth of our spiritual faith journey in life. Whatever God sends us is made to fit our needs and our abilities exactly.
9. Jesus says, “My burden is light.” Is not that the burden is easy to carry; but it is laid on us in love; it is meant to be carried in love; and love makes even the heaviest burden light.
10. When we remember the love of God, when we know that our burden is to love God and to love men, then the burden becomes a song of joy as we go through the bitter valleys of life.
11. The burden which is given in love and carried in love is always light.
TRUE REST IN CHRIST
In a nutshell, the REST, Jesus promises is not an experience of serving God without fatigue and a burden. It is an assurance that serving God could be transformed into a sweet experience of rest when we live our life in Christ Jesus or the Life-giving Spirit.
In the Gospel, Jesus offers rest to those “who labour and are burdened” (Matthew 11:29), if they will accept His “easy yoke and light burden” (Matthew 11:30). By declaring that his “yoke is easy,” Jesus means that whatever God sends us is made to fit our needs and our abilities exactly.
The second part of Jesus’ claim is: “My burden is light.” Jesus does not mean that the burden is easy to carry but that it is laid on us in love, meant to be carried in love, and that love makes even the heaviest burden light.
OUR PRAYER
Lord Jesus Christ, really and honestly our brokenness, weariness and burdens are too much for us to bear and remain faithful to you. Help us to always remember that yours is easy, light and free-spirited and may we imitate you always and everywhere. Amen.
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