Rest for the Weary

Jesu Juva

St. Matthew 11:25-30                                           

July 5, 2026

Proper 9A                               

 Dear saints of our Savior~

        Are you weary?  Are you burdened?  Are you laboring beneath a heavy load?  Are you in need of rest?  For many of us the answer is a resounding “yes.”  That’s us:  weary and burdened, stressed-out and burned-out, pushing hard but making little progress.  You’ve got no enthusiasm.  Even the fun stuff in life just seems kind of ho-hum. Everyone feels that way sometimes.

But did you know that the followers of Jesus are especially susceptible to burn-out?  It’s true.  Being a disciple of Jesus doesn’t give you immunity to weariness.  Being a disciple of Jesus isn’t easy, but difficult.  As Jesus often said, “If anyone would come after me, let him take up his cross and follow me.”  Christians are cross-bearers.  And all that cross-bearing can sometimes lead to deep weariness and burn-out.

        Now this might surprise you, but not all burn-out is bad.  There’s a proper place for weariness in the Christian life.  In fact, part of the reason God gives us His Law and Commandments is to grind us down to nothing and drive us to despair of ourselves.  The Law of God is more than just nice rules to live by.  It does more than just “show” us our sin.  The Law magnifies our sin—amplifies it—causes us to cry out with St. Paul, “What a wretched man I am!  Who will deliver me from this body of death?”

        Are you with me so far?  The Law of God is good and wise; but part of the Law’s goodness and wisdom is that it burdens us and wearies us.  It works like this:  You know God wants His Law kept perfectly.  But you—you can’t keep the Law perfectly no matter how hard you try.  And the harder you try, the less of the Law you wind up keeping. 

        Today’s reading from Romans 7 is a horribly accurate portrayal of the battle that rages every day in all who follow Jesus:  We have the desire to do what is good; but we can’t do it!  The good things that we want to do and should do—these aren’t the things we do.  Instead, it’s the bad things—the evil things—the sinful things we know we ought to avoid—these are the very things that we end up doing.  If that doesn’t lead to weariness and burnout and despair, I don’t know what does.

        So what do you do?  What do you do when the things you do are the very things you hate?  When you want to be loving, but anger comes spilling out?  When you want to be thankful, but resentment and jealousy are what you feel?  What do you do when you want to do good, but evil always worms its way into the picture?  You know you shouldn’t do that, but you do it anyway.  You know you really ought to do that, but you never quite get around to it.

        Some Christians essentially give up.  They’re weary of discouragement and failure.  They’re tired of trying harder, so they don’t try at all.  “I’ll just do my best and live my life as I please, and hope for the best.  I’ll try not to hurt anyone, mind my own business, be nice to animals.  I’ll recycle.  I’ll reduce my carbon footprint.  I’ll put a sign in my yard to signal my virtue to everyone.  But I’m just not going to worry about “do’s” I can’t do and “don’ts” I can’t stop doing.”  That’s where some people are at.

        But what do you do when the Law has its way with you—when you realize with Saint Paul that by nature nothing good lives in here?  You can give up.  You can pretend otherwise.  Or, you can embrace the burnout and welcome the weariness, and, then, take it all to Jesus.

        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—that I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.  Are you weary, burdened, and needing rest?  Come to Jesus. Take that invitation to heart.  It’s addressed to you.  Jesus wants you to come to Him—wants your weariness and your wretchedness and your burn-out.  He wants you.  This is why He came.  This is why Jesus was born of the Virgin Mary.  This is why He still draws us to Himself in the Word and in the sacraments.  He wants us to come to Him with our burdens and burn-outs and all the heavy lifting we try to do.  Jesus wants to give us rest.

        It seems so basic, doesn’t it—so simple, really?  Come to Jesus.  Trust Jesus.  Let Jesus shoulder your burdens.  And yet, we refuse to believe it, refuse to trust it, and choose to burden ourselves needlessly.  Jesus Christ bore your sins on the cross; why are you trying to bear them for yourself?  Jesus Christ bore the burden of your shame and guilt in His death; why are you still holding onto these things?  Beloved in the Lord, when Jesus says “Come to me,” He’s talking to sinners—poor, miserable, wretched, sinners—not to good, pious, commandment-keepers.  He’s talking to me and you.

        Come to me . . . and I will give you rest.  That, my friends, is a promise from the Savior—an unconditional promise with no ifs, ands, buts or asterisks.  So take it to heart.  All authority in heaven and earth has been given to Jesus, who died and rose from the dead.  His Word is sure and certain.  You’re not walking alone when you come to Jesus.  “Take my yoke upon you,” He says.  He’s bound Himself to you with that yoke of His.  You and Jesus—you’re like a couple of oxen yoked together, pulling a plow.  And that yoke of His is not two tons of commandments.  No, His yoke is easy, and His burden is light because He bears the burden for you.  Jesus shoulders the heavy load, and you just walk along like a little kid tagging along with your older, bigger brother.  Jesus carries the load as the two of you walk on together. 

        Come to Jesus, for He is gentle and lowly in heart.  He isn’t an overbearing, demanding deity requiring sacrifices.  He’s the Savior, the Shepherd, the Redeemer of the world.  He’s not that interested in what you can do for Him.  His interest is in you.  He wants you.  He wants you to come to Him with your burdens, with your cares, with your sorrows, your brokenness, your burnout, your anger, your lost-ness, your doubting, your sins.  He wants it all.  Everything that you carry around every day.  He wants it all beneath the yoke of His cross where your every burden was carried by Him.

        Come to Jesus in His Word.  Hear what He has to say to you.  The wise and learned—they don’t get it.  But listen like a child, trusting and believing what the Lord says.  Come to Jesus in the power of your baptism.  You can draw upon that power every day—power to own up to your sin, confess it, and receive the cleansing of His absolution.  Come to Jesus at this altar where Jesus wants to refresh you with His holy Supper for the forgiveness of sins.  Here you will find faith to follow Jesus and to fervently love one another.  Jesus says, “Come to me,” and you can’t come any closer to Him than when you receive Him in His body and His blood.

        Weariness and burnout are not the end of the story for you, for me, for all the people of God.  For we have been delivered.  The healing has begun.  We have been rescued from this body of death—by the body of Jesus given into death for us, raised from the tomb for us, and now reigning at the right hand of the Father—for us.  Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! 

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

 

Stand Steadfast against Transgression

Jesu Juva

Romans 6:12-23                                                 

June 21, 2026

Proper 7A                 

 Dear saints of our Savior~

        Let not sin reign in your mortal bodies.  Stand steadfast against sin.  Resist trespass and transgression.  So says Saint Paul, smack dab in the center of Romans chapter six.  And this should come as no surprise.  You expect to hear this kind of thing from the pulpit.  You expect to read words like these in your Bible.  Nearly every sermon highlights the dangerous and deadly effects of sin.

        But today’s epistle reading does far more than just warn against the dangers of sin.  Today’s text is a call to do battle against sin—to actively resist transgression—to stand steadfast against every trespass.  Don’t give up!  Don’t give in!  Don’t let the sin win!  And, certainly, don’t celebrate the sin!  Instead:  Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal bodies.

        Romans chapter six is like a manual for Christian living.  It lays out the plan of life for all those who have been baptized into Christ.  To be baptized is to die and rise again with Jesus.  Baptism transforms you.  The baptized no longer walk in the darkness of sin and death.  We walk in the newness of life.  And in this new life we are dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.

        And if we are dead to sin, then sin simply cannot be allowed to dominate the lives of the baptized.  This is why it says:  Let not sin reign in your mortal bodies.  Don’t let sin have its way with you.  Sin is not the boss of you.  You are not helpless.  You are not powerless.  You are baptized.  You belong to the body of Christ.  Your body is His temple.  You are one redeemed by Christ the crucified.  Today’s reading from Romans makes this crystal clear:  To know Christ by faith—to be baptized into Christ—is also to be given the power to obey Christ—to walk in the obedience of faith.

        You are called to “fight back.”  Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal bodies.  Don’t roll over and play dead.  When it comes to your sinful passions and your ungodly urges and your cravings and your compulsions—just say no.  Are you baptized into Christ?  Then you are called to continual, constant, resolute denial of every form of unrighteousness.

        Of course, that requires discipline and intentionality and self-denial.  In fact, it requires a kind of “slavery.”  Just as a good first century slave would focus on obeying his master, so must you focus on the holiness that is yours through faith in Christ Jesus.  You are no longer a slave to sin.  Yours is a different kind of servitude—and a different kind of Master.  You are slaves of God—Him you serve with single-minded devotion and discipline.  And this you do, not because you have some commandment-keeping superpower—but because you have experienced His grace.  You know His love, His mercy and compassion.  You are not driven by the Law, but carried along by the grace of God.

        But the church at Rome was infected—infected with the same kind of cool, calculated logic that weakens us and poisons us in our battle against sin.  After all, we believe in the forgiveness of sins.  We believe that Jesus has saved us from our sins.  So, we conclude, why not go on sinning?  If God forgives sins then why not give into a little sinful passion now and then?  There is no fruit so sweet and succulent as forbidden fruit.  Why not sample some of that? (In moderation, of course.)  Why not?

        Sin—on the front end—is always sweet and succulent, alluring and enticing.  It promises every pleasure; but delivers only death.  Johann Sebastian Bach’s Cantata 54 is based on this very idea from Romans chapter six.  The first line of the opening aria is translated this way:  Stand steadfast against the transgression.  It goes on to warn against the “poison,” the “curse,” and the “fatal doom” faced by those who are ensnared and blinded by sin.

        Now, if you were Bach—if you wanted to set that message to music—what would the music sound like?  I think I would have those words of warning sung by a thundering bass in a threatening, minor key full of doom.  But not Bach.  He takes this warning to stand steadfast against sin; and he assigns it to a sultry and sensuous alto voice.  And the entire aria begins with a sweetly pulsating seventh chord—a rich dissonance played on sweet strings that builds and soars and climbs until blissfully resolving into a soothing tonic chord. [Listen . . .]

        Why does Bach wed that stern text about resisting transgression to such a sensuous musical setting?  As a good Lutheran, Bach knew that when sinful passions appear, they don’t appear poisonous.  They don’t appear like zombies or corpses—as deadly, deadening dangers.  They sound like the siren’s song, sweet and sensuous.  And that pulsating seventh chord is a reminder that the assaults of the evil one never let up—that he never surrenders—that he constantly and repeatedly seeks to destroy your faith in a way that seems to you delightfully harmless.

        But hear what Bach’s alto sings.  Take to heart her message:  Stand steadfast against transgression, or its poison will seize you.  She’s calling you to battle.  Gird your loins.  The wages of sin is death, don’t you know?  Resist the sin.  Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal bodies.

        How does sin want to reign over you?  In what part of your life does sin demand to dominate?  Today’s text actually mentions the “members” of your body—members which get hijacked for unrighteousness:  eyes, ears, tongue, hands, etc.  Where is your resistance lacking?  Where is the chink in your armor?  Is sexual immorality your downfall?  Do wrath and rage rule your every reaction?  Are you consumed by jealousy over the success of others? Are you driven by greed and creature comforts?  Or do utter laziness and apathy weigh you down with inaction and sloth?

        Beloved in the Lord, let not sin reign in your mortal bodies!  You are baptized into Christ!  Stand firm against transgression!  You are dead to sin; you are alive to Christ Jesus!  Do not go on sinning so that grace may be cheaply obtained.  But resist the sin with all your might because you have been given a precious and priceless grace—grace upon grace—grace that poured in crimson streams from the wounds of God’s own Son on the cross.  There the wages of your sin were painfully paid out in full against Jesus, your Savior.  And there the free gift of eternal life was secured for you.

        It’s not that you don’t sin, or that you won’t sin.  Perfection will be yours; but not in this mortal life.  But you have indeed been set free from sin—to walk in newness of life.  So live like it.  Let your baptism be your guide.  Let not sin reign in your mortal bodies.

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