The Yoke of Religion

"Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart; and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light."

Matthew 11: 29-30

These words of Jesus are universal, and fit every human being and every human situation. They are simple; they grasp the heart of the primitive as well as that of the profound, disturbing the mind of the wise. Practically every word of Jesus had this character.

What is the labor and burden from which we can find rest through Him?
It is not the labor or burden of life. Jesus does not promise us escape from life's travails and tragedies. The burden He wants to lift from us is the burden of religion. It is the yoke of the law, imposed on religious people at all times. We know we are more than dust, and yet we know that we are also going to be dust. We know we are of a higher order than that of our animal needs and desires; and yet we know that we shall abuse the higher order in the service of our lower nature. This is man; and because this is man, there is religion and law. The law of religion is the great attempt of man to overcome his anxiety and restlessness and despair, to close the gap within himself, and to reach immortality, spirituality, and perfection. So he labors and toils under the religious law in thought and in act. He labors and toils under the religious demand to believe things he cannot believe. Finally, he tries to escape the law of religion. But in doing so, he becomes skeptical, cynical and critical. He replaces one yoke for another. The religious law demands the perfect in all respects. And our conscience agrees with this demand. But the split in our being is derived from just this: that the perfect, although it is the truth, is beyond us, against us, judging and condemning us.


What is the easy yoke and the light burden which He will put upon us?
The yoke Jesus gives us is the "New Being." The new life above religion; outside religion. Victory over the law. Jesus is more than a priest or a prophet or a religious genius. These are all subject to religion. He frees us from religion. He overcomes the religious laws. The yoke of Jesus is easy in itself, because it is above law, and replaces the toiling and laboring with rest in our souls. It is not a new demand, a new doctrine, or new morals, but rather a new reality, a new being, and a new power of transforming life. He calls it a yoke, He means that it comes from above and grasps us with saving force. We know that now, in this moment, we are in the good, in spite of all our weakness and evil, in spite of the fragmentary and distorted character of our Self and the world. We have not become more moral or more saintly; we still belong to a world which is subject to evil and self-destruction. But the good of life is in us, uniting us with the good of everything, giving us the blessed experience of universal love. It is the uniqueness and the mystery of His Being, the embodiment, the full appearance of the New Being. He does not seek to impose a new religion upon anyone. Rather that He is the New Being in which everybody can participate, because it is universal and omnipresent.