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In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

            I think you probably know the feeling. It comes at the beginning of the week, or at the end of the week; it comes at the beginning of the semester, or at the end; it comes at the beginning of the school year, or the end; it comes in the middle of the summer: when you feel the burdens you bear. You are weary, heavy-laden, burdened, weighed down with all of the things you want to do, all the things you have to do, and all the things you know you should do. And the time never comes when you can say, “I’ve finished everything.” So maybe you can genuinely feel the invitation of Jesus: “Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest.” I will cause you to rest. I will refresh and revive you.

            Probably everyone knows that feeling, even workaholics. We are creatures, not the Creator. Our bodies and minds were not made to work and work and work, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. You can’t. You’ll go insane. Your body and your mind needs rest. That’s part of being a creature, and it’s built into the very days of creation. Rest. But everyone knows that, even if they don’t do it. They work all week in order to rest. They work for a while in order to rest on vacation. I suspect the vast majority of people feel burdened and desire to find rest. The rest Jesus talks about, then, is something that is not obvious to everyone, or that everyone can just figure out. It is revealed, which you can’t cause. You can’t make God reveal stuff. It’s always a continual gift.  

Jesus says, “I praise You Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that You have hidden these things from the wise and understanding, and revealed them to little children.” So this is something different from the normal kind of rest that our bodies need. And of course it’s not only to children little in age. But as opposed to the self-sufficient, independent, successful, powerful, autonomous people, those who need no one and can do it all themselves. (Sounds, in fact, like a child, but we’ll let that pass.) No, little children are those who are not considered important; those who have to be given what they need; those who cannot pay, who cannot bring anything, who are dependent, needy, and must be cared for. Those are the little children consistently in Matthew’s Gospel. So God has hidden “these things” from the wise and understanding, and revealed them to little children. We hear the beginning of these verses where Matthew says “at that time” and Jesus talks about “these things.” What time and what things?

            Before this, from the beginning of the chapter, some disciples of John had come to ask John’s question of Jesus: Are you the one who is to come or should we wait for someone else? And Jesus could have said, Yes, I am the one for whom you’ve been waiting. But He doesn’t. Instead, He tells them to go tell John what they’ve seen and heard, and then Jesus tells them the things that mark the reign of God on earth: the sick are healed, the blind see, the deaf hear, the lame walk, the dead are raised, the poor have good news preached to them. All of this is the hint, the whisper, the rumor of what is to come in the resurrection, when everything that’s gone wrong will be put right. Go tell John what you’ve seen and heard, these mighty works of God in Jesus.

            Then Jesus rebukes the cities who have seen these mighty works and still have not believed Jesus. Woe to you, Chorazin. Woe to you, Bethsaida. Woe to you, Capernaum. If Sodom and Gomorrah had seen these things, they would have repented immediately in sackcloth and ashes. But not you!

            At that time, Jesus said, I praise You, Father, Lord of heaven and earth. You have hidden these things from the wise and understanding and revealed them to little children. These mighty works of God were believed by the lesser, the weaker, the helpless, the dependent, the needy, the lost. Those who depend on themselves, who believe that everything they have comes from their own resources, who put the entire weight of understanding on their own finite reason and wisdom, they do not believe Jesus.

            One of the things Jesus is doing here is repeating the word spoken by God through Jeremiah. In fact, He cites Jeremiah 6:16. He says, Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am lowly and gentle in heart, and you will find rest for your souls, because My yoke is easy and My burden is light. “You will find rest from your souls” is a near direct quotation from Jeremiah 6. There, the prophet tells the people: “Thus says Yahweh: ‘Stand by the roads and look, and ask for the ancient paths, where the good way is; and walk in it, and you will find rest for your souls.” But the people, the wise and the understanding, said, “We will not walk in it.” These are the people who do not believe the Word in flesh, though the mighty work of God is standing right in front of you, and His actions are hitting you over the head. They saw it, and they did not believe. Here is the way! Walk in it! You will have rest! No, they said.

            So it always went and so it always goes. But Jesus is not just citing a verse; He’s fulfilling it. He’s saying exactly the same thing: If you stand by the roads and ask for the ancient paths, in which is the good way, and walk in it, you will find rest for your souls. I don’t just show you the good way; I don’t just tell you about the good way; rest is not an abstract ideal. I am the good way, and I am your rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. I don’t know much about farming with cattle. All the farmers in Minnesota had moved on to combines and tractors. But I suspect, at least, that one head of oxen under a single yoke, without a good driver, will just go wherever and whenever. But if there is a double yoke, and there are two oxen, then they can’t go separate ways. And you have been yoked to Jesus. It does not mean that you will never get tired or weary; it doesn’t mean that you don’t have burdens and responsibilities. In fact, God put you here and now with the people around you precisely to carry out the responsibilities to them that God has commanded. These good works are good because God commanded them. And the responsibilities and duties, which are sometimes burdens, they never end as long as you are in this world, in this life. There’s always someone who will need something from you, and God put you there to give it to them, whether it’s a spouse, a child, a parent, a co-worker, the people to whom the fruits of your work go, or whomever God happens to bring into your life today or tomorrow or the next day. And you need rest from that. Your body and your mind needs it. That’s what it means to be a creature.

            But there’s more in what Jesus says: you need the rest He gives; not rest only for a hour, or only for a three-day weekend, or only from your wearying responsibilities. But you need rest from your sin and from your death. You daily fight the battle between the law of the Spirit and the law of the flesh. You need rest that transcends the wearing out of your body under the burdens of love you owe to one another. Who will rescue me from this body of death? Thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord, Jesus Christ. He says, Come to Me. I will revive and refresh and give you rest; ask for the ancient paths, in which God chose you in Christ before the foundation of the world. Now He has yoked you together with your Lord, so that you would always walk the good way. You, dear little ones in Christ, you can’t see where you’re going or what the future will require of you. But you do know that you hold the hand of your Father in heaven, who is Lord of heaven and earth. Jesus carried the entire burden of your sin and death, and opened up for you resurrection life on the other side of death. That eternal Sabbath rest He gives to you now in His Word, Absolution, Body and Blood. Learn from Him as you walk beside Him on the good way, and He will bring you all the way to that eternal Day, where you, like all the saints before you, will rest from your labors.

In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. “And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 4:7, ESV). Amen.

— Pr. Timothy Winterstein, 7/3/26