Whatever the reasons of the Pharisees, whether they were unable to believe or they were simply ignorant, Christ issued an invitation. Firstly, the prayer of Jesus revealed an intimacy between Him and the Father. God is praised for hiding things from the learned and the clever whilst revealing the things of heaven to mere children. In other words, God is ever gentle in reaching out to His people.
We hear of this in the 1st Reading which alluded to a future King who will be a humble ruler. This is repeated in the Gospel. Jesus after speaking of His Father presented a proposal. “Come to me all who labour and are overburdened and I will give you rest. Shoulder my yoke and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart”. Imagine a King, majestic and resplendent, stooping down to a subject and saying that.
The Pharisees who viewed salvation through the lens of self-sufficiency could never appreciate this invitation. In fact, they had sewn up the entire redemption scene through a legal system which they had concocted. Apart from the 10 Commandments, they had tagged more than 600 rules to make sure that every part of life was covered and that they may be assured of their salvation.
They are not alone in the matter of self-sufficiency. Instead our perception of the necessity of keeping the laws in order to be saved is different. Modernity often perceive “laws” as more burdensome rather than liberating. This brings us to the yoke proposed by Jesus which sounds like a burden until we know what a yoke truly symbolises.
The bull or the cow is a draught animal trained by humans over centuries to perform laborious farming tasks. They pull and they plough. There are different types of yokes used by farmers. In terms of a single animal that is yoked, there is a trust between the animal and the farmer. In order to maximise efficiency, the farmer must ensure that the yoke fits the shoulder of the animal. Hence, it is a sign of trust that when the farmer takes up the yoke, the animal comes forward and allows itself to be yoked. It shows us that the animal trusts that the farmer will not lay an ill-fitting yoke upon its shoulders. In other words, God will not weigh us down beyond our capacity.
This is our God who will not over-burden us. As they say, “When God calls, He qualifies” which means that God will provide the strength when He permits suffering. But that is not easy to appreciate especially when we are blinded by pain. Which brings us to another kind of yoke.
In order to achieve greater efficiency, sometimes two animals are yoked together. This was most likely the image or metaphor that Jesus was using. A younger untrained animal is yoked to an experienced older one so that the more mature animal can shoulder the burden as well as gently guide the younger animal along the right path. “Learn from me for I am humble of heart”.
Either single yoke or double yoke, both these imageries in a way enlarge or widen our vision of who God is. He is the farmer who will never lay an ill-fitting yoke upon the ox. God never does. Or Christ is the experienced and older ox who will pull the greater weight of the burden we face. In short Christ will always be in our midst most especially when we are weighed down. He will be there, only if we trust Him.
We are yoked down by economic realities these days. Of course, there are also the political quagmires we are caught in. On top of that, all the electronic noises that clog our minds. Burdens tire us out. What can we do?
The Pharisees felt that their salvation was within their grasp. They can depend on themselves, their intellect, their strict legalism. When the road to heaven is fraught, what is the best way to guarantee that one stayed on the straight and narrow? More laws? Actually to love and obey God’s commandment was supposed to be easy but it became a source of anxiety because of the fear triggered. Minutiae upon minutiae that what should have led to freedom had instead become a crushing burden for the ordinary folks. In a way, it manifested the pride of self-sufficiency of the Pharisees and Scribes. They easily forgot that salvation was not our achievement but a gift from God, as we heard in the 2nd Reading. To be saved is to embark upon a path of grace and we are saved through our cooperation with God unmerited grace.
As such, the Lord invites us to a life with Him. He knows how heavily weighed down we can be, He asked us to have faith in Him and that He will never betray our trust. Of course, schooled in the university of ease and convenience, we might be tempted to think that the yoke should be convenient and easy. But Jesus did not promise that His yoke will not be demanding. Instead He promised that we would be able to bear it because He is with us. He yoked to us. Of course, we will falter, fail and fall but He will support those who stumble and He will raise all who are bowed down. The yoke is not a burden because the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead is living is us. He gives us strength to be yoked to Christ, to resist our unspiritual self and to trust that He will be with us all the way. The yoke of Christ is the path of freedom, joy and salvation
