The way the Lord has chosen to reveal Himself to the world exceeds our understanding. God could have revealed the way of salvation—repentance and faith worked by the Holy Spirit which receives the forgiveness of sins through Christ Jesus—the Father could have revealed this in any number of ways.

It could even make sense for the Lord to reveal such gracious and lofty news of salvation to the wise and understanding, but that’s not often how He chooses to work. Instead, He often brings Word of such great salvation to those of humble estate, to “little children” as Jesus says. Our Lord Jesus says that it was the gracious will of God to reveal these things not merely to a few who can understand them, but even to children. The salvation of God is not something that can be acquired only by the smartest, but it’s something that even the least and lowliest can grasp by the working of the Spirit through the Word of Christ.

The world seeks and displays all sorts of wisdom. The world has grasped such knowledge as space and ocean exploration. The world can study many aspects of creation scientifically. The world can invent ways to make our lives easier. The world thinks deeply about philosophy and logic.

All of these abilities that the Lord has given our brains can be good things. But apart from God, the world’s wisdom is flawed and can be sinful. The world can use wisdom without God to display evil—to invent that which should not be invented. Scientific study can be used to promote sin. The world uses wisdom without God to present to us a universe that has no god as a part of it whatsoever. The world uses wisdom without the true God to either preach no salvation or an opposing false way of salvation. The wisdom of the world considers the things of God—the things that are actually true—to be foolishness and nonsense. The world, following its own wisdom, considers those who trust in Christ Jesus for forgiveness, life, and salvation and confess the Triune God to be foolish.

The wise and understanding of the world are ignorant of the things of God, because God has not chosen to reveal Himself by the wisdom and understanding of the world. He reveals Himself to the humble, contrite, and repentant through His gracious and merciful forgiveness.

The Lord Jesus declares, “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” He’s calling you, brothers and sisters in Christ, to come to Him through faith, to come to Him by means of hearing His Word and receiving His Sacraments. He’s calling you, brothers and sisters in Christ, to be refreshed in Him and His Word of redemption.

The devil, the world, and your own sinful selves are laying burden after burden upon your shoulders so that you must bear a heavy load in guilt, sorrow, and shame. The effects of sin in this world add the additional burdens of the sufferings you must endure—the crosses you must bear.

To where does one turn? The world has many ways of coping—many religions and philosophies try to offer an answer. But all of them are just heavy yokes that make bearing the burden of guilt, sorrow, shame, and suffering much more laborious. They claim to offer peace from the burdens in the end, but it doesn’t happen. There is no peace. There is no lifting of the yoke. There’s only death that leads to eternal death.

Rather, the Father turns to you… you don’t turn to Him on your own bearing a heavy yoke… the Father, Lord of heaven and earth turns to you through the revelation of His Son. The Father makes Himself known in His grace and mercy through the grace and mercy of His Son. Jesus reveals His Father’s heart of forgiveness through His suffering, death, and resurrection for your forgiveness, life, and salvation.

The people who know the heavenly Father are the people to whom the Son has chosen to reveal Him. Notice how passive of a thing this is to us. The Son chooses to reveal the Father. The Son chooses to reveal the Father’s plan of salvation. Jesus said to the disciples, “You did not choose me” (which would have been the normal way people gathered disciples to themselves in the Greco-Roman world), Jesus says, “but I chose you.” Jesus chooses us to be His followers, to be His disciples, to be His people. When anybody in human history has needed any kind of saving, they never choose their savior. And so Jesus chooses to reveal the Father to people.

The question, then, is… to whom does Jesus choose to reveal the Father? The answer is one of the most comforting passages in all of Scripture: “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” He calls on all who labor and are heavy laden by sin, death, and the devil, He calls on all who endure sufferings in this sinful fallen world, to come to Him through faith in His Word and receive His rest. Jesus provides a rest that the wise and understanding of the world can never provide. Jesus provides peace that passes all understanding, that passes all suffering and affliction and sorrow—a peace that gives real actual rest.

Anyone can receive the rest that Jesus gives. It’s not limited by age, geography, era, status, health, wealth, or how moral of a person you have been. Jesus’ rest comes through faith in His salvation, delivered upon the cross of calvary, by which you have been reconciled to the heavenly Father. The Father has given the gift of His Son so that whoever believes in Him may have eternal life.

Before modern farm equipment, farmers often used oxen to plow their fields, and I assume perform other kinds of work. The farmer would take a wooden crosspiece called a yoke and place it over the necks of the oxen. This action joined the oxen together, making them essentially one unit. Wherever one ox went, the other ox had to go as the farmer led them around the field.

Scripture itself calls the Old Testament Law and its legal demands a heavy yoke. Beyond the Ten Commandments, there are many, many other commandments—613 total. The Old Testament lists 248 things people are commanded to do and 365 things people are commanded not to do. These laws included the moral law (laws related to the Ten Commandments), the civil law (laws related to how the nation of ancient Israel was to operate), and ceremonial laws (all the rituals like circumcision or no work on the Sabbath), that set the Israelites apart from the nations around them and were all a foreshadowing of our Lord Jesus Christ.

The civil law applied to the agricultural society of Israel, some elements can and often have been borrowed for governments till this day, but they aren’t required. The ceremonial law has been fulfilled in Jesus. The aspect of the Law that has applied in all times and places from the very beginning is the moral law. There was no law in the Ten Commandments regarding the fruit, but Adam and Eve were guilty of breaking the First Commandment.

Here’s where things get interesting. Part of the purpose of the Law is to reveal our sinfulness (as Paul wrote about in today’s Epistle Reading), but people such as the Pharisees began to think that the way they receive God’s grace and favor is through doing the Law. They thought that they could keep the very Law that the great apostle Paul lamented He couldn’t keep.

Pharisees thought they could keep the Law because they saw it as being about exterior behavior rather than a condition of the heart. So, they created a whole bunch of extra laws called the “Tradition of the Elders”, so that they could “keep” the Law. For example, God’s Law says not to work on the Sabbath. The Pharisees, wanting to absolutely make sure they can keep the Law, gave a whole bunch more dos and donts to parse out what is and isn’t work. They forgot that the purpose of the commandment is to take time off to hear and be refreshed by God in His Word and to rest our bodies a bit from our daily labor.

Jesus started to turn things back around to the true teaching of God, which actually made the Law even heavier. Again, for example, the Law of Moses said, “You shall not murder.” The Pharisees interpreted that as meaning that if they didn’t actually murder anyone with their hands, they were keeping the commandment. However, Jesus declared that hatred of others is murder—and the Pharisees hated lots of people. We all are susceptible to hate in our hearts. It’s one of the easiest sins to commit. Jesus makes sure everyone understands part of the purpose of the Law is to reveal sin in all of our hearts for all of the ugliness that it is. The heavy yoke is the sinful mindset that we can somehow, someway keep the Law perfectly even though we are sinful. It becomes too much of a burden to bear.

Then, how can the heavy burdened be lightened? Jesus invites you to take His yoke upon you and learn from Him. His yoke of grace, mercy, and forgiveness casts off of you the heavy yoke of the Law that has made you labor and heavy laden. His yoke leads you into forgiveness, life, and salvation.

The Lord promises, “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.” The yoke of Jesus is the blessed Good News that He is the Son of God, by whose blood you are atoned, and in whom you are set free from the burden of sin, death, and hell to be His people. To receive the yoke of the Lord is to be devoted to Jesus. It doesn’t mean you’re free to do whatever the devil, the world, and your sinful nature want you to do. It does mean that you are free to live in godliness—loving and serving the Lord and loving and serving those around you. It’s never done perfectly, and yet, through the forgiveness of our Lord Jesus, the yoke is easy and the burden is light, so that you continually strive to follow where your Lord leads you in His gracious will.

The Lord has graciously revealed His salvation unto you through Christ Jesus, in whom you have been chosen through His blessed Word of Life. May the Lord grant you to cherish the easy yoke of Christ, as you enjoy His rest even while walking through the veil of tears. Amen.