It’s spring, the time of year when gardeners pull out their tractors and tillers and prepare to plant their flowers, fruits, and vegetables.

In thinking about gardening, I am reminded of my mother who loved to plant a huge garden. She enjoyed being outside, plowing, hoeing, gathering her crops. Me? I hated it! I learned early to cook, clean, wash, hang clothes on the line—anything to avoid the garden!

I can remember one time when she wanted my brother Ron and me to help her pull her little plow. The plow was not really intended to be pulled by children, but she apparently decided she could turn us into little mules. Well, that lasted about an hour! Neither of us was cooperative in the least so she gave up on the idea.

Shortly after that fiasco, my Dad bought her a Merry Tiller. That thing was a beast! To my mind, there was nothing “merry” about it! Mother was a small woman, and I can still see her manhandling that tiller out through her garden! It was all she could do to keep it going in a straight line!

The entire idea of plowing was not something I cared to do!  Perhaps that’s why the passage from Matthew 11:28-30 has always been something of a paradox to me. “Then Jesus said, ‘Come to me, all of you who are weary and carry heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you. Let me teach you, because I am humble and gentle at heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy to bear, and the burden I give you is light.’”

I liked the first part about rest, and doing anything with Jesus was always appealing; but in some ways I did not fully understand the imagery. How could plowing be easy?

The real picture became much clearer, however, when I accompanied a group of five young women who are residents of Capstone Recovery Center and its executive director, Miriam Ramirez, to Hickory Church of the Nazarene to celebrate Capstone Day. The young ladies were to share their testimonies. Before they began, however, Pastor Kyle Delong preached a powerful mini-sermon on Matthew 11:28-30.

A yoke, Pastor Kyle explained, is a piece of equipment used to harness oxen, horses, or other animals so that they can effectively pull a wagon or a plow. That much I knew.

He then explained something I did not know. When training a young or inexperienced animal, the farmer will often pair the inexperienced animal with a more experienced one so that the more experienced will teach the younger how to plow.  The more experienced also carries the load as the younger walks along and learns about plowing.

My mind wandered to the powerful image of being rescued from sin and the legalism of Jesus’ day and then being teamed with Jesus.  Good news! He carries the load.  He listens to Father God who is directing the team in the right direction. There is, indeed, rest for one’s soul!

A horrific image also came to mind as I thought of being yoked to one of Satan’s minions as he pulls one deeper and deeper into sin.  Driving that team would be Satan himself. Sadly, this is the plight of the lost people around us.

As I looked around the sanctuary that Sunday morning and saw the beautiful, joyful faces of five young women who had been rescued by Jesus, I was teary.  What a glorious picture of God’s grace!

The Lord rescued them and is now carrying their loads! A passage from Isaiah also came to mind:

“In that day the Lord will end the bondage of his people. He will break the yoke of slavery and lift it from their shoulders.” (Isaiah 10:27 NLT)

As a volunteer and board chair at Capstone, I find Psalm 126 very meaningful:

^“When the Lord brought back his exiles to Jerusalem,
it was like a dream!
² We were filled with laughter,
and we sang for joy. . .
³ Yes, the Lord has done amazing things for us!
What joy! . . .

⁵ Those who plant in tears
will harvest with shouts of joy.
⁶ They weep as they go to plant their seed,
but they sing as they return with the harvest.”

When we founded Capstone Recovery Center seven years ago, the Lord led us to plow in fields filled with addiction and hopelessness—not with wooden plows but with the Word of God.  Even yoked to Jesus, the work has sometimes been hard.  There has been weeping at times.  But oh, the joy that comes with the harvest!  Tears may fall, but at harvest time they are tears of joy!  To see the faces of these beautiful young women—their new lives ahead of them—filled with fresh opportunities—is a glorious experience!

And now, as I sit here writing this post, another image from the farm comes to mind. We need more workers. My pastor at Trading Ford Baptist Church, Mike Motley, preached on this passage last Sunday. Jesus said, “The harvest is great, but the workers are few.” (Mathew 9:37 NLT)

*Dwight Pentecost explains it this way:

“To take Christ’s yoke means to submit oneself to the authority of Christ. It means to put ourselves under his rule, to join together with him. He is inviting people to put their shoulders into a new yoke, one in which he is the yoke mate. And he promises that, as they submit to his authority and are yoked with him, they will find rest for their souls.

The yoke to which Christ invited people, when borne as a co-laborer with Jesus Christ, is no burden at all. It is a source of rest, satisfaction, enjoyment, and contentment. Christ is our life and he is our strength. When one is yoked to Jesus Christ, that which is performed is the joy of the true disciple.

In the normal yoke, the load is equally distributed between the two that are yoked together, but when we are yoked with Jesus Christ, he bears the load, and we who are yoked with him share in the joy and the accomplishment of the labor but without the burden of the yoke. The tragedy is that some of us have never been broken in to the yoke.

It is possible for someone to be saved without being a disciple of Jesus Christ. A believer becomes a disciple of Jesus Christ only when he or she submits to the authority of Christ’s Word and acknowledges Christ’s right to rule.

Many of us have no right to call ourselves disciples. When we’ve heard Christ’s words, ‘Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest,’ we have responded and have come to him. But when he prepares to slip a yoke around our necks to join us to himself, we resist, we fight, we back off. We refuse to be brought under bondage to anyone, not even to Jesus Christ. But until we become yoked to him in the sweetest bondage that heaven or earth knows, we cannot be disciples. ‘Take my yoke upon you’ means learn of me, submit to my Word, acknowledge the authority of my person. When we do that, and only when we do that, will we ‘find rest’ for our souls.”*

What about you? Have you found rest through being yoked to Jesus? Have you found the joy of “plowing” with him and seeing the harvest He produces? There is nothing sweeter!

Thanks to those of you who read and respond each week. If you have an experience or insight you’d like to share, please do! Many blessings!

 

*Dr. J. Dwight Pentecost is distinguished professor emeritus of Bible Exposition and adjunct professor in Bible Exposition at DTS. At age 98, “Dr. P.” continues to teach and to do so without using notes. Follow Dr. P on Facebook