Yoked to Jesus
Joshua Bell, one of the world’s most renowned violinists, stood on a subway station in Washington, D.C., on a cold winter morning in 2007. He began to play his violin while more than a thousand people walked by on their morning commute. Hardly anyone stopped to listen. He played for forty-three minutes and only about seven people stayed for any extended time. Only twenty people gave him tips. He collected $32.17 in that forty-three-minute window. When he finished playing, he took his tips and violin and left, to no applause, no recognition, no fanfare.
Clearly, no one realized what had just happened: Joshua Bell had just spent forty-three minutes playing one of the most intricate pieces known to man on a violin that cost $3.5 million. Two nights before, he’d sold out a theater in Boston at $100 a ticket. It is possible to be in the presence of greatness and be completely oblivious to it. During his ministry on earth, the greatness and glory of Jesus were not always on display. In fact, only on certain occasions did he reveal his glory, and only a few people realized the implications of the things Jesus did and said. Many were completely oblivious to it, having eyes that could not see.
Simon, later given the name Peter by Jesus, saw the greatness of Jesus and followed him. In Luke 5, we read about a time when Jesus was teaching the crowd from Simon’s boat by the sea. When he finished teaching, he asked Simon to go out for a catch, but Simon said, “Master, we’ve worked hard all night long and caught nothing. But if you say so, I’ll let down the nets” (v. 5). When he did, they took in such a big catch that they needed the help of another boat, and both boats, now overloaded with fish, began to sink. On seeing this, Simon fell to his knees and said to Jesus, “Go away from me, because I’m a sinful man, Lord!” (v. 8). Jesus did not go away. On the contrary, Simon’s journey with Jesus was only beginning. “‘Don’t be afraid,’ Jesus told Simon. ‘From now on you will be catching people.’ Then they brought the boats to land, left everything, and followed him” (vv. 10–11). In this episode, there is a reaction of fear, an assurance of safety, and a call to mission.
John’s vision of the exalted Jesus on the island of Patmos has a similar arc. Notice the many similes John used to describe the impression the glorious Christ made on him.
Then I turned to see whose voice it was that spoke to me. When I turned I saw seven golden lampstands, and among the lampstands was one like the Son of Man, dressed in a robe and with a golden sash wrapped around his chest. The hair of his head was white as wool—white as snow—and his eyes like a fiery flame. His feet were like fine bronze as it is fired in a furnace, and his voice like the sound of cascading waters. He had seven stars in his right hand; a sharp double-edged sword came from his mouth, and his face was shining like the sun at full strength. (Rev 1:12–16)
Much could be said about the fearsome splendor of Jesus in this portrayal, but our focus is on John’s response. John continued. “When I saw him, I fell at his feet like a dead man. He laid his right hand on me and said, ‘Don’t be afraid. I am the First and the Last, and the Living One. I was dead, but look—I am alive forever and ever, and I hold the keys of death and Hades. Therefore write what you have seen’” (vv. 17–19). John’s response was much like Simon’s: he fell at the feet of Jesus in a panic. And Jesus’s response to John was similar to his response to Simon: “Don’t be afraid.” Then he commissioned him to write what he saw and send it to the churches (see Rev 1:11). A reaction of fear is met with an assurance of safety and a call to mission. Our fear must become love, which must become witness.
“Many people have never experienced God in this way.”
Many people have never experienced God in this way. They have never experienced the balance of fearing him and hearing him say, “Fear not,” and then receiving from him a commission to work that wakes them up every day with eternal purpose, inspires them to be excellent in all they do, and sends them with courage and compassion to love people. The reaction Simon and John had to the greatness of Jesus was the right one; it’s how every human should respond when in the presence of the divine. Remember, it is possible to be in the presence of greatness and be completely blind to it. But fear turns to love when we learn that in Christ God has come not to destroy us but to save us; that Jesus is as much a Savior as he is Lord of Lords; that his word to us is, “don’t be afraid;” and that he makes us witnesses in word and deed to the power of his death and resurrection. Our fear must become love, which must become witness.
However, becoming witnesses in word and deed to the power of Jesus’s death and resurrection requires that we take Jesus’s yoke upon ourselves. Belief without transformation—sadly, the experience of many people who would identify themselves as Christians—betrays a common misunderstanding among many evangelicals, namely, that it is possible to be a Christian without resembling Christ, without hating what he hates and loving what he loves, without following the Lamb “wherever he goes” (Rev 14:4).
A yoke is a frame to tie two animals together as they work a field. When used by a person, the yoke helps distribute weight evenly across the shoulders and facilitate transport. In the Old Testament, the metaphor of a yoke mainly denotes social or political oppression. It is an “unwelcome restriction.” So when Jesus invites us to take his yoke upon us, he’s inviting us to a type of restriction. “Come to me, all of you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take up my yoke and learn from me, because I am lowly and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light” (Matt 11:28–30).
Jesus invites everyone to come to him, although there is a prerequisite. They must know they are weary and burdened. His point is not that some people are weary while others aren’t, any more than he thinks some people need much forgiveness while others need little (Luke 7:47), or that some people are sick while others are healthy (Luke 5:31–32). His point is rather that a person will come to Jesus only insofar as he or she realizes that life is wearisome and burdensome and that they need much forgiveness and healing because they are very sick.
So to people who feel burdened, Jesus offers not to take away their yoke altogether but to give them a new one. And the effect of his yoke is not a greater burden but rest—rest for their souls. His yoke is easy and his burden is light. Again, his assumption is that humans always have a yoke and a burden. This assumption cuts against much modern thinking in which we are taught to believe that happiness and self-actualization happen when we are free—free from any external boundaries and ideas imposed upon us, and free to act according to our desires without censure or judgment. I am free if I can be myself. Autonomous.
But Jesus always comes with a yoke. He wants to help us see that there are no yoke-free people. The autonomous self is an illusion. The attempt to build our self from the ground up, guided by our intuitions and original thoughts, is itself a yoke and burden. It is crushing in scope, bankrupt from the start, and untethered to reality. Where do those intuitions and “original” thoughts come from, after all? Why are they so different if the person grew up in the mountain ranges of Thailand as opposed to the Upper West Side of Manhattan? Why do people of a particular place share a particular culture, an affinity for the same food, music, fashion, language, and ideas? We can’t escape many of the traits and ways of thinking of the people around us. To be human is to be a cultural being, and our culture is itself a yoke with many positives and negatives.
“Jesus offers a new yoke. “Take up my yoke and learn from me.” ”
Jesus offers a new yoke. “Take up my yoke and learn from me.” The metaphor is yoke; the reality is “learn from me.” Jesus in the Gospel of Matthew is presented to us as the teacher par excellence whose words carry the authority and wisdom of God. His word stills storms, heals disease, exorcises evil spirits, forgives sin, and shapes the human soul. Learning is what a disciple does, which is why Jesus calls people to follow him. When we follow him, we learn to love what he loves and hate what he hates, but more importantly, we learn to love him. And love him, we must, for we become like the object of our love. His yoke and burden do not crush us because he is lowly and humble in heart. Think about how rare and refreshing is the posture of his heart. He has all authority in heaven and on earth, but he is lowly and humble in heart. And his teaching, his word, comes to us, not only externally in the Scriptures, but also internally by his Spirit. Remember: between his first and second coming, Jesus has sent us the Spirit of God, who is God within us.
Content taken from Big Themes of the Bible: Grasping the Heart of Jesus’s Message by Jon Morales, ©2021. Used by permission of B&H Academic.
Jon Morales (PhD, Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary) is the campus pastor of Woodside Bible Church in Royal Oak, Michigan.