"Come to me all who are weary and burdened and I will give you rest."
Matthew 11:28
"Come to me".
Jesus is the one who invites the weary and burdened.
Jesus is the one who offers his strength and direction.
Jesus is the one whose heart's essence is gentleness and humility.
Jesus is the one who has come to us and then said come to me.
In this season so many people are saying "come to me". Come to my YouTube channel, my social feed, my group, my cause.
The result: roiled people looking for revolution.
Jesus says, come to me and I will give you rest. Come to me all who are weary and burdened. All who are burdened living under Roman occupation and taxation. All who are weary from the complexity of the Pharisees' teaching. All who are weary from living under the weight of this fraught world. In this season of fatigue and financial stress, of the strain of not knowing, of the tension of holding together the people of God, Jesus says to us as leaders, come to me, not despite of what weighs on us but because of it.
Bring it to me, all of it; the despondency, the disappointment, the loneliness and loss, the grief and the gossip, the loss and the sense of languishing, the juggling and the sense of injustice. Come to me all who are weary and burdened and I will give you rest. Rest from the relentless noise. Rest from the revolutions. Rest from the dopamine rush. Rest from being riled. Rest from the restlessness. Rest from hot-takes, responses and reactions.
In this season Jesus says, come to me and I will give you rest.
Jesus’ rest strengthens our resolve.
His rest reminds us it’s his Church. He can hold out this rest to us, because he holds the present, and the future in his hands.
He offers this rest to us because he has fought the battle with the powers and authorities and ultimately defeated them at the cross.
He holds out this rest to us because at the cross he dealt with the sin that soaks our hearts. Soaking in his rest isn’t passive, it’s active. It’s actively declaring to the thousands of voices calling “come to me” that we have found our rest in Jesus instead.
It’s declaring to these voices who can each subtly invite us to be centre of our story, that Jesus is the centre of our lives, and that he is enough. Can I invite you in this restless season to come to Jesus, through his Word, by his Spirit, in his community and he will give you rest.
