Heavy Laden

More than fifty years ago, when I was a college freshman, this verse came to me:

“Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.” (Matt. 11:28–30)

Not having been raised in a Christian home, I had never read the Bible. But these words of Jesus came to me with power and conviction. Truth is, I was lost, and I knew it. I needed salvation, and here was someone offering me just that. Immediately, yes, immediately, I threw myself upon the promise of rest that these words offered, and I received it.

These words come after a scathing rebuke that Jesus had given to the cities of Chorazin and Bethsaida, where Jesus had preached and performed “mighty works” to almost no effect. The people of these cities heard Jesus’ preaching, but their hearts remained opposed to Him. Jesus tells them that if He had preached in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented “long ago in sackcloth and ashes” (v. 21). Then come words of terrible judgment. Because they had refused His message, a fate worse than Sodom and Gomorrah awaited them.

Then Jesus turns to His heavenly Father and gives thanks that in the redemptive purposes of God, He has hidden things from those who think themselves wise and revealed them instead to “little children” (v. 25).

John Bunyan (1628–88), in his allegory The Pilgrim’s Progress, describes the burden that is sin as a heavy load that Christian, the main character of the allegory, carries on his back and is unable to remove. Only when he comes to the tomb does his burden fall off.

He ran thus till he came at a place somewhat ascending; and upon that place stood a Cross, and a little below, in the bottom, a sepulchre. So I saw in my dream, that just as Christian came up to the cross, his burden loosed from off his shoulders, and fell from off his back, and began to tumble; and so continued to do till it came to the mouth of the sepulchre, where it fell in, and I saw it no more. Then was Christian glad and lightsome, and said, with a merry heart, “He hath given me rest by his sorrow, And life by his death.”

Horatius Bonar (1808–89) turned these beautiful words of Jesus into a hymn:

I heard the voice of Jesus say,
“Come unto me and rest;
lay down, O weary one, lay down
your head upon my breast.”
I came to Jesus as I was,
weary and worn and sad;
I found in him a resting place,
and he has made me glad.