Take my yoke upon you

11 DECEMBER (Mt 11,28-30)

After Christ Jesus spoke nobody might say that he moves away from the Good Shepherd, because he imposes on the shoulders of his flock a heavy and oppressive yoke. Ancient history can enlighten us so that we understand what Jesus reveals us today.

Rehoboam went to Shechem, where all Israel had come to proclaim him king. Jeroboam, son of Nebat, who was still in Egypt, where he had fled from King Solomon, returned from Egypt as soon as he learned this. They said to Rehoboam: “Your father put on us a heavy yoke. If you now lighten the harsh service and the heavy yoke your father imposed on us, we will serve you.” “Come back to me in three days,” he answered them. When the people had departed, King Rehoboam consulted the elders who had been in his father’s service while he was alive, and asked, “What answer do you advise me to give this people?” They replied, “If today you will be the servant of this people and submit to them, giving them a favorable answer, they will be your servants forever.” But he ignored the advice the elders had given him, and consulted the young men who had grown up with him and were in his service. He said to them, “What answer do you advise me to give this people, who have asked me to lighten the yoke my father imposed on them?” The young men who had grown up with him replied, “This is what you must say to this people who have asked you to lighten the yoke your father put on them: ‘My little finger is thicker than my father’s body. Whereas my father put a heavy yoke on you, I will make it heavier. My father beat you with whips, but I will beat you with scorpions.'” On the third day all Israel came back to King Rehoboam, as he had instructed them to do. Ignoring the advice the elders had given him, the king gave the people a harsh answer. He said to them, as the young men had advised: “My father put on you a heavy yoke, but I will make it heavier. My father beat you with whips, but I will beat you with scorpions.” The king did not listen to the people, for the Lord brought this about to fulfill the prophecy he had uttered to Jeroboam, son of Nebat, through Ahijah the Shilonite. When all Israel saw that the king did not listen to them, the people answered the king: “What share have we in David? We have no heritage in the son of Jesse. To your tents, O Israel! Now look to your own house, David.”So Israel went off to their tents, but Rehoboam reigned over the Israelites who lived in the cities of Judah. King Rehoboam then sent out Adoram, superintendent of the forced labor, but all Israel stoned him to death. Rehoboam managed to mount his chariot to flee to Jerusalem, and Israel went into rebellion against David’s house to this day (1Kings 12,1-19).

The people of God is divided by a hard, heavy yoke, by an excessive taxation, needed to aliment the nascent immorality of the king’s court. Immorality always needs large sums of money to feed itself. Immorality and the heavy yoke of taxes are one thing. Who wants to reduce taxes, must eliminate immorality, easy customs, the vices of the court and every courtier. Today, it is impossible to eliminate immorality, because the court is so branched as to be the most numerous part of the people. The courtiers are an army that cannot be counted.
Jesus came and abolished the court. Not even around his person did it ever exist. He established the anti kingdom, the anti court and the anti structure. He created a people in which one is cemented only by true love and the purest charity. Not having the court, one cannot have a heavy yoke either in the material or in the spiritual order. His yoke is only love until the end. His weight is the charity that knows no obstacles.

“Come to me, all you who labor and are burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am meek and humble of heart; and you will find rest for your selves. For my yoke is easy, and my burden light.”

If we examine the two yokes, the heavy one of vice, immorality, dishonesty, sin and the other very light one of Christ, which is the yoke of obedience to God, of virtue, of holiness, of true freedom; we must confess that really the yoke of Jesus is light and its burden soft and sweet. It suffices to ponder things.

Virgin Mary, Mother of the Redemption, Angels and Saints make us love the yoke of Jesus.