Theology Blog

Recently I was teaching a class on the spiritual disciplines at church and did a teaching on Lectio Divina. In teaching on this topic, I also had the group practice it and we used a passage from Matthew 25, part of which is below. Even in leading the experience, I had a different encounter with the passage:

“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” Matthew 25:28-30

I love this passage and it is certainly relevant in our American culture today. We do need to come to the feet of Jesus for rest and God desires to restore us. Jesus is gentle, humble, and ready to carry our burdens. All of this is important and true and there is no question that we need rest. There is no question that life carries many burdens and we need to learn to go to Christ for rest and RESToration as a first resort rather than a last resort. All of this is true, but I noticed something new in reading this passage this time.

At the end, Jesus says that his ‘burden is light.’ I have always seen this as a commentary of the strength of Jesus to carry our burden, or as an commentary on the power of Christ. This time, I noticed something different that was connected to Luther’s commentary that ‘all is hidden and revealed in the cross.’ Jesus burden is LIGHT. Jesus’ suffering is His light to the world. Suffering is a light to us. Jesus, carrying His burden, all of our burdens is THE LIGHT. We traditionally see suffering as dark and not light. When we do Good Friday services, all is black and we come to Easter in a pure white. This makes sense, but it all plays into our understanding that Easter is the important event, but its all the leads up to that day that is also important.

The question is, is suffering dark or is it light?