'Come unto Me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden,
and I will give you rest. 29. 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.'--MATT. xi. 28, 29.
One does not know whether tenderness or majesty is predominant in
these wonderful words. A divine penetration into man's true
condition, and a divine pity, are expressed in them. Jesus looks
with clearsighted compassion into the inmost history of all hearts,
and sees the toil and the sorrow which weigh on every soul. And no
less remarkable is the divine consciousness of power, to succour and
to help, which speaks in them. Think of a Jewish peasant of thirty
years old, opening his arms to embrace the world, and saying to all
men, 'Come and rest on My breast.' Think of a man supposing himself
to be possessed of a charm which could soothe all sorrow and lift
the weight from every heart.
A great sculptor has composed a group where there diverge from the
central figure on either side, in two long lines, types of all the
cruel varieties of human pains and pangs; and in the midst stands,
calm, pure, with the consciousness of power and love in His looks,
and with outstretched hands, as if beckoning invitation and dropping
benediction, Christ the Consoler. The artist has but embodied the
claim which the Master makes for Himself here. No less remarkable is
His own picture of Himself, as 'meek and lowly in heart.' Did ever
anybody before say, 'I am humble,' without provoking the comment,
'He that says he is humble proves that he is not'? But Jesus Christ
said it, and the world has allowed the claim; and has answered,
'Though Thou bearest record of Thyself, Thy record is true.'
But my object now is not so much to deal with the revelation of our
Lord contained in these marvellous words, as to try, as well as I
can, to re-echo, however faintly, the invitation that sounds in
them. There is a very striking reduplication running through them
which is often passed unnoticed. I shall shape my remarks so as to
bring out that feature of the text, asking you to look first with me
at the twofold designation of the persons addressed; next at the
twofold invitation; and last at the twofold promise of rest.
I. Consider then the twofold designation here of the persons
addressed, 'Come unto Me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden.'
The one word expresses effort and toil, the other a burden and
endurance. The one speaks of the active, the other of the passive,
side of human misery and evil. Toil is work which is distasteful in
itself, or which is beyond our faculties. Such toil, sometime or
other, more or less, sooner or later, is the lot of every man. All
work becomes labour, and all labour, sometime or other, becomes
toil. The text is, first of all, and in its most simple and surface
meaning, an invitation to all the men who know how ceaseless, how
wearying, how empty the effort and energy of life is, to come to
this Master and rest.
You remember those bitter words of the Book of Ecclesiastes, where
the preacher sets forth a circle of labour that only comes back to
the point where it began, as being the law for nature and the law
for man. And truly much of our work seems to be no better than that.
We are like squirrels in a cage, putting forth immense muscular
effort, and nothing to show for it after all. 'All is vanity, and
striving after wind.'
Toil is a curse; work is a blessing. But all our work darkens into
toil; and the invitation, 'Come unto Me, all ye that labour,'
reaches to the very utmost verge of the world and includes every
soul.
And then, in like manner, the other side of human experience is set
forth in that other word. For most men have not only to work, but to
bear; not only to toil, but to sorrow. There are efforts that need
to be put forth, which task all our energy, and leave the muscles
flaccid and feeble. And many of us have, at one and the same moment,
to work and to weep, to toil whilst our hearts are beating like a
forge-hammer; to labour whilst memories and thoughts that might
enfeeble any worker, are busy with us. A burden of sorrow, as well
as effort and toil, is, sooner or later, the lot of all men.
But that is only surface. The twofold designation here before us
goes a great deal deeper than that. It points to two relationships
to God and to God's law of righteousness. Men labour with vague and
yet with noble effort, sometimes, to do the thing that is right, and
after all efforts there is left a burden of conscious defect. In the
purest and the highest lives there come both of these things. And
Jesus Christ, in this merciful invitation of His, speaks to all the
men that have tried, and tried in vain, to satisfy their consciences
and to obey the law of God, and says to them, 'Cease your efforts,
and no longer carry that burden of failure and of sin upon your
shoulders. Come unto Me, and I will give you rest.'
I should be sorry to think that I was speaking to any man or woman
who had not, more or less, tried to do what is right. You have
laboured at that effort with more or less of consistency, with more
or less of earnestness. Have you not found that you could not
achieve it?
I am sure that I am speaking to no man or woman who has not upon his
or her conscience a great weight of neglected duties, of actual
transgressions, of mean thoughts, of foul words and passions, of
deeds that they would be ashamed that any should see; ashamed that
their dearest should catch a glimpse of. My friend, universal
sinfulness is no mere black dogma of a narrow Calvinism; it is no
uncharitable indictment against the race; it is simply putting into
definite words the consciousness that is in every one of your
hearts. You know that, whether you like to think about it or not,
you have broken God's law, and are a sinful man. You carry a burden
on your back whether you realise the fact or no, a burden that clogs
all your efforts, and that will sink you deeper into the darkness
and the mire. 'Come unto Me, all ye that labour,' and with noble,
but, at bottom, vain, efforts have striven after right and truth.
'Come unto Me all ye that are burdened,' and bear, sometimes
forgetting it, but often reminded of its pressure by galled
shoulders and wearied limbs, the burden of sin on your bent backs.
This invitation includes the whole race. In it, as in a blank form,
you may each insert your name. Jesus Christ speaks to thee, John,
Thomas, Mary, Peter, whatever thy name may be, as distinctly as if
you saw your name written on the pages of your New Testament, when
He says to you, 'Come unto Me, _all_ ye that labour and are
heavy laden.' For the 'all' is but the sum of the units; and I, and
thou, and thou, have our place within the word.