Greetings and Blessings- Welcome to my blog!
text to reflect: Matthew 11:29
"Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls."
Many people believe that when we talk about yoke we are talking about being only a prisoner or being enslaved. However, I invite you to follow me in this reflection about what the Bible tells about the yoke.
First to conceptualize the word "yoke" we find a wooden instrument formed by yuntas that is used to place them on the neck of oxen to unite them. Not all animals are suitable for the yoke, they must be robust animals with a leafy neck since this is the support to carry out the work because the load is very heavy.
In that sense I would like you to understand that "the yoke" has a relevant effect on the living being that uses it, whether in animals or in people.
In such a way that the effect of the yoke is to unite closely two living beings, making them share the same path and the same destiny subject to the restrictions of the owner or the farmer.
I think this should give you an idea why Jesus used these words as promises to his followers.
In this way they put the yoke on the animals
Source
It is worth saying that when Jesus spoke about these verses he had a particularity of promise about the tired person, he did it with the intention that the oppressed and tired of the Jewish law came to Him who offered him rest. It is important to note that the leaders of the Jewish law treated and taught their disciples incorrectly by applying an insurmountable burden of slavery and forced them to work.
Remember that slavery is a phenomenon of society which consists in making a person work day and night, under the most precarious conditions possible and without more pay than the food and shelter that a room with the minimum available resources can give.
Obviously, our Lord felt compassion for them, because they were simply slaves of a distorted and demonic law.
In that order of ideas Jesus says to them: "Take my yoke", but what is the yoke of Jesus? - Was it an unequal yoke for men subjected to unprecedented slavery? - The Lord introduces here a concept that is the center of the teaching of this verse. Understand that Jesus does not propose that we live in yoke, that is, in bondage. What he proposes is that we accept his yoke so that we can live in freedom because his yoke is not enslaving, nor selfish rusticity, his yoke is soft docile manageable and pleasant to reach the tired and worked.
That said, it is important to define what the yoke of Christ really means.
The yoke of Christ is based on his love, because his yoke extends to the limitations or restrictions that he uses in his mercy to keep us on the path of freedom. Jesus does not allow us to bring other yokes to enslave us He promises us his yoke in order to help us bear the burden through his power.
Our beloved savior knew that only with his yoke could we alleviate our burdens of excessive and frustrating demands of life since in this yoke are included the tribulations, storms, illnesses, sorrows, depressions among others and that therefore only we could never bear them .
When we carry the yoke of Christ we are submitting to his will, we are renouncing that supposed "freedom" that the world offers us. We are telling God that we want to walk with Him and grasp His yoke to truly receive a genuine and blessed freedom not given by men but by the grace of God.
