Tuesday, April 17, 2007

Yoke... and not the kind you find in eggs.

What a week...

So i've been thinking a lot about the Yoke of Jesus. Becuase he said that is yoke is easy and his burden is light...

Ever just wonder what exactly a yoke is? Thanks to Aaron and Rob Bell... its not at all what I once thought it was. Check this out...

"Different rabbis had different sets of rules, which were really different lists of what they forbade and what they permitted. A rabbi's set of rules and lists, which was really that rabbi's interpretation of how to live the Torah, was called that rabbi's yoke. When you followed a certain rabbi, you were following him becuase you believed that rabbi's set of interpretations were the closest to what God intended through the Scriptures. And when you followed that rabbi, you were taking up that rabbi's yoke.
One rabbi even said his yoke was easy."

Thats some good stuff... but it gets better...

Isaiah 58 has a little something to say about yokes as well...

58:6 "Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen:
to loose the chains of injustice
and untie the cords of the yoke,
to set the oppressed free
and to break every yoke?"

58: 9-10 "... If you do away with the yoke of oppression,
with the pointing finger and malicious talk,
and if you spend yourselves in behalf of the hungry
and satisfy the needs of the oppressed,
then your light will rise in the darkness,
and your night will become like noonday."

This whole chapter is explaining that fasting, trying to meet with God, trying to get fixed by God... is a lot more than just fasting. This passage shows the giving part of it... the pouring out will refill you and help you meet with God, and will help you 'get fixed'.

I like the yoke parts specifically... untie the cords of the yoke... starting living... and start loving.
I'm all about it.

I've also been doing a little thinking about John the Baptist (thanks to Louie)... what a guy...
"Behold, the Lamb of God!" ... my favorite thing that he says. I can picture it... he has the crowd, the attention, all eyes on him... and Jesus shows up... and I can hear him just joyfully shouting this, pointing all the eyes that were just on him... onto Jesus. He passed all his fame to the "Lamb of God." He was willing to be nothing... for Jesus to be everything.
such challenging stuff...


In other news...
This stuff with VT is enough to make you sick... what an awful awful situation. I don't even know what I should be praying for...

I have to know Lord... did you cover your eyes?

6 comments:

laurannyoung said...

this could be long, but i just read it in The Irresistible Revolution by Shane Claiborne and it kinda went along with what you were talking about. check it out.


"The simple way is not the easy way. No one ever promised us that community or Christian discipleship would be easy. There's a commonly mistranslated verse where Jesus tells the disciples, 'Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest...For my yoke is good and my burden is light.' People take that to mean that if we come to Jesus, everything will be easy. (The word good is often mistranslated as "easy") Ha, that's funny. My life was pretty easy before I met Jesus. In one sense, the load is lighter because we carry the burdens of the world together. But he is still telling us to pick up a yoke. Yoke had a lot of different meanings. It was the tool used for harnessing animals for farming. It was the word used to taking on a rabbi's teaching(as Jesus seems to use it here). Yoke was also the word used for the brutal weight of slavery and oppression that the prophets call us to break(Isaiah 58, among other passages). One of the things I think Jesus is doing is setting us free from the heavy yoke of an oppressive way of life. I know plenty of people, both rich and poor, who are suffocating from the weight of the American dream, who find themselves heavily burdened by the lifeless toil and consumption we put upon ourselves. This is the yoke we are being set free from. The new yoke is still not easy(it's a cross, for heavens sake), but we carry it together, and it is good and leads us to rest, especially for the weariest traveler."

that's it, love love love you!

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