Learn from me

I must have read Matthew 11:27-30 a thousand times before:

All things have been handed over to me by my Father, and no one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him. Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you 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. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.

But this morning I noticed something that I'm sure I've seen before, but I had always glossed over it. It's what links the two halves of this famous saying of Jesus. And it's so important.

Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me.

It's always worth noticing when the Bible doesn't say quite what we would have written. From the way I've always read, and taught, these verses before, I would have instinctively written "take my yoke upon you and obey me".

Jesus doesn't: "Learn from me".

Why so? Well the first sentence of that passage tells us that there are only two types of people who can claim to know God truly.

The first is a category with only one person in it: God the Son. God the Father and God the Son know each other personally; they've been face-to-face for all eternity; the Son is the one who is "at the Father's side". Of course God the Son knows God the Father.

Happily, the second category is a much larger one: "No one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him." The other way someone can know God truly, without being God the Son, is to be taught by God the Son. God the Son did not keep his personal, first-hand knowledge of God to himself. Instead he was born and became the person of Jesus, so that we could know God for ourselves.

Which is why to take Jesus' yoke on our shoulders is about learning from him. If we would find the rest that comes from knowing the living God, we need Jesus to be our teacher. Fundamentally what we need is not to obey him but to learn from him - we need to let him show God to us. That is a yoke that is easy and a burden that is light. The God we learn of from Jesus is the one who promises rest to those who are weary from living in a world of sin, suffering and death.

The alternative is not to take his yoke, and to make up our own God. Our own God always makes harsher demands of us, and either does not promise rest or is not able to deliver it.

So, "take my yoke upon you, and learn from me", says Jesus.