There is probably no teaching of Jesus more universally beloved than this little gem: “Come to me, all you who are struggling hard and carrying heavy loads, and I will give you rest. Put on my yoke, and learn from me. I’m gentle and humble. And you will find rest for yourselves. My yoke is easy to bear, and my burden is light” (Matthew 11:28-30).
A yoke is a wooden device that binds two working animals together so that they pull in the same direction. In Jesus’ day, the yoke was a metaphor associated with the interpretation of religious law. The common people were burdened by the heavy “yoke” of complicated religious rules and demands that made walking too far on the wrong day a crime. Jesus claimed that his own interpretation of God’s requirements was, in comparison, easy and light to walk through life beneath.
It’s a lovely thought. But truth be told, sometimes I want to argue with Jesus about it. The Old Testament had over 600 laws, plus extensive oral traditions regarding how to apply them. It’s easy to see why Jesus, with his two-command system of “love God” and “love your neighbor,” might argue that his way is far simpler. But honestly, sometimes I long to go back to the former system. Counting my steps on the sabbath might be taxing, but at least I’m pretty sure I could do it. Love, on the other hand, is complicated. I’m not always sure I know what it requires, and I’m virtually never convinced that I’ve lived up to its demands. Practicing the Jesus Way properly often feels impossibly heavy to me.
Meditating on this teaching the other day, it suddenly occurred to me that—assuming Jesus didn’t miscalculate his yoke-weights—there are only two ways to account for my contradictory experience: either I’m carrying the wrong yoke, or I’m carrying the right yoke in the wrong way.
This thought stopped me in my tracks.
What does it look like to carry the wrong yoke? Some of us are driven by a voice, purporting to be the voice of God, that endless demands that we try harder, do more, perform better. We are like the biblical Martha, who was once nearly crushed by the overwhelming burden of properly playing host to Jesus. The food must be cooked! The house cleaned! The table set! It is Jesus who interrupts her earnest panic with an astonishing statement: “Who demanded all this of you, Martha? Who told you that this frantic labor was necessary?”
It has taken me decades as a Jesus follower to even start to suspect that the voice pushing me harder, faster, farther, shaming each non-productive breath, is not actually God’s. I’ve come to believe that there is a yoke that is often confused with Jesus’ because it advocates for so many good things that look very like what he commands. But despite the similar outward appearance, it is not Jesus’ yoke. Because what it is not made of the light material of genuine, freely given love, but the stone weight of fear and shame and the need to earn our love through performance. These yokes look the same, but they are fundamentally different in their composition.
What does it look like to carry the right yoke in the wrong way? A yoke allows two animals to pull weight together. An ancient farmer would try to choose two animals that were evenly matched. But we are hardly Jesus’ equal. Which begs the important question of what it means to work as a yoked pair with someone of vastly superior strength.
It’s funny to recall, but I used to be slightly annoyed when I would see women waiting for men to carry heavy things. I honestly thought this was an anachronistic holdover from another era, kind of like the fainting couch. Clearly these women had not yet embraced their liberation or just weren’t trying hard enough. I was genuinely flabbergasted when I learned that men have on average 90% greater upper body strength. You mean all this time that I’ve been muscling sofas up and down apartment stairs, it’s been 90% easier for my broad-shouldered male friends?! This wasn’t an excuse to opt out of the moving crew. It was just the first time it occurred to me that it might not be my personal duty to deadlift the heaviest object in the room.
So here are Jesus and I, side by side, yoked together beneath the law of love. How much greater is Jesus’ capacity than mine? How much vaster are his personal resources? 100x mine? 10,000x? Could he be infinitely stronger? Yet how often have I tried to shoulder this yoke like roughly 50% of the perfect love needed by the world was my personal burden to carry?
Understand—I’m not making excuses here for opting out from under the yoke of love, for refusing to pull in step with Jesus or carry the part that is mine, or yours. But perhaps this crushing weight that some of us struggle beneath comes from a place analogous to my insistence on lifting the heaviest object in the room with no regard for any difference in musculatures. Maybe what Jesus is saying is that his yoke will be experienced as light because the bulk of the weight will always be distributed on his much broader shoulders.
By God’s grace, I can love the people entrusted to me. I can love the world, generously and courageous and sacrificially. But I cannot love them in every way that they need to be loved, in a way that fills every need and hunger. When I try to shoulder that responsibility, I cannot help but be crushed by it. This is a God-sized burden. I love side by side with Jesus, as he makes me able. But the heaviest burden of responsibility was always meant to be on him, for he is the only one of the two of us with shoulders matched to the world’s full weight.
If we let Jesus carry what is his to carry, perhaps we will be able to carry the small piece that is ours without ending up crushed beneath it.
