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The Lord has sweet and consoling words for us this Sunday: “come to me, all you who labor and are burdened, and I will give you rest.”

Earlier in this chapter of Matthew’s Gospel, Christ has been dealing with the contradictions, questions and doubts of the crowds. They had been drawn to John the Baptist but did not want to believe him. They thought John was a madman because of all his fasting but call Jesus a glutton because he does not fast as much. The various towns in which Christ had even gone so far as to work miracles, like Chorazin, Bethsaida and Capernaum, had not repented or turned to Jesus in faith, but continued to doubt and question and contradict. It is during all this unsettled and noisy controversy among those who think themselves wise in the things of the world that Christ first praises the “little ones” to whom the Father has quietly revealed the knowledge of heavenly things and then promises rest to those who labor and are burdened.

This context helps us to understand what sort of burden Christ wants to take away and what rest he gives in its place. Above all, the burden Jesus removes is the weight of sin and the tyranny of the world. The crowds from earlier in Matthew 11 bear this burden, weighed down by the pride that stifles belief, caught up in the constant discussion and distraction that the spirit of the world stirs up in the face of Jesus’ teaching and healing. Those who consider themselves to be “the wise and the learned” chase after the esteem of others, spend their energy holding on to a place of honor in the world and so find themselves unable to raise their heavy eyes up to the things of heaven, which are in turn revealed to the “little ones.”

Pope Gregory I described this burden of sin and worldly attachment saying: “it is a cruel yoke and hard weight of servitude to be subject to the things of time, to be ambitious of the things of earth, to cling to falling things … to desire things that pass away, but to be unwilling to pass away with them.” We still struggle with the same burden, either of our sins which weigh us down, or of the futile desire to hold on to the passing things of the world, the desire to lay the foundations of our lives in things that are not firm, like pleasures, honors, achievements, possessions and plans.

In place of this weight and futility that comes with bearing sin and chasing the things of this life, Christ offers rest and an easy yoke. It might seem strange, especially in our modern context, to call the Christian life a light burden.

Perhaps we have experienced the demands of Christ’s teachings and thought them heavy. His commands are light though, especially in comparison with the weight of the futile world of time, because they lead to what is eternally true, beautiful and good, and because they come to us as a gift and invitation of love.

Christ’s burden is light because he loves us. The burdens of sin and of the world are heavy because they love only themselves and are at best indifferent to our true good. The more clearly we understand that truth, that Christ alone perfectly loves us, and so he alone can give us real rest, the easier it is to see the enticements of sin and of the world for what they are, and to pass by them with the joyful indifference of little children enraptured by something far more wonderful.