Relational Rest

Matthew 11:27-30

“All things have been handed over to me by my Father, and no one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him. 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.”

Tom Wright, Matthew for Everyone (Vol. 1)

[T]he ease and the joy, the rest and the refreshment which he offered, all spring from his own inner character, his gentleness and warmth to all who turn to him, weighed down by burdens moral, physical, emotional, financial or whatever. He is offering what he has in himself to offer.

And the welcome he offers, for all who abandon themselves to his mercy, is the welcome God offers through him. This is the invitation which pulls back the curtain and let’s us see who “the father” really is—and encourages us to come into his loving, welcoming presence (137).

A. Orendorff

Like the “great calm” Jesus brings amidst the raging storm in Matthew 8:23-27, the “rest” Jesus offers to “all who labor and are heavy laden” does not mean the cessation of all outward burdens; it does not mean our lives themselves will suddenly be marked by a great improvement in external conditions. Over and against the Pharisees, who “tie up heavy burdens, hard to bear, and lay them on people’s shoulders” (Matt. 23:4), Jesus offers an “easy” yoke and a burden that is light. This rest is, as Wright says, sourced in the God-revealing person of the Son Himself. It is a relational rest, one that brings an end to all our efforts at self-justification and instead entrusts itself to the One who has, on our behalf, “fulfilled all righteousness.”

How desperately we need this rest; how desperately we need to draw near to Him in whose presence alone this rest resides; and how desperately we need to learn from Him what it means to be loved by One who is “gentle and humble in heart.”