A reading of the holy gospel according to Saint Matthew. Jesus spoke as follows. Come to me, all you who are weary and find life burdensome. And I will refresh you. Take my yoke upon your shoulders and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble of heart.
Your souls will find rest, for my yoke is easy and my burden is light. This is the gospel of the lord. The name of the father and of the son and the holy spirit. Amen. That text that I just read from Saint Matthew, of course, is very consoling.
The difficulty with it is that we often find it not so. Often enough, when we most need god's hand supporting us, it doesn't seem to be visible. We seem deserted. We seem alone. Now, the worst mistake we can make is to think we're alone.
The worst and the most grievous mistake we can make is to think that this is something unique, that I am the first one who's experienced this, as if the book of Job had never been written. Or above all, that Jesus Christ had not ever been on the cross. And when he was at his lowest, lowest level of suffering, what did Christ say? What did our lord utter from the cross? My god.
My god. Why have you abandoned me? They are very mysterious words. I'm the first one to agree with you but the point is unless Christ was putting on a a hypocritical performance, and he was just doing some play acting, the son of god on the cross felt himself completely abandoned. And this is a commonplace in life.
It it doesn't we we don't live in this state all the time, but there are very few men and women who come into this world and live to maturity who don't experience this. They believe in God. They have faith in God. They have been faithful as well as they could to God. And when they need him most, he ain't there.
To all appearances, he is not there. The as I say, the most grievous error we can make is to think that this is something unique with me, that no one has ever set no one has ever experienced this. As I say, that totally forgets a a whole lot of things, but above all, it forgets Jesus Christ and what he suffered. You see, suffering is a fact of life. There is so much talk today right in among our own about making this a great and glorious world.
We're right we're falling into Marxist channels as if Christ came to make this a better world. There is not the slightest word in the New Testament where Christ ever said, I have come to make this a good, a happy world so that you will be comfortable in it. He said just the opposite. My kingdom is not of this world. If you follow me, the world will hate you.
They will persecute you. I have come to bring the sword, not peace. I have come to set brother against brother, father against son, son against father, daughter-in-law against mother-in-law. That's they're Christ's own words. Was he kidding?
This text of our lord today is tremendous, but you've got to look at it word by word. Notice the pronouns my. Notice it's carrying his cross. Now what do you mean by carrying his cross? What does this mean in fact?
Well, I one of the things it means is just doing what Christ did, carrying his cross. Another consequence is don't think yourself better than Jesus Christ. Take the Garden Of Gethsemane. Here we here we have our Christ said, if you pray, you can move mountains. You just haven't had enough faith.
So Christ goes in the Garden Of Gethsemane, throws himself down in prayer. He has a whole vision of what he's going to go through. Suffering is the name for it. And we you know, we glamorize suffering until it hits us personally. There's nothing beautiful or lovely or magnificent about suffering.
It's repulsive. Christ throws himself down, and he begs god to free him of what he has to go through. What's the answer? No. He has to go through with it.
So when you talk about the cross of Christ, remember, that's the only one he ever talked about. Suffering didn't come with Jesus Christ. There was a lot of suffering in the world before Christ came. There was gonna be a lot since it came. There's nothing new.
People have there have been men and women who have faced up to suffering heroically without any benefit of Christianity. But what Christ says is carrying his cross, staying with him. Carry my burden, you will find light. My burden. Notice that pronoun my, his.
And so this text this text this morning, while it has been a tremendous, tremendous consolation, and it should be. But let's not mistake it. Christ was no Marxist. The the way of the cross is the way of every Christian. It does and and I've said, man, this is not a philosophy of pessimism.
This is not a philosophy of grim heroism. Not at all. This is not a philosophy of gritting your teeth and muddling through. Nothing like that. This is a way of life that Jesus came to teach me to live with him.
See, there's the important little phrase, with him, with Jesus Christ. And so when he talks about the burden, remember, you're going to have a burden whether you're a Christian, pagan, Jew, or Gentile. You'll have plenty of burdens. Off and on, they get worse, and off and on, they get better. But we are all have burdens.
We all have concerns. We all have tragedies. We all have crises. Some of them are through our own fault. That doesn't make it any more easy.
Some of them, as far as we can see, I had nothing to do with. Nothing to do with. And yet, I'm clobbered. There's no other work. Take the book of Job.
I cannot improve on the book of Job, but silly enough to try. So here is the picture. Now what is what has Christ done? He has come to give us his answer to this problem of pain and of suffering. His prob his his solution, and it's not the solution of philosophers.
It's not the solution of reason. It's the solution of the son of God. All he asks of us is to come follow him, and then we will find his burden light. In the name of the father, and the son, and holy spirit. Amen.