Many people who grew up in the church might remember going on church picnics. In some congregations, everyone in the church community would meet at a park or in someone’s paddock, worship in the open air, share a meal together, and then spend the afternoon playing games. Some of these games may have included sack races, egg and spoon races, wheelbarrow races, or three-legged races.
For those who might never have been involved in a three-legged race, the way they work is two people stand side by side with their inside legs tied together with rope or something similar to keep them together. The goal of the race was to see who could run the course the fastest without falling over. To do that, the two people involved needed to walk or run together. They couldn’t just do their own thing. They needed to move together as one, coordinating their movements, and learning from each other which foot to move when.
When Jesus invites his disciples to take his yoke from him in Matthew 11:29, he is asking us to learn to walk with him in a similar way to a three-legged race. While a ‘yoke’ can be something people used to place on their shoulders to carry heavier loads, the kind of yoke Jesus is talking about is one that is placed across the necks of two animals, for example oxen, so they can pull greater loads such as a cart or plow. One animal might be strong enough to pull something heavy, but when two animals are yoked together, the load is shared, and the burden is made easier.
For the two animals to work effectively, however, they need to walk together. If each animal decided to head in their own direction or do their own thing, they would be completely ineffective. For them to be able to accomplish the task and pull the cart or plow, they need to learn how to walk together, to move in unison and to keep in step with each other. Like two people in a three-legged race, if they are working independently, they won’t get very far. When they learn to walk together, however, they can achieve a lot.
Jesus’ invitation to ‘take up his yoke’ means learning to live in the way he teaches. This was a common phrase used to describe the relationship between teachers and their followers. Disciples would ‘take up the yoke’ of their teachers to signify that they were learning to live in the way their teachers were instructing them. When Jesus invites us to take up his yoke, he is inviting us to learn to walk with him and set out on a very different way of living our lives. As Eugene Petersen writes in his Message paraphrase of the Bible, Jesus invites us to learn from him ‘the unforced rhythms of grace.’
This is the way of life Jesus modelled to his Disciples during the three years of his earthly ministry. He embodied it in his life, his death, and resurrection. He summarised this way of life in his Great Command to love God with all our hearts, minds, souls and strength and to love our neighbours as ourselves (Matthew 22:34-40; Mark 12:28-34; Luke 10:25-28), and his New Command to love one another as he has loved us (John 13:34; 15:12,17). It’s the way of life King David described as trusting the Lord and doing good (Psalm 37:3), and Saint Paul defined as faith showing itself in love (Galatians 5:6).
Jesus promised that when we take up his yoke and learn this way of living that he teaches, we will ‘find rest for our souls’ (v29). In a world full of expectations, demands, and pressures, Jesus offers to lift our burdens in a similar way that two animals who are yoked together share the burden they are carrying. He offers rest to people who are weary of constantly trying to measure up, achieve more, or do better. When we are struggling under the weight of life for any reason, Jesus invites us to come to him and learn a new way of living, so he can lift those burdens from us and give us rest in our hearts and souls.
This rest which he offers takes various forms in our lives. Firstly, it means that we don’t have to constantly try to be good enough for God by keeping a set of rules, expectations, or religious traditions. Jesus lifts the burden of rules-based religion by doing everything that’s required for God to love us and be pleased with us through his life, death and resurrection for us. When we take up Jesus’ yoke and learn to walk with him, we find that we are justified purely by God’s grace, and he is pleased with us because of Christ in us.
The second way to find rest by learning Jesus’ way of living is in our relationships with other people. When we are put right with God through faith in Jesus, he also lifts the burden we can sometimes feel of trying to make other people happy or earning their approval. God loves us the way we are, so it doesn’t actually matter what other people think of us. Jesus still teaches us to love others, but he lifts the burden of trying to be good enough for others because we are already good enough for God through Jesus. As Paul wrote in Romans 8:31, ‘If God is for us, who can ever be against us?’ Jesus lifts our burdens when we learn his way of living in faith and love so we can be authentic and caring in our relationships with others.
The third way Jesus gives us rest when we learn to live his way is when we face challenges, difficulties, or problems. We can carry these like burdens, be don’t have to carry them on our own. Jesus calls us to share them with him, trust him in them, and find rest through faith in him. Paul goes on in Romans 8, ‘Since he did not spare even his own Son but gave him up for us all, won’t he also give us everything else?’ (NLT). We can find rest in Jesus’ promises by living every day in the faith that we are in God’s hands, he is on our side, and ‘God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose for them’ (Romans 8:28 NLT). We can find rest in the faith that, because of his great love for us in the suffering, death and resurrection of Jesus, God will work things out. All he asks us to do is to trust him and do good in our lives (Psalm 37:3).
Running a three-legged race isn’t easy because we often like to do our own thing and go our own way. To take up Jesus’ yoke and learn his way of living in faith and love can be even more difficult for us than running a three-legged race. It takes patience, persistence, and a community of faith around us which is learning to walk together in the way Jesus teaches. When we accept Jesus’ invitation, take up his yoke, and learn from him as his disciples, we will find that he will take our burdens, free us from what weighs us down, and give us rest as God’s people, because the yoke Jesus gives us is easy to bear and his burden is light.
More to think about or discuss:
- Have you ever tried running a three-legged race? How did you go? What was most challenging for you about it?
- What are some of the burdens you are carrying? In what ways are you weary or tired? How does Jesus’ offer of rest sound like good news to you?
- How might this day or week look if you were to learn from Jesus how to live in faith and love, loving others like he has loved you, or by trusting the Lord and doing good?
- How can our churches grow as communities where people can find rest for their souls?
Pastor Eugene Online 
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