Christ’s Burden Is Light

“At that time Jesus answered and said, I thank thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes.  Even so, Father: for so it seemed good in thy sight.” (Matthew 11:25-26)

The religious Jews were very sure they were more godly than other people. but they paid little attention to the signs and wonders God did among them to show that Jesus was the Messiah.  As Jesus said in the previous verses, even people who had no knowledge of God would have recognized his actions and changed their behavior.  Jesus simply stopped to thank God that ordinary people that the highly educated and wealthy considered as ignorant and gullible would listen and learn when those who considered themselves so much wiser and better, the elite, considered his teachings simplistic and impractical. 

Like the political elite of today, the Jewish elite had never struggled to pay their bills or find a job, and thus assumed they were smarter than those who had experience with such things.  They demanded people live by the standards they set while exempting themselves from following them, as Matthew 23:4 describes.  “For they bind heavy burdens and grievous to be borne, and lay them on men's shoulders; but they themselves will not move them with one of their fingers.” They had no idea what God actually wanted. 

Jesus had received his teaching directly from God, as we see in Matthew 11:27.  “All things are delivered unto me of my Father: and no man knoweth the Son, but the Father; neither knoweth any man the Father, save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son will reveal him.”  Only those who God caused to recognize Jesus would recognize him as the Messiah, and only those who listened to Jesus would learn what was needed to please God. 

Many of the Jews worked very hard to keep the Law in order to gain a place in heaven.  Unfortunately, all the efforts to keep the Law would never get anyone into heaven, as Romans 3:20 tells us.  “Therefore by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified in his sight: for by the law is the knowledge of sin.”   Hebrews 10:1 states that like a shadow resembles the object casting it, the Law only resembled God’s requirements.  “For the law having a shadow of good things to come, and not the very image of the things, can never with those sacrifices which they offered year by year continually make the comers thereunto perfect.”  As a result, it could never produce a truly godly life. 

Fortunately, Romans 10:4 tells us, “…Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believeth.”  The Law no longer applies to those who believe, although it still applies to those who do not.  Believers no longer have to worry about keeping all those laws in order to be saved because “Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us: for it is written, Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree,” according to Galatians 3:13.  As a result, in Matthew 11:28-30 Jesus was able to say, “Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.  Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls.  For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.” 

As Christians, we don’t have to work to earn our salvation because as Romans 6:23 tells us, “For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.”  We have been given eternal life as a gift.  Please note that it says eternal life, life that never ends.  We do not have to work to keep that life, because I Peter 1:5 says we “…are kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.”     

Before we believed we were slaves to sin, making it impossible to please God.  When Christ freed us from the Law he freed us from the power of sin, as Romans 6:14 tells us.   “For sin shall not have dominion over you: for ye are not under the law, but under grace.”   We can get victory over our sin by simply letting the Holy Spirit have control, as Galatians 5:16 tells us.  “This I say then, Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh.”  We no longer have to work nearly so hard to please God because Ephesians 1:6 tells us, “…he hath made us accepted in the beloved.” 

We often hear how hard it is to serve the Lord and are encouraged to work harder.  Jesus said his burden was light and his yoke was easy.  If we are finding it that hard to serve the Lord, we are carrying the wrong burden or serving the wrong master.  We don’t have to carry all the burdens the religious elite lay on us.