SPEAKER_00: One of the greatest misconceptions about the Christian life is that if we follow Christ, life will become easy.
SPEAKER_00: This is a subject we've talked about many times here.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus never makes that promise.
SPEAKER_00: In fact, he says something that almost sounds contradictory.
SPEAKER_00: Take my yoke upon you, for my yoke is easy and my burden light.
SPEAKER_00: How can a yoke be easy?
SPEAKER_00: How can a burden be light?
SPEAKER_00: After all, many of the people listening to Jesus that day were carrying tremendous burdens.
SPEAKER_00: They lived under the Roman occupation.
SPEAKER_00: They struggled to feed their families.
SPEAKER_00: Many were sick.
SPEAKER_00: Some had lost loved ones.
SPEAKER_00: They knew suffering.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus wasn't pretending those burdens didn't exist.
SPEAKER_00: He was offering them a different way to carry them.
SPEAKER_00: A yoke was a wooden beam placed over two oxen so they could pull together.
SPEAKER_00: Typically an older, stronger ox was yoked beside a younger one.
SPEAKER_00: The younger ox still walked, it still worked, but it was a stronger ox that carried most of the weight and kept the younger one moving in the right direction.
SPEAKER_00: That's the image Jesus gives us.
SPEAKER_00: He never says you will have to do you will have no cross.
SPEAKER_00: No, he says yoke yourself to me.
SPEAKER_00: That's the difference.
SPEAKER_00: And the difference is everything.
SPEAKER_00: When we carry life by ourselves, even small burdens can become overwhelming.
SPEAKER_00: When we carry them with Christ, even heavy crosses become bearable because we are no longer carrying them alone.
SPEAKER_00: That's why Jesus begins with those beautiful words, come to me, all of you who labor and are burdened.
SPEAKER_00: Notice he doesn't say, Come to me in your life when it's perfect.
SPEAKER_00: He doesn't say that.
SPEAKER_00: No, he says, Come to me, all of you.
SPEAKER_00: Come.
SPEAKER_00: That's the heart of Christianity.
SPEAKER_00: Not first a list of commandments, not first a moral code.
SPEAKER_00: It's an invitation to a relationship.
SPEAKER_00: And the first reading from Isaiah speaks about this relationship, this remarkable tenderness.
SPEAKER_00: The prophet says, Your name is the desire of my soul.
SPEAKER_00: My soul yearns for you in the night.
SPEAKER_00: Isaiah understands something that our culture often forgets.
SPEAKER_00: Every human heart is searching for something.
SPEAKER_00: We spend our lives looking for happiness, for security, peace, and fulfillment.
SPEAKER_00: Some search it in success.
SPEAKER_00: Others look for it in money and pleasure, in things, others look for it in recognition and applause.
SPEAKER_00: And yet even when we obtain those things, there's often this lingering emptiness, this void.
SPEAKER_00: Why?
SPEAKER_00: Well, because the deepest desire of the human heart is not for things, it is for God.
SPEAKER_00: A very famous line that we've said many times, Saint Augustine expressed it beautifully, our hearts are restless until they rest in you.
SPEAKER_00: That restlessness is not a flaw in our design.
SPEAKER_00: It is the way of God drawing us back to Himself.
SPEAKER_00: Isaiah also says something profound.
SPEAKER_00: He says, O Lord, you mean out of peace to us, for it is you who have accomplished all that we have done.
SPEAKER_00: How different that is from the spirit of our age.
SPEAKER_00: We're taught to believe that everything depends on us, our success, our future, that we have to control everything, our security, our happiness.
SPEAKER_00: Well, the result is that many people are exhausted, anxious, tired, and not simply physical, spiritually.
SPEAKER_00: They carry responsibilities that were never meant to rest entirely on their shoulders.
SPEAKER_00: The Christian life is not passive, but neither is it self-reliant.
SPEAKER_00: We work hard, we fulfill our responsibilities.
SPEAKER_00: We never forget that God is the one sustaining us.
SPEAKER_00: Everything good ultimately comes from him.
SPEAKER_00: And that's why Jesus describes himself with two surprising words.
SPEAKER_00: I am meek and humble of heart.
SPEAKER_00: Because you see, the world admires power, influence, and self-promotion.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus again and again points to humility.
SPEAKER_00: Because humility is the foundation of peace.
SPEAKER_00: A profound heart, a proud heart is always anxious, always comparing, always trying to prove itself.
SPEAKER_00: A humble heart knows that it is loved by God, and therefore does not need to earn its worth before the world.
SPEAKER_00: There's this beautiful irony in today's gospel.
SPEAKER_00: The one who carries the weight of the universe invites us to let him carry the weight of our lives.
SPEAKER_00: That's not weakness.
SPEAKER_00: That is faith.
SPEAKER_00: The saints discovered that peace is not found in having fewer responsibility or fewer problems.
SPEAKER_00: No.
SPEAKER_00: Peace comes from walking so closely with Christ that his strength becomes a greatness for us, becomes our everything.
SPEAKER_00: When we're yoked to him, we discover that the burden has not disappeared, but the one carrying it with us has made all the difference.
SPEAKER_00: Christ is there.
SPEAKER_00: Come to me, all of you who are tired and burdened.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.