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20th January 2026
TuesdayReflection
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'James Laurence'
I serve as the Pastor of First Lutheran Church
of Albemarle
Come, Take, Learn, Rest
.... Matthew 11:28-30
Jesus said: "Come to me, all you who are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light."
"Rest for your soul,"
Jesus offers us in this gospel reading.
Rest for our weary souls. And don't we need that rest?!
Thirty years ago, Thomas Moore wrote a book that I still think about, called "Care of the Soul."
And in the first sentence of his book, he made the claim that
"the greatest malady of our time, implicated in all of our troubles and affecting us individually and socially is loss of soul."
"When soul is neglected," he wrote, "it doesn't just go away; it appears symptomatically in obsessions, addictions, violence, and loss of meaning."
The world has changed a lot in the last thirty years, but not in this respect.
The world still neglects its soul.
And smartphones, and social media, and everything else that has come along in the last thirty years in the name of progress, has not helped this at all.
In fact, it reminds me of a statement made by the author and therapist, Carl Jung, that
"people will do anything, no matter how absurd, to avoid facing their own souls."
And when we don't face our soul, and take care of our soul, it affects every other aspect of our life.
Our relationships, our health, our sense of well-being and purpose.
When we ignore our souls, no matter how good our life might seem on the outside, it is rotting from the inside.
And sooner or later, it will all collapse.
The burdens of life become too great to bear.
The weariness becomes too overwhelming to ignore. And we begin leading lives of quiet desperation. It is inevitable when we neglect the soul.
So, what do we do?
Simple, really. Jesus says, come to him.
Take his yoke. Learn from him. And find rest for our souls.
From Jesus. And only from Jesus.
We can't buy it.
There is no pill that provides it.
Rest for our souls can only be found through our faith, through our relationship with Jesus.
Because we were created by God to be in a loving relationship with him.
And God actually created our souls to be restless until they find their rest in God, as St. Augustine once famously said.
But it is only when we realize that our souls are restless that we finally accept this invitation.
So, the first step to find this rest is to realize how weary and burdened we are.
If you are not weary, and are doing just fine without Jesus, this invitation probably won't have much meaning.
For all of us who have grown weary.
For all of us who are carrying heavy burdens.
For all of us who long for true rest for our souls. Come to me, Jesus says, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest.
But how does this happen?
What happens when we come to Jesus?
Well, he says, we take his yoke upon us.
A yoke that is easy. A burden that is light.
Paradoxically, we find rest for our souls by taking up his yoke. How is this possible?
First, let's remember what a yoke is, in this case.
And it is not the yellow part of the egg!
A yoke, by definition, is: "a wooden cross piece that is fastened over the necks of two animals and attached to the plough or cart that they are to pull."
This wooden cross piece helps the two animals to pull together.
Take my yoke upon you, Jesus says.
When we come to Jesus, and learn from him, we become yoked with him.
He pulls with us.
Jesus doesn't take away whatever we are pulling, but we no longer have to pull it alone.
Jesus pulls our burden with us. And he goes on to say that his yoke is easy.
Which, in this case, really means "well-fitting." His yoke is well-fitting.
But Jesus does not just invite us to take up his yoke.
He invites us to learn from him.
If we are going to find rest for our souls, it will be through learning from Jesus.
Jesus, when you think about it, had as much reason to be restless as anyone.
His life was incredibly difficult.
And he knew it would end on a cross.
But his soul was always at rest. He was always at peace in this world. And he wants to teach us how to have that same peace.
He wants us to take his yoke and learn from him.
A soul at rest, in other words, is not a mind at rest.
And one of the ways to find rest for our souls is to continue learning from Jesus.
Through Sunday School, Worship, through our daily Bible reading and devotions, we continue to learn from Jesus.
And by imitating his example, we can continue to learn from him.
Spending quiet time alone with God.
Putting away our electronic distractions, going out to the desert, or up a mountain, or even just into our closet, but somewhere quiet enough to listen for God's still small voice.
That is what Jesus did.
And we can learn from him to do this ourselves.
My name is James Laurence
I live outside Albemarle, North Carolina, where I serve as the Pastor of First Lutheran Church of Albemarle.
I grew up in Massachusetts (Northborough), went to college in Maine (Bowdoin), graduate school in Illinois (The University of Chicago),
and seminary in South Carolina (Lutheran Theological Southern Seminary).
This is an edited version.
The full article and Bible references are avaiable on request
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