""Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. "Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for 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."" Matthew 11:28-30, NKJV.

The ever-living Christ Jesus is calling to all of us, through the centuries, in the present, and to the end of time, as we know it.

He is saying, as a father would to a child, "Come to me, all of you who have been struggling with life and are exhausted. And I will give you rest for your heart and soul."

To understand this call, we must take a look at Jesus as a carpenter, which he was by training, and which he practiced with his stepfather Joseph during the silent years.

Jesus lived in an agricultural community where most people made a living by farming and livestock. In my childhood on the farm, the horse and the big strong mule were the primary animals of farming. They were used to plow, pull stumps and to pull wagons. They were also the means of transportation, taking people and produce from the farm to the city.

For the big mules, we had big collars which fastened around their necks, and the ropes and straps would go behind to attach to the plow or wagon. So the collar was what enabled the mule to pull great loads, using his powerful shoulders and legs.

Now a COLLAR is what the Bible calls a YOKE. It was used for the same purpose. They didn't have the strong workhorses in Jesus' time, and what the Bible calls "mules" were really donkeys. A donkey could carry a person or small wagon, but nothing too heavy.

For the heavy work in Palestine, they used the ox, which is mentioned 54 times in the Bible. For the ox to pull a load, a burden, he would need a yoke. Yokes were made of wood, and this was one of the carpenter's primary jobs in Jesus' time.

The farmer would bring his ox to the carpenter, who would measure the animal. Then, when he had roughed out the yoke, the farmer would bring the ox back for a final fitting. When the yoke fit just right, it would be covered with leather, and the farmer would take it home for work.

There was a story told about Jesus in the eastern church which is not in the Bible, but was told and re-told and written down so as not to be forgotten.

The story goes that Jesus had become a master carpenter, and he made such good yokes that people from all around would come to him to make yokes for their oxen.

In that time, as in our own, a shop owner would put a sign over the door of his shop, telling of his work. The legend goes that the sign over the door of Jesus' shop said, "MY YOKES FIT WELL."

This story, while not important enough to be in the Bible, was remembered because of the scripture above, "Take my yoke upon you."

All of us must pull our load, our burden, which life places upon us. It may be ill health, divorce, betrayal, loneliness, the families we live with. And we must choose between the yoke that the world places upon us, and the yoke which Jesus offers us. The yoke of the world is more than we can bear, the disappointments, grief, and financial problems. The burden of them is intolerable, too heavy to bear. We become exhausted from the struggle of pulling such a heavy load.

Jesus calls us and says, "Come here to me, all of you who are exhausted from pulling your life's load by yourself. Come here and I will give you rest."

Then Jesus says, "Take MY YOKE upon you, and let me teach you how to pull the load in your life. I will give you rest. The world is full of worry and anxiety and depression, but I am totally at peace, at rest. My heart is at peace, and yours will be too.

"For MY YOKES FIT WELL, my yoke is easy and my burden is light. Put on my yoke and see how well it fits, and how light the burden."

The yokes of Christ Jesus do fit well.

Blessing in Jesus,
Father Hammond

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