The overtures of Jesus sound reassuring but how hard it must have been for us to embrace them. The initial period of the near-total lockdown would have given us so many chances to do just exactly that. But the reality is that many were depressed. Why? It is not easy to hand over our lives because autonomy is an important component of our individuality. We define our individuality through self-determination and to give that up is almost tantamount to suicide. To shoulder a yoke rubs against every fibre of the business of making life easier and more convenient. As soon as mass mobility was curtailed, online shopping took off. Our “normal” was reduced to a button click. Food was just a Grab or a Panda away and courier companies devised the new criterion of contactless delivery. Finally, even before we entered this recovery period, road congestion returned with a vengeance whilst the malls cramped up despite the new queueing up.
While we cannot wait to regain control of our lives, the Gospel invites us to slow down and to ponder on the relationship with God which in an otherwise busy world we might have difficulty discovering or resting in.
Right at the start of the Gospel, Jesus revealed the close relationship He has with His Father. Like a child, Jesus knows and trusts His Father. The Scribes and Pharisees prided themselves in the knowledge of the Torah and for them, the more extensive one’s knowledge is, the more one is considered wise. Jesus blessed His Father for hiding true wisdom from those who thought they knew everything. We are not that different from the Scribes and the Pharisees. Many regard wisdom as synonymous with Google. In these days of data analytics, we deal with knowledge not only from the perspective of information but also of power. You must have heard it bandied about that knowledge is power. Right now, with all the contact tracing, there is big data to be mined about individuals which pertain to their habits, patterns or trends in behaviours and interactions. Each time you scan the App for contact tracing, you are tracked; all in the name of health safety and precaution, of course.
However, this instinctive fear of the invasion of privacy affirms that knowledge is more than just data or information. It is also about intimacy. In the Gospel, Jesus allowed us to enter into that intimacy He had with His Father. To know the Father, like Jesus did, means going further than books written about the Father. Relationship with the Father for Jesus is not a measure of how much one knows but how intimate one is with the Father.
Intimacy is time.
I am sure you must have encountered lags in customer service. When work is outsourced, it can become detached for the employee. Added to that, you have the phenomenon of staff turnover. In the end, you have an employee with no loyalty to the work to be done which results in a lag in customer service. Have you ever felt that you have been pushed from pillar to post when you called in for service? Imagine your satisfaction when you get a staff who knows what he is doing intimately. He has been there long enough to know the subtleties and the nuances of this or that operation—such intimacy does not come with studying but with real-time experience. Like a mah-jong kaki—no need to look at the tile. All he or she needs is to feel the face-down tile. Such a skill can only be honed through hours of swimming on tabletops. That is where the similarity stops. That much time spent on mah-jong will not save your soul. On the other hand, time spent with God will ensure your salvation.
Intimacy takes time. For without intimacy in a relationship, how can we take on the yoke suggested by Jesus? Or lay our burdens onto Him?
Note that there is nothing restful about the yoke because it is a contraption designed for work. If you have worked in a farm, you would know how hard and heavy that work is. However, consider that the yoke is often used for a pair draught animals and an experienced farmer would yoke an older/stronger animal with a younger one so that the younger one can train with the mature partner. All the younger animal needs to do is to keep pace. In other words, if it struggles to go ahead or slows down to lag, the ploughing will become harder.
In the struggles of life, Jesus’ yoke is a promise that He will be the stronger animal to carry the weight of the ploughing. All we need is to keep in pace with Him. The myopic or short-sighted fact about us is that it always feels like my burden is the only burden there is and that everyone else’s burden is not as heavy as mine. Perhaps it is inevitable that we should feel that way because we bask in our victim mentality. Why me?
What we may not realise is that each one of us carries with himself or herself burdens which only he or she can carry be it financial, divorce, marital troubles, loneliness, age, sickness, family or death. It does not feel like it but whatever problem we may have, only we can bear it because if Jesus were the farmer, He would never lay upon us an ill-fitting yoke. We will never know that unless we spend time with Him. We will never know we have this strength that only comes from walking close to Him and there is no short cut this to intimacy with the Lord.
Finally, a gem we have forgotten in our active do-it-yourself world is sitting in silence before the Blessed Sacrament. For a long time, maybe too long, we were content or happy to settle with knowing about Jesus. Covid-19, the pandemic, opened a path from knowing about Jesus to knowing Jesus. Nothing compares to spending time with Him in adoration for there it is that we will recognise that His grace is enough for us.
His yoke will always fit our shoulders. It is not easy to hear that. Bear in mind that carrying His burden is not about bravery nor about us being stoical about our pains but it is about the Man. His promise to each one of us is steadfast for He poured out His life to ransom us from eternal death. While it is not always comfortable, we hear through St Paul, Jesus reassuring us: “My grace is sufficient for you. My power is made perfect in weakness” (2 Cor 12: 9). In the rush to return to normalcy, let us not forget the lesson we have learnt during the lockdown, that is, of slowing down so that we may recognise that in all circumstances, the Lord wishes to accompany us because He is humble of heart and He is always there for us. To know Him is to know that He will be there with us. No matter what.
