Reflection on Matthew 11:28-30 

After a long, arduous journey, it always feels good to finally come home.  We just feel grateful about it although we are still tired.  We can breathe a sigh of relief that the long ride is over and we can now rest in the comfort of our community and our home. 

Life has always been likened to such a long journey with God as our final destination and our true home in whom we can find rest.  This season of advent, we take a stance of actively continuing our life journey toward Jesus Christ, who we expect to come and to meet us on the road any moment now to bring us home to the Father.  It is just like meeting a friend or family waiting for us at an airport or bus terminal to take us and our luggage home.  The familiar face or a love one meeting us is sure to light up our face and bring us joy.  In this sense, Christ’s second coming is something we eagerly look forward to.

But even when the journey is far from over, Jesus offers himself as “resting place” for weary travelers.  He says, “Come to me, all you who labor and are burdened, and I will give you rest.”  Jesus is inviting all of us to rest in him.  The gospel passage strikes a resonant chord inside each one of us especially when we are burdened, discouraged or depressed about our life situation.  What a great comfort to have a God to whom we can lift up all our troubles!

To top it all, it is not just rest that Jesus offers us.  He also offers to carry our burden with us.  You know, the yoke that the Jews used at the time of Jesus is not just for one ox but for a pair of oxen to enable them to pull together on a load.  So, when he said, “Take my yoke upon you,” he was really saying let me carry your load with you.  With Jesus, we will never be alone carrying our own struggles, pains and sorrows.

His invitation does not end there; he also wants us to learn from him who is meek and humble of heart.  He wants us to learn how to carry our burdens like he does – with great love.  Then, and only then, will we realize that our burden is light, for love will allow us to carry all.  For someone who is in love, nothing is difficult.  We just have to remember that it is humanly possible, what with the sacrifices of some people we know, maybe our parents, a brother or a sister for a significant other.  We have seen people willingly sacrificing their time and effort for someone they truly love.  We may have been recipient of such a sacrifice, too.  If we can do so much for someone we love, how much more can we carry when we are in love, I mean, truly in love with God?  Still the greatest example we have is the love Jesus have for all of us that his whole existence was dedicated for our sake.  He loved us so much that he embraced death on the cross freely.  His load was heavy but as he loved us truly, he carried them lightly.

To sum up, Jesus teaches us in three lessons in three short verses:  ( 1) to surrender everything to him so we may have rest, (2) to take his yoke that he may carry our load with us, and (3) to carry our load for the love of Jesus.   May these lessons be lived for the rest of our life journey as we look forward to meeting Christ waiting for us to take us home. 


RYo

A reflection on Luke 5:17-26, Gospel Reading for Monday, 2nd Week of Advent

Having preconceived notions makes us less open to other ideas and  possibilities.  What we hold as the lens through which we try to grasp reality is often used as the standard what to accept and what to reject.  

Here stems the problem of the Pharisees and Scribes in relation to Jesus.  They have a firm system of belief that defines who God is, and with this belief system, they try to "control" how God should manifest himself and how God should act.  God's forgiveness and purification can only be gained through the sacrifice of the priests at the temple in Jerusalem, and the observance of the Mosaic law on ritual purity.  They have failed to realize that God is bigger than their own ideas and interpretations of the Torah.  They have failed to acknowledge that God is free to be Godself, escaping all human expectations.  The narrow confines of their definition of the Divine and the Divine activities prevented them from being open to the idea that God can choose to empty himself and be human, and yet continue God’s act of love and mercy made concrete (in this gospel passage) in the forgiveness of the sins of the paralytic man.

Jesus was just being true to his Divine essence.  He was acting out who he is that extending forgiveness to the paralytic is only natural for him.  By doing so, or by being so, Jesus challenged the beliefs of the Pharisees and Scribes and went on to prove that he, indeed, has authority to forgive sins by healing the man in a very dramatic way.  Having preconceived notions makes us less open to other possibilities.  But when Jesus Christ moved, all – even the Pharisees and the Scribes - were astonished and ALL glorified God.

Today’s gospel, therefore, challenges us to examine what preconceived notions of God we have, images that we should be ready to give up to enable us to recognize the Divine activity unfolding right before our eyes.  The same gospel also assures us that even in our stubbornness and shortcomings, when God moves, any notion we cling or hang on to will be no match to God’s manifestation of his mercy and love… we will all be astonished, and we will all be glorifying God! 

May all our notions and images of God be shattered so that we may know God as God is.


RYo