How much sleep do you get on a typical night? Not enough? A poll taken by the National Sleep Foundation discovered seventy-five percent of adults have sleep-related problems (wayodd.com). Some people have trouble sleeping at night in bed, so they wind up sleeping as they sit up in the daytime. In the sleep survey, “sixty percent of drivers admitted to having driven drowsy in the past year and four percent said they had an accident or near-accident because they were sleepy while driving.” When I taught at what is now Anderson University, I used to tell my students, I wouldn’t go to sleep in class if they wouldn’t. They weren’t very good at keeping their end of the bargain.
The Center for Disease Control tells us seventy percent of American adults don’t get enough rest: Of adults surveyed in four states, “a lack of sleep is a particular problem for younger adults.” Of those between eighteen and thirty-four, thirteen percent lacked enough sleep every day, compared to only seven percent of adults over fifty-five.
The National Sleep Foundation says most adults need seven to nine hours of sleep each night. But nationwide, adults averaging six hours or less of sleep a night increased in all age in groups in the past twenty years. The percentage of men and women ages forty-five to sixty-four sleeping an average of only six hours or less jumped from twenty percent in 1985 to thirty percent in 2006 (neatorama.com)
People of all ages are tired too much of the time. We work too much. We play too much. We talk too much. We eat and drink and smoke too much. We entertain ourselves too much. All this makes us tired, and we feel the need for rest.
TRANSITION
If I’ve described where you live and how you live, our Bible passage from Matthew, chapter 11, has a word of encouragement for you.
Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.
Jesus is concerned about much more than whether we’re getting a good night’s sleep. He invites us to rest from the things which oppress us. This may be physical or emotional. It is also spiritual.
When He calls out to all who labor and are heavy laden, we think of the workaday world. Jesus lived among people, many of them doing hard physical labor and getting a pittance at the end of each day to tide them over until the next day.
Jesus told many stories about those hard-working people. He saw working people as well as people who had no work -- some who followed Him from place to place, hoping to see blind eyes opened or lepers healed, hoping to be on hand when Jesus miraculously fed thousands of people.
All these who struggled just to make it to the end of the day--Jesus included them in His call to Come to me . . . and I will give you rest.
OJim Shaddix explained laboring and being heavy-laden this way:
"In the language of the New Testament, the word "labor" carried the idea of working to the point of utter exhaustion. The term "heavy laden" indicated that, at some time in the past, a great load had been dumped on a person and the individual was continuing to bear the load. Together, the terms described a person who was exhausted from trying to carry a burden assumed in the past. Jesus' listeners were exhausted from trying to measure up to the expectations of the law" (Shaddix).
When Jesus says, I will give you rest, in effect, He promises, “I will give you a break from whatever laborious task you are facing so you can recover and collect your strength” (Thayer).
After He bids us to come to Him for rest, the next part of Jesus’s invitation is, Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me. This is the way we find rest: by taking His yoke.
The yoke in this saying carries a double meaning:
First, the physical yoke a team of oxen wore which kept the two of them moving the same direction and enabled them to pull heavy loads they couldn’t manage individually. The owner used the yoke to guide the oxen in the way he wanted them to go and to keep them on task (Shaddix).
A yoke in New Testament times also related to becoming the follower of a certain teacher. The student was invited to take the yoke of that teacher. (Broadus 253) This meant he would subject himself to that teacher’s discipline. The word disciple means a person who submits to the discipline of a teacher. When we hear of discipline, we tend to think of punishment. A child disobeys his parents and is disciplined. But in academic circles, there’s a positive meaning for the word. Each subject area offered by a college or university is called an academic discipline.
The Bible calls the men close to Jesus, the disciples. They were supposed to submit themselves to the discipline of Jesus. They took Jesus’s yoke. This yoke was probably a figure of speech rather than a physical sign of some kind.
So, when Jesus says, Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, this is a call to discipleship. If we call ourselves Christians, then Jesus Christ expects us to learn from Him.
We say we are disciples of Jesus. But you’ve heard the question, “If you went on trial as a follower of Jesus, would there be enough evidence to convict you?” That’s a good question which deserves a thoughtful answer. Just how disciplined are we in applying what Jesus taught?
Parents send their teenage boys out on the football field in the heat of August and let coaches yell at them and cuss them and threaten them within an inch of their lives. Parents are proud of their sons for submitting to that discipline. Parents brag about this rough treatment from the coach. But what would you do if a math teacher or English teacher were to yell at your kids and threaten them the way the coach does? I know what you'd do: You’d call the school and ask for a conference with the principal or the district superintendent and do some yelling and cussing yourself, to have that teacher fired. We think physical discipline is great, but we don’t put the same value on intellectual or spiritual discipline.
I’m not suggesting that disciples need browbeating. I doubt that’s necessary on the ball field either. But what do I know? You notice, Jesus says I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.
This is description is in contrast with many of the religious teachers of the day. Judaism in the time of Jesus had become highly legalistic. You could also describe it as almost mechanical. They were told they must observe lots of rules if they hoped to be acceptable to God.
Probably most of our Baraca listeners have grown up in church and Sunday school. If you’re a longtime Christian and church goer, it’s likely you recall Jesus is in a running battle with the Pharisees. The battle often finds its focus in Sabbath observance. But it wasn’t all just the Sabbath. The devout Jew had 613 rules he was expected to follow.
In another place, Jesus says these religious leaders are more concerned with outward devotion. To borrow a contemporary term, these men talk the talk but don’t walk the walk. Listen to these verses from Matthew 23:
"The scribes and the Pharisees sit on Moses' seat; so practice and observe whatever they tell you, but not what they do; for they preach, but do not practice. They bind heavy burdens, hard to bear, and lay them on men's shoulders; but they themselves will not move them with their finger. They do all their deeds to be seen by men; for they make their phylacteries broad and their fringes long, and they love the place of honor at feasts and the best seats in the synagogues, and salutations in the market places, and being called rabbi by men.
Jesus’s statement about how the Pharisees bind heavy burdens, hard to bear, and lay them on men's shoulders is in sharp contrast with what He offers. The yoke offered by these religious leaders is a heavy burden. By contrast, Jesus declares, my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.
There is a non-biblical account of Jesus as a carpenter, prior to his public ministry. It says Jesus was one of the master yoke-makers in the Nazareth area and people came from miles around for a yoke, hand-carved and crafted by Jesus son of Joseph.
According to this story, when customers arrived with their team of oxen Jesus would measure the team, their height, the width, the space between them, and the size of their shoulders. When the team was brought back, Jesus would carefully place the newly-made yoke over the shoulders of the oxen. He would watch for rough spots, smoothing out the edges and fitting them exactly to this particular team.
That's the yoke Jesus invites us to take. The word for "easy" in Greek suggests tailor-made yokes:"well-fitting" yokes. The yoke Jesus invites us to take, the yoke that brings rest to weary souls, is made exactly to our lives and hearts. The yoke fits us well, it does not rub us if we do the work Jesus expects of us. And the yoke is designed for two. Our yoke-partner is Christ Himself (illustrations@CLERGY.NET).
As we think of the symbolism of the the oxen which wear the yoke, we realize the burden of work is not removed. Rather, the load is lightened because Christ shares our yoke for two.
The Bible never suggests the road Christians travel will be easy. In the words of that song from the late 1960s:
I beg your pardon,
I never promised you a rose garden (www.cowboylyrics.com).
While we’re thinking about Christ sharing our burdens, there’s a line in a song the Baraca Chorus often sings: “Each burden He’ll bear, Each sorrow He’ll share” (Green).
But time and again, the Bible promises us the presence of Christ around us, with us, and within us. Sometimes burdens are removed. One of my favorite songs in that regard is called “Jesus Took My Burden and Left Me with a Song”:
When I, a poor lost sinner, before the Lord did fall,
And in the name of Jesus for pardon loud did call,
He heard my supplication, and soon the weak was strong,
For Jesus took my burden—and left me with a song.
Oft-times the way is dreary and rugged seems the road;
Oft-times I'm weak and weary when bent beneath some load.
But when I cry in weakness, how long, O Lord, how long,
Jesus takes the burden and leaves me with a song.
When I was crushed with sorrow I bowed in deep despair.
My load of grief and heartache seemed more than I could bear.
‘Twas then I heard a whisper: You to the Lord belong.
Then Jesus took my burden and left me with a song.
I'll trust Him for the future He knoweth all the way,
For with His eye He'll guide me along life's pilgrim way.
And I will tell in heaven while ages roll along
How Jesus took my burden and left me with a song
Yes, Jesus took my burden I could no longer bear.
Yes, Jesus took my burden in answer to my prayer.
My anxious fears subsided; my spirit was made strong;
for Jesus took my burden— and left me with a song
Pastor Billy Strayhorn tells about a little boy who was helping his dad with the yard work. The dad asked his son to pick up the rocks in a certain area of the yard. The father saw the boy struggling to pull up a huge rock buried in the dirt.
The little boy struggled and struggled while his dad watched. Finally, the boy gave up and said, "I can't do it." Dad asked, "Did you use all of your strength?" The little boy looked hurt and said, "Yes, sir. I used every ounce of strength I have." The father smiled and said, "You didn't ask me to help." Then the father walked over and the two of them pulled that big rock out of the dirt (Strayhorn).
For six years when I was growing up, our family spent the fall months in Uncle Jim and Aunt Chessie’s cotton patch. That was from the time I was in the fifth grade through the tenth grade. We lived in our uncle and aunt’s garage. Or some years, we got to live in a rent house about a quarter of a mile down the road. When the boll pulling season ended and my brothers and sisters and I finally got to go to school, I could never understand why some of my classmates complained about having to go to school. I would dearly loved to have been in school instead of pulling bolls.
Daddy wanted us in the field as soon as the dew was off the cotton. So we got an early start, and Daddy and the five of us kids stayed in the cotton patch till suppertime. Sometimes Mother pulled bolls along with us. Other times, she stayed at the house. Either way, she would come to the field at noontime, carrying a paper sack with our dinner. Now, I don’t know how you grew up. But in West Texas, we had dinner in the middle of the day and supper at night.
So when we saw Mother coming with our dinner, we would finish the round we were on and then come to the wagon. Lee Roy and I would get up in the wagon. Daddy would weigh what each of us had pulled and call out the amount so my older sister Leta Joy could write it down in a little notebook to keep track of how much each of us had pulled. Then Daddy would throw the sacks to Lee Roy and me. We would empty the cotton and tromp it down so we could get as much onto the wagon as possible.
We would all sit in the shade of the wagon and eat the pinto beans and potatoes Mother had brought for our dinner. That half hour or so we spent in the shelter of the cotton wagon were sweet moments of rest from the long rows of cotton where we worked in the hot West Texas sun. But that time passed very quickly. Then we were back at our daily work of pulling bolls.
At night, after supper, we would sit around the radio listening to Bob Hope or Fibber Magee and Molly and Mister District Attorney. Then all too soon, Daddy would announce, “It’s bedtime. We gotta get up early in the morning.”
That was our schedule all week. If we were lucky, we’d only work till dinnertime on Saturday. Then we could ride on the trailer full of cotton into Roscoe on Saturday afternoon and go to the double feature at the Joy Theater. On Sunday, we went to church twice. Then it was back to the cotton patch early Monday morning.
We worked hard. Or so I thought. But Daddy always hollered at us to try to get us to work harder, pull the bolls faster, and get more cotton each day. He had a sack that was about as long as from here to the courthouse. And he filled his sack quicker than we filled ours. He would straddle one row of cotton and pull the cotton from that one and one on either side of him.
Daddy expected Leta Joy and Lee Roy and me to pull two rows at a time. Because Lois Marie was the little sister, she got by with one row. Leonard Morris, the baby of the family, just sort of wandered around the field the first couple of years. And he got to go to the gin with Uncle Jim when we got the wagon loaded. We looked forward to times of rest---the few minutes at dinnertime, at night around the radio, and then the longer times of rest on Saturday and Sunday.
In college, I learned this song about resting in God’s love. I've never been able to track down the words or the author on the Internet, but it goes like this:
God has shown His loving face
From His throne in heav’n above.
And I’ve found a resting place
In the shelter of His love.
I am resting sweetly resting
In the shelter of His love,
Resting in the shelter of His love.
During our dinner break in the cotton patch, I relished the time in the shelter of the cotton wagon. Back then, I didn’t connect that wagon with the shelter of God’s love. He promises us rest if we come to Him. But that doesn’t eliminate times of work. They are two parts of the same picture:
Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.
As I think of Uncle Jim and Aunt Chessie’s cotton patch and of Jesus’s call to rest, I think of Jesus’s call to rest as a call to work for Him as part of the family of God. Each member of the family has work to do.At the well in Samaria, Jesus told his disciples, “lift up your eyes, and see how the fields are already white for harvest.” I hope that white harvest Jesus pointed to wasn’t a cotton patch.
KIPLING’S POEM
Rudyard Kipling wrote a poem picturing us as artists who paint for God. Sometimes we do our work to please ourselves or to compete with others. But Kipling sees no place for that sort of work:
When Earth's last picture is painted
And the tubes are twisted and dried,
When the oldest colors have faded
And the youngest critic has died,
We shall rest, and faith, we shall need it,
Lie down for an aeon or two,
'Till the Master of all good workmen
Shall put us to work anew. . . .
And only the Master shall praise us.
And only the Master shall blame.
And no one will work for the money.
No one will work for the fame.
But each for the joy of the working,
And each, in his separate star,
Will draw the thing as he sees it.
For the God of things as they are! (Kipling)
++++++++++++++++++++++++
SOURCES
John A. Broadus, Commentary on the Gospel of Matthew, An American Commentary on the New Testament, Volume I. Philadelphia: The American Baptist Publication Society, 1886.
Source for lyrics of “I Never Promised You a Rose Garden.” Author not found.
F. Pratt Green, “On the Jericho Road.” Found at “Sound Studio,”
illustrations@CLERGY.NET. Sermon Resources for July 6, June 30, 2008)
Sherman E. Johnson and George A. Buttrick, The Interpreter’s Bible, Volume VII. New York and Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1951.
Rudyard Kipling, “When Earth’s Last Picture Is Painted.” The Literature Network. http://www.online-literature.com/yeats/918/
Author Not Found, “Jesus Took My Burden,” http://www.namethathymn.com/hymn-lyrics-detective-forum/index.php?a=vtopic&t=110
Jim Shaddix, “Jesus Christ: The Yoke's On You! Matthew 11:28-30,”
Frank Stagg, “Matthew,” Broadman Bible Commentary, Volume 8. Nashville: Broadman Press, 1969.
Billy D. Strayhorn, Freedom through the Yoke, quoted in
illustrations@CLERGY.NET. Sermon Resources for July 6, June 30, 2008)
“anapauo: future tense: anapauso,” Thayer’s Greek Lexicon, at www.blueletterbible.org/
“Too Tired for Sex,” http://www.wayodd.com/americans-too-tired-for-sex/v/2/ March 29, 2005.
Keith Wagner, “The Sweetest Sound,” True Freedom, illustrations@CLERGY.NET.
Sermon Resources for July 6, June 30, 2008.
Elie Wiesel, The Oath. New York: Avon Books, A Division of the Hearst Corporation, 1973.
Full text:
Kipling, “When Earth's Last Picture is Painted”
When Earth's last picture is painted
And the tubes are twisted and dried,
When the oldest colors have faded
And the youngest critic has died,
We shall rest, and faith, we shall need it,
Lie down for an aeon or two,
'Till the Master of all good workmen
Shall put us to work anew.
And those that were good shall be happy
They'll sit in a golden chair.
They'll splash at a ten league canvas
With brushes of comet's hair.
They'll find real saints to draw from:
Magdalene, Peter, and Paul.
They'll work for an age at a sitting
And never be tired at all.
And only the Master shall praise us.
And only the Master shall blame.
And no one will work for the money.
No one will work for the fame.
But each for the joy of the working,
And each, in his separate star,
Will draw the thing as he sees it.
For the God of things as they are! (Kipling)
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