Rest In Christ
"Come to me, all of you who are weary and carry heavy burdens, and I will give you rest." - Matt 11:28
Considering the magnitude of what Jesus promises here, the simplicity of instruction within this statement is almost too good to be true. Jesus throws this offer on the table with zero terms and conditions. Doesn’t matter how long we’ve been carrying our burdens for, how heavy the load is, or how personal we’ve made it, all that matters is the act of coming to him (Jer 29:13).
In this, Jesus is telling us to come to him as we are. Not as an imposter trying to mimic a version of ourselves we think he'll like better. Instead, we are to simply come to him and he handles the rest.
The rest Jesus is talking about isn't physical but concerning the state of one's soul. Our souls may be burdened due to personal experiences and hurt from the effects of sin in our lives, but Jesus, our good shepherd (Jn 10:14), desires to restore our souls (Ps 23:3).
What he offers us in Matt 11:29 is complete rest for our souls when we take up his yoke. As a Nazarene Carpenter (Mark 6:3), Jesus likely worked on many wooden yokes. However, he is still in the business of yoke-making today. A yoke is a wooden frame placed over the neck of two animals so they can pull together a plough or cart. In Jesus offering us his yoke, he is bearing on his neck most of the load we used to carry alone, making it light for us (Matt 11:30). He does this as his strength is truly made perfect in our weakness (2 Cor 12:9).
Throughout scripture, the enemy is depicted as restless. We see in the book of Job that he is constantly roaming the earth (Job 2:2) and in the book of Matthew that whenever he leaves a vessel, he searches waterless places looking for rest but finds none (Matt 12:43).
We often adopt the same strategy of searching the earth for things we can rest in: relationships, materialism, substances. These things are waterless in the sense that once consumed, we will always thirst for more. Like anything found on earth, they only momentarily appease our appetite, so they require a repetitive replenishment. However, when we drink from the cup of Christ, we never thirst again (Jn 4:13-14). We are fully complete and satisfied within him, yet still desire more of him, but never from a place of lack, for we lack nothing in Christ, but from a place of wanting to grow in dependency and love.
The enemy couldn't find a permanent place of rest because he was searching the earth. True rest isn't found here, where things are passing away; it is located within our saviour, Jesus Christ, who is eternal (Jn 8:58).
Jesus, the Lord of the Sabbath (Matt 12:8), positions himself as the centre of our rest, further negating the need for us to keep this Mosaic Law as it is fulfilled in him. When we rest in Christ, he removes everything weighing us down and replenishes us with an abiding peace that, even when we go through storms, our lives won't collapse as we are rooted within him (Matt 7:24-25).
