Wednesday 30 November 2011

Matthew 11 – When the livin’ is easy

11:30 …my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.

What I wouldn’t give to be a Russian oil billionaire.

To have so much money, I wouldn’t know what to do with it.  To have more money than I could ever spend in a dozen lifetimes.

If I were a Russian oil billionaire, I’d get myself a Premiership football club, a couple of apartments in the Trump Tower, a tropical island paradise or two…  Then I’d sit back, put my feet up, and settle down to live the life I’ve always dreamed of.

To live a life of luxury.

To live a life of ease.

So why am I not surprised to find that my idea of what constitutes an “easy” life, doesn’t quite tally with God’s take on the subject?  To the “rich man” of Luke 12 who said to himself, “Thou hast much goods laid up for many years; take thine ease, eat, drink, and be merry”, God could only say, “Thou fool”.

And in fact, now that I think of it, the times in my life when the “livin’s” been “easiest”, have had little to do with luxury, or money, or even “taking my ease”.

Like the time when the kids were kids, and we barrelled through the park, scattering squirrels like tenpins, to get our first look at the sea.  Then at a whim, though the sky was darkening and rain was in air, we all ran to catch the open-top bus, and rode like kings, the top deck all to ourselves.  And later that evening, when the kids were finally tucked-up in bed, I sat for a while at the top of the stairs, reading Psalm 103 and listening to the sounds of their untroubled sleep.

103:2 Bless the LORD, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits.

What I wouldn’t give to be riding on that drizzly, blustery top deck right now.

But those were rare and special moments, and although like Peter on the Mount of Transfiguration, it might sometimes be hard to drag me away, and I might sometimes embarrass myself by blurting out, “It is good for us to be here!” and I might even suggest getting hold of some tents and try to set up camp right there on the mountaintop…  Though I do all that and more, still there always comes a time when Jesus has to lead us back down the mountain, back down to the valley below, where day-to-day life goes on, where people are often “sore vexed” and sometimes “fall into the fire”, and no amount of prayer seems able to prevent it (Matthew 17).

But it’s not on the mountaintop, but right there in the midst of the valley, with all its demands pressing in around him, that I hear Jesus crying…

11:28 Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.
11:29 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.
11:30 For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.

And I find myself struggling to recognise the Jesus he’s painting a picture of here.  Is this Jesus with the “light and easy yoke”, the same one who had nowhere to lay his head (Matthew 8:20), who hadn’t a penny to pay the temple tax (Matthew 17:24-27), nor one friend to stick by him when it came to the crunch (Matthew 26:56)?

If this really is the Jesus who finds living so “easy”, so uncomplicated, so simple and effortless, then all my self-help book theories about “life, love and how to be happy” are simply blown out of the water.

Here I am, glibly reeling off all the cheap-and-cheerful slogans, telling myself that “happiness is just about doing what you love, with the people that you love”… and then I find Jesus, totally un-loved, “despised and rejected”, practically homeless and penniless, not primarily concerned about happiness, about love, or even about life itself, but making it his one concern, his one raison d’être, to do the will of “the one who sent him” – even if that “will” led ultimately to the cross.

If this is the Jesus who thinks life is so “easy”, a walk in the park, then I think we’ve all got some serious re-thinking to do.

So what was Jesus’ secret?  How could he be so “untroubled”, when he was constantly surrounded by troubles?  How could be so “carefree”, when he carried a world of cares on his shoulders?

Well, perhaps part of the answer is in that aforementioned “raison d’être” of Jesus, his single-minded determination to do God’s will, and in a sense, to be God’s will.  Because only in his “oneness” with the Father, was it possible for Jesus to perfectly carry out the Father’s will.  And equally, the Father’s only “will” concerning his Son was that they always be “one”, “I in him, and he in me” (to paraphrase John 10:38).  So, in seeking to do God’s will, Jesus had only to concentrate all his energies on maintaining that constant “oneness” with the Father, and through that “oneness” to, in a sense, become the will of God, by simply living out his daily life.

And suddenly the whole of life boils down to this one profoundly simple formula, this one “needful thing” – to live in constant touch with God; to remain in constant contact with him; to maintain a vital, living “connection” to him; to live in constant “union” with God.

Perhaps this is what Jesus had in mind when he talked about “abiding” in the vine (John 15:4).  Perhaps this is what he meant when he talked about being “yoked”, the way two oxen might be yoked, as one, together (Matthew 11:29).

But be that as it may, surely the only explanation for Jesus’ claims to a “light and easy” life, in the face of all the evidence to the contrary, is that he’d found a way to turn the whole of life – every event, every incident, every act, every deed – into just another means of realising his “oneness” with the Father – a means of expressing the boundless joy and delight of that “oneness”, the overflowing love, the unshakable strength of that “oneness” – whether eating, sleeping, walking, talking, or washing the disciples’ feet, every moment was just as “rare and special” as that all-too-brief interlude on the mountaintop, because every moment was suffused with the same divine presence, and anchored by the same unbreakable bond.

But perhaps the most startling thing about the closing verses of Matthew 11 is not that Jesus seemed to think “livin’” was “easy”, but the fact that he turns to us – to you, to me – and says, “Come and take my yoke upon you, and see for yourself how easy life can be!”

Jesus invites us all to be “yoked” together with him – through him, to be anchored by that same unbreakable bond with the Father; the bond that turns every moment – every wearisome task, every onerous duty – into an experience as “rare and special”, as ripe with possibilities, as any interlude on the mountaintop, or any fondly-remembered ride on a certain open-top bus.