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Life is full of questions. One we frequently ask, consciously sometimes and unconsciously other times, is this: how can I find some rest? Some people ask that question quite literally. They have trouble sleeping. They have insomnia. If Sominex can't do it, then how can I find some rest? they ask.

Others want a different kind of rest. They seek relief from a busy schedule. A rat-race daily life bugs them. Relief from family tensions is the goal of many today. There is too much nagging between parents and children, between parent and parent, and between one child and another. Some seek rest from investigations and tapes and Watergates. When will the newspapers stop printing all this stuff? Give us relief from the suggestion that untruth and scandal can make such deep inroads into our respectable American government. Oh, yes! Some rest in life! Contentment, serenity, quiet joy - we are looking for these premiums.

It is in this light that the words of Jesus here in this text sound so inviting. He says, "Take my yoke and put it on you ... and you will find rest." These words sound pertinent for you and me, isn't it so? For very often we feel "yoked" - burdened, driven, exploited, loaded down. So what is the promise that Christ holds out here? What is the yoke of Christ?

Well, obviously, the words of Jesus here are somewhat of a put-on. He says that his yoke is "easy," but a yoke is still a yoke. This, then, is no invitation to sail through life. There's no promise in Christianity that we will ever be completely and finally relieved of all burdens and challenges on this earth. The yoke of Christ doesn't ever mean no yoke at all. It's not a promise of sweetness and light, so you don't have to lift a finger again.

The yoke is still a yoke! The load is still a load. The word "yoke" is an agricultural term, of course. It's from the language of the farm. It refers to a wooden frame for joining two oxen or cows together in their task of pulling a load. It consisted of a cross-piece and two bows which fit around the necks of the animals. (Harpers) Jesus is now offering us this piece of subservience. He wants to fit us with a yoke of his own making. What kind of a yoke, then, is Jesus offering us?

Two points we can make about it. First, this: The yoke of Christ is easy and light when compared to other yokes. Again, not no burden at all, but a lighter burden when compared to other burdens. You and I have the challenge of dealing with our own sins, with our human failures, with our bad relationships with other people. Jesus is saying that there is an easier yoke or a more difficult one as we deal with these matters. He asks us to choose the easy yoke he offers.

Let's illustrate this. A ten-year-old boy and his friends love to play baseball. The boy's father has warned him many times, though, not to play in the schoolyard near their home. A $250.00 thermopane window faces the homeplate area of their makeshift diamond. The boys play there anyway. Our ten-year-old friend sends a foul tip ball sizzling backwards right through the thermopane window.

Now the boy must deal with his "sin," with this act that will no doubt call for some kind of accountability. He has a choice of burdens to bear. He may choose the route of concealment. Indeed his friends tell him to do that. It will be an easier way out. "Who knows whether anyone will even discover that we did this?" they ask. In doing that, the boy soon realizes that he has a yoke to bear anyway. His father becomes an object of fear, and fear is a burden. An innocent look from his father across the supper table becomes a suspicious glance in the boy's eyes. Every time the phone rings, the young lad wonders whether someone is calling to report the deed and the culprits. Life becomes uneasy. A heavy yoke is being borne.

On the other hand the boy may choose an easier yoke to bear. He may choose to deal with his human failing in a way we might call spiritually creative. The boy goes to his father immediately. Yes, there is the burden of self-humiliation to bear. He must painfully hear his father say, "I told you that would happen!" As every young person hates to realize, he must suffer the pain of admitting that in some ways his parents are more intelligent and better informed about life than he is. He may even have to bear the burden of ultimately working at summer jobs to pay for the window.

But his yoke is still easier than the route of concealment. For there is also the distinct possibility of hearing his father's word of forgiveness, of knowing that this deed has not really separated him from his father's love and grace.

This is the kind of easy yoke Christ offers us in view of our sins and human failures. Many are bearing the yoke of guilt, of concealment, of sin that nags, of sin not ever really confessed or faced. They do not choose a spiritually creative but spiritually fatal way of dealing with their sin and guilt.

Time and again I have seen people choose the easier yoke of Christ and thus the more spiritually satisfying way, in the counseling process. A person comes to a counselor - some minister or medical person, or other trained listener - and the glory of such sessions is often to witness the troubled person leaving the heavy yoke of concealment and repression and unreality, and choosing the lighter yoke of creatively dealing with personal shortcomings or inadequacies. People have often told me, even after an initial counseling session, that they feel a burden has been lifted from them.

This is no accidental feeling. They have taken on the easier yoke of Christ. But still a yoke, yes! Still some pain. Still some humiliation. The humiliation of telephoning for an appointment, admitting to themselves for the first time, often with pain, that they have a problem they cannot handle by themselves and they need help from the outside. Or the painful process of reviewing and verbalizing to the counselor just what the malady is that has been so distasteful to look at, that they have carried around with themselves and repressed for years.

Christ Jesus, the Son of God, who suffered for our sins and died for us on the cross, now lovingly invites us to choose a lighter load. He gives us the courage to deal creatively with our sin and guilt. He promises us that there is no reason why we can't become "a new creature."

So that is the first point we want to make about this yoke of Christ. It is easy and light when compared to the alternatives. And it is a well-fitting yoke too, this yoke of Christ. That is, well-fitting and therefore easy in comparison to a bad-fitting yoke. William Barclay tells about the legend in the Holy Land concerning Jesus the Carpenter. The legend says that Jesus helped his father, Joseph, make yokes for oxen in their carpenter shop at Nazareth. So successful was their workmanship, so well-fitting were their yokes, that a sign above the shop door read, "My yokes fit well."

That's what Jesus is saying to you and me today, "My yokes fit well!" That is as much to say, Jesus is an expert on life. He is the expert on how to live. He has captured the life-style that fits us human beings to a T - the way we were meant to live, the way God always dreamed we should live on his earth. Look at the witness of Christ's life in the Bible! Christ knows how to love, to forgive, to heal. Christ knows how to die, and to rise again. He knows life! He wants to give all of that to you and me.

You and I think we know life. We think we know how to live. But so often we make even the simplest and most beautiful things of life a burden - things like marriage and sexual love and the family and working with others. We often end up with a yoke that doesn't fit very well. It rubs at the neck. The nerves become sensitive, the skin grows raw. The picture of history has often been one of a bleeding humanity. And all the time an easier way is waiting for us. A gracious Lord is offering us a lighter load. So courage to all of us today as we dare to take upon us the yoke of Christ!