Smooth Jesus

Jesus said some pretty provocative stuff in his day. Sometimes it was hard to understand or take in, but never was it out of place. The context was always accounted for when Jesus spoke, and today, context is equally as important. 

“The shift is never out of place, no matter how drastic or shocking it may be.”

The context for me right now as I sit and type this has been through a drastic change. This morning when I woke up and walked out of my house, I was comfortable in a t-shirt and jeans; but now, with the wind, it feels like 19 degrees outside and I am uncomfortably freezing. Sometimes when following Jesus, I feel what he says, or what we see, experiences just as intense a change as the Texas weather. And the shift is never out of place, no matter how drastic or shocking it may be.

This past week, the youth group and I looked at a passage of such dramatic proportions as we began a journey focusing on the rest that Jesus provides. Now, if you’ve been in church a while, when I say, “Jesus” and “rest” you’re mind probably jumps to Matthew 11:28-30. If it did, give yourself a gold star, because you just forecasted the passage we trekked through. It is here that we see Jesus delivering some of the most heart warming, anxiety melting dialogue of the bible. The God of the universe in flesh says, “Come to me and find rest for your souls…my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”

If you look within it’s context, however, these words seem off paced, if not out of place. Looking at the beginning of chapter 11, imprisoned John the Baptizer’s disciples have come to quiz Jesus on his authenticity. They leave the Master with his answers relaying that he is the Christ John prophesied of, followed by Jesus addressing the crowd about John and himself. Smooth transition, right? Smooth Jesus then begins talking about how the people took time off work and school to travel to the desert to see a man in camel skins throw shade at the pharisees. He moves into magnifying the fact that, despite the esteem held for both John and Jesus, the generation viewed one as demon filled and the other as spirits filled. 

Reflecting their denunciation, Christ then compares the evil of various cities and speaks to their impending doom, following this with an openly declared prayer condemning the wise and exalting the weak, as well as his Sonship. All smooth transitions. 

Then boom. Come to me. I’ll give you rest. It may just be me, but this transitions seems rather jolting, unrefined, and downright odd. If we trust that Jesus doesn’t misspeak, how do we get from A to B in this text?

I could pose some hypothesis I researched, but it would take far too long for this post; so I’ll write my proposed solution. Jesus refers to his yoke—an item most of us would relate to farming. This is absolutely correct, and it was a term that the pharisees used to speak of the weight of the Jewish law. Once they completed their readings in the temple, they would finish by giving the people the “yoke of the law.” 

I believe the transition comes from Jesus’ prayer. The public knee bending seems to me to be a rather humorous instant rather than a solemn one. I believe Jesus is mimicking the Pharisees’ loud prayers to God in the city square, “Thank you Lord that…!” If this is the case, Jesus has hijacked the crowds memory and placed the weight of the law on their listening ears, leading them to passively, if not actively, find themselves dwelling on religious, law keeping vibes. He is reminding them of the yoke of the law, and then exclaims, “come to me and I’ll give you rest from these tiresome laws; my yoke is easy, unlike the heavy yoke of the law.”

“The way Jesus was able to point them toward his rest was by reminding them of the weight they currently bore.”

And there we have it—Jesus, the master of subversion, makes connection in our disconnect. The connection between their disbelief and their rest is found in hinting at the burden of the law…something that wasn’t really in focus, but a ghostly presence. The way Jesus was able to point them toward his rest was by reminding them of the weight they currently bore. 

How is your disbelief and how is your rest? Often I think we mix them up—disbelief in Jesus and rest in everything else…how little we believe in this Jesus for his rest. 

I know this entry may not come across very provocative—the talk on Jesus as rest—because for many of us we won’t argue that he gives rest. I think where this story might hit some of us is—if we take a step back and look at our journals and past weeks—how drastic our transitions between rest and disbelief come and go. And it may not be a blatant disbelief, but maybe falling into the belief that hitting the snooze button one more time will be more refreshing than getting up and having 7 more minutes with the maker of time. 

I’m glad Jesus knows how to navigate among our weaknesses and restlessness. May our souls be restless until they find rest in him.