Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.
“Come to me all who labor and are heavy laden and I will
give you rest.”
I don’t know about you, but that promise sounds pretty good
to me this morning. I haven’t slept well lately and some rest – deep, peaceful
rest – sounds pretty good. Some of it is physical – my back or knees sometimes
really hurts – but there are other things, things “out there” that weigh on me.
Sick people, hurting people, a world that seems intent to destroy itself, concern
for all three kids. You understand these burdens because you share many of them
with me, and you have your own burdens as well. Vacation helps, but the problem
is you have to come home, sooner or later, and – guess what? – the burdens are
right there again.
So, we hear these words of Jesus and we think, perhaps, just
perhaps Jesus will ease these burdens and give us some rest. So, yes, He does
give us rest. In this house of God, I pray you find rest, peace, respite and sanctuary
from the burdens of the world; not permanent, probably, but at least for an
hour or so, you can rest at the footsteps of the throne of Jesus.
But this isn’t what He means in today’s Gospel lesson. If we
are honest, we can find that kind of rest lots of places. No, Jesus is speaking
of a different kind of rest – rest that only He can give.
Let me explain by telling you a true story about a woman
whom I’ll call Jan. That’s not her real name, of course, and she’s not from
Mission Valley or even the Crossroads. I came to meet her when her co-worker
brought her to church. That was no small feat. She had been shamed out of her
two previous churches. The first, as a teenager, when it was discovered that
her dad was convicted of a crime and no one wanted “that family” next to them
in the pew; the second, as a 30-something, when her now-ex husband spread lies
about her and that she was the reason for the marriage being destroyed,
conveniently omitting his infidelity with his secretary. Remember the book, The
Scarlet Letter? It was as if she was a modern version of that woman, except
neither event was her fault. She didn’t actually wear an A on her chest, but it
was as if she did. In a small town, everyone knew her name and with her name
came the stories, none true, but each adding to the legend of infamy. It came
to a head one Sunday when the preacher called her out by name, pointing his
long arm at her while the ex-husband’s extended family smirked. The preacher
demand, “Woman…how many husbands have you had?” The answer, for the record, was
one but no one believed it. And, when
she got up to leave, red-faced, tears streaming down her face, her hopes
shattered that these people would have an ounce of compassion for her in her
grief, her loss, her own misery. She had hoped that perhaps Jesus had a word,
just a word for someone in her place, instead she heard the whispered names,
the terrible names spoken of her in the pews. Maybe it was true – even God gave
up on her.
So you can understand why she was reluctant to accept the
invitation to visit our church, or any church for that matter. If that’s how
people of God, how the body of Christ, acted, why would she want to go back? Those
people who had names for her, she had her own names for them: fraud,
hypocrite, pharisee. She saw neither the church nor even God as loving,
compassionate, and caring.
But, for some reason she came to church one Sunday morning.
She sat next to her friend, quietly following along. It’s been a long time; I
don’t remember, anymore, if she sang the hymns or participated in the liturgy
that was strange to her. She came a second Sunday, and then a third. She
started to participate. Then she came to Bible class, mostly listening but
asking a few very pointed questions about grace and mercy and Jesus’ death for
sinners and our full and free forgiveness in Him. Finally, she asked if we
could visit privately.
In quiet conversation, she told me the story of what her
husband did to her and their children; that, yes, she did file for divorce. She
told me of things she said and did, and of what had been said and done to her –
especially by that other church. She said that she had started to doubt that
she would ever be welcome in a Christian church again, that Jesus could possibly
love someone like her. She wanted to make herself worthy of Jesus’ love but
everywhere she turned, everything she heard said she was never good enough and
she was contaminated goods.
Have you ever seen someone truly pleading for something? I
don’t mean a spoiled kid begging for an Oreo, or your spouse begging for a hint
for their surprise gift. I mean the face of someone hoping against hope that
something might be true. That was what I saw in her face when she said, “And,
now, you’re telling me not only that God loves me, but that he forgives all of
my past because Jesus died for me and because I can’t do a thing to save myself
except believe this gift is mine?”
I nodded. And she began to cry. She asked me to tell her
again that she was forgiven. I need to hear it again, she said. So I did: “As a
called and ordained servant of Christ, I forgive you all your sins, in the name
of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Be at peace. Your sins
have been stripped from you in Christ Jesus and your Heavenly Father sees you
as holy in Jesus.” She wept again, but this time, it was with tears of joy.
In twenty-three years of ministry, I have often spoken those
words of absolution, but I can only remember three other times when I have seen
such a look of sheer, utter joy on a person’s face when they heard that Jesus
has forgiven them for the sin they had done. This is what it is to find rest in
Jesus, dropping all of the burdens and labors of guilt and shame and memories
of sins committed, dropping all of the attempts of trying to make ones own self
worthy of the love of Jesus, as if somehow having to prove to God that we are
worthy of His love before He will deliver it to us. There is nothing more
weighty than thinking we have to clean ourselves up, to scrub away our own
sinful stains and make ourselves like pure, white, driven snow. Stop trying to
put Jesus out of work; stop trying to make yourself out to be your own savior.
You can’t do it. It’s what He came to do: to give you rest under His cross.
Jan discovered that day what Jesus means when He says, “Take
my yoke upon you and learn from me that I am gentle and lowly in heart and you
will find rest for your souls.” To be His disciple is not to become
disciple-worthy. It’s to be faithful.
You sometimes hear someone described as a good Christian,
but it’s usually used incorrectly. Do you know what a “good” Christian is? It’s
not the Christian who can recite all 66 books of the Bible in order, know all 6
Chief Parts of the Catechism, sing harmony on “Amazing Grace” or “The Common
Doxology.” It doesn’t mean you never miss a Sunday, or that your kids can sit
through church without making noise, or that you can perfectly time the amen
with me at the end of a prayer. A good Christian is one who knows he or she is
a sinner and deserves nothing but God’s punishment. However, he or she knows,
believes, trusts and relies that Jesus stood in that place of punishment and
the burden of those very sins were placed upon Him. He carried that yoke to
Golgatha where He was suspended between heaven and earth, mocked by those who
stood below Him, abandoned by His Father above Him, and He died alone,
suffering hell on earth. The “good” Christian knows that Christ’s death is his
death; the “good” Christian knows Jesus took up all of her sins. The “good”
Christian knows it’s not about him or her at all. It’s all about Jesus, and the
good Christian – no, let’s change that to “faithful;” “good” implies internal
quality but faithful points to the one in whom the faith rests – the faithful
child of God clings to Jesus, even in moments of sin-filled weakness. It’s
knowing that her sins or his sins, or your sins and my sins, are all fully paid
by Jesus and that the empty tomb is our promise, both now and into eternity.
Taking the yoke of Jesus lightens the burdens of life and
eternity. Because of who Jesus is, the burden of discipleship is light indeed.
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