I read an online post about our local professional baseball team this morning. In 2020, the baseball season was effectively canceled. It has pretty much taken a year to see the world emerging from the covid season and getting back to normal. When we talk about professional sports, we want to hear about performance and effectiveness in doing the particular sport. After all, sports are a form of escape, to get our minds off the junk in this world which we are dealt with every day. Many commentators will go so far as to say – keep the politics and protests out of the public scrutiny. Let’s keep the escape pure. We do not need extra commentary.
Emerging into Normal
This athlete’s post talked about the faith of the athletes and the impact of having no season. Perhaps others had a similar response as they emerged from Covid. When we are forced by circumstance to withdraw from society, it gives us two possibilities for a response. Do nothing or do something. For some, it might have included getting sick from Covid and spending weeks in recovery. For others, it may have been binge-watching television. For others, it was a time of renewal.
The number of people who engage in renewal is perhaps lower than we might like. For many, their discipline simply does not exist. For the members of my local baseball team, a number of them took time to deepen and renew their faith. A season of renewal is something we all should consider. Renewal is helpful. When we think about all the great leaders of the Bible, their best season was notable after a time of dryness, also known as a wilderness experience. When we are removed from the world we have time to think. It is a perfect time to think in detail about Jesus. Matthew 1128-29 says: 28 “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. 29 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. 30 For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”
Tired Yet?
There is a ‘come to Jesus’ discovery moment in this passage. We are tired of the covid season. We want to put it far into our past. If we meditate on Jesus and learn from him, the burden and troubles of the covid season melt away. When we come to understand his gentle humble heart we get a respite from the troubles of this world. A respite does not mean we are released from our burdens. It means we are freed up from all of the burdens. It is important to understand, we do not just ‘dump our burdens’ on him. It is a miscarriage of understanding to think that our burden will simply vanish. When he refers to a yoke, he is saying that our burden is lighter because it is shared.
It would be a Pollyanna-like approach to life if we simply wished away our troubles and expected everything to be better. It is not realistic. In the same way, we cannot simply dump our troubles on Jesus. When we trust in Jesus our burden is shared, with the Holy Spirit, and pain becomes tolerable since it is no longer solely on our shoulders.
In the long run, things we endure make us better. As it says in Romans 5:3-5 – 3 Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; 4 perseverance, character; and character, hope. 5 And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.
