Matthew 11: 25-30: “Carrying the Weight of the World”

Most of us go around each day carrying a heavy load. It’s not a physical load per say, rather the weight of emotional wounds, deep hurts that we have let sink into us. Even though it may not be a physical weight it causes everything to hurt - our back, legs, arms, chest, heart. They all hurt from carrying around garbage - emotional garbage. 

For the next three weeks we are going to be talking about what it means to give our emotional garbage, those things weighing us down, to our Savior who beckons us to him. For some of us we are carrying around large rocks, boulders that separate us from others and the love of Christ. Some of us are carrying around pebbles in comparison, but a bag full of pebbles quickly can become just as weighty as boulders. We’ve been carrying this weight, the weight of the world, around for too long. 

When is the last time you remember not carrying around the weight of the world? Not being weighed down by concerns, past mistakes? When was the last time you didn’t have to drag around everything with you? Many of us, in defense, may cry out that carrying around this weight is just part of life, but friends that is not so. In today’s scripture Jesus invites us to trade in our load for his. Telling all of us who carry heavy burdens that he will give us rest. That he will be our rest. And that we can trade in what we are carrying for his yoke, which is easy and light.

Too many of us have been carrying around burdens so long that we can’t imagine our lives without them, let alone pinpoint when they became part of who we are, like an extra extremity. In the words of Max Lucado, “Suddenly one day we notice that our step has lost its spring. The sky has lost its blue. Our memory book has faded. We didn’t plan for this. It just happened.” Perhaps taking on this weight did just happen over time, or maybe you do know the exact moment you picked it up and started journeying with it. Regardless of whether you have this memory or not, Jesus is inviting you to drop it. Right where you are. Turn around. Walk away. And don’t pick it back up. 

But what exactly are these rocks, these things weighing us down, that we are being commanded to leave behind? The story behind each rock may be different for each of us, but many are the same. Anger that became abuse. Lust that lead to adultery. Greed that became embezzlement. Guilt that turned into fear that blocked you from following God. For others its the weight of regrets. Shame. The pain of old wounds that you just can’t bring yourself to forgive. Broken hearts and bitter thoughts. Or maybe your rock is chronic worrying. In Greek the word “worry” means to have a divided mind. A divided heart. The list goes on and on.

My family is a big fan of detective shows. Light hearted ones like Psych and Monk. I can surprisingly deal with the death scenes most of the time, but I get really grossed out when the sleuths start digging through other people’s garbage. But isn’t that one of the places we can learn the most about someone? What brand of orange juice they like to drink. If they throw everything away or recycle. What they made for dinner that week. Sifting through people’s trash tells us a lot about them. So can sifting through their emotional garbage.

Despite what we have been told by popular culture, it doesn’t help to just talk about what is weighing us down. Yes, we can pour out the bag of rocks that we are carrying - pick each one up and tell someone about them. But for far too many of us, after we are done talking about them, we all too often pick each one back up and pack it back into our bag, going on with what weighs us down. 

Friends, there is another way. We are invited by the Savior that loves us to hand these rocks, big or small, whatever they may be, over to God. We are beckoned to come to Jesus and give him all that is weighing us down - because he has already dealt with it. He went to the cross to defeat our emotional garbage and sin. Yet, we insist on holding on to it. Insist that carrying it around is more comfortable and familiar than setting it down and taking on his yoke, even though its lighter than anything we have ever carried before. 

Brothers and sisters, now is the time. The time to come to Jesus. Christian recording artists Chris Rice wrote a song a few years ago entitled “Untitled Hymn”. It was later renamed, “Come to Jesus”. Weak and wounded sinner, lost and left to die, O raise your head for love is passing by. Come to Jesus and live. Now your burden’s lifted, and carried far away, and the precious blood has washed away the stain. Sing to Jesus and live. Sometimes the way is lonely, and steep and filled with pain. So if your sky is dark and pours the rain, cry to Jesus and live.”

This is what Jesus revealed to us about God. That he doesn’t want us to keep carrying around our burdens and heartache and pain. He wants to take them from us. He wants to put them on himself. He wants to love us and carry our burdens away. But we have to take the first step by handing them over to Him and not demanding them back. 

The Pelicano is the most unwanted ship in the world since 1986. No country wants to claim her so the ship just sails aimlessly in the ocean, bobbing between countries. No one wants her because she is a ship full of trash. During the garbage strike in Philadelphia of 1986 someone had the brilliant idea to send the garbage out to sea on a ship after the surrounding states refused to receive the municipalities waste. So the Pelicano is now a garbage freighter. Destined to not have a destination.

Brothers and sisters, we aren’t trash filled boats - but we have trash filled hearts. And our trash filled hearts prevent us from being fully alive. Prevent us from truly having a destination. Prevent us from fully living into our lives and relationships as God intended us to. But the story doesn’t have to end here. For we have a Savior who loves us so much that he wants us to give him our burdens, our trash, our rocks. In fact, that’s what he came and died just to do.

Many of us are in different places in our journey with our emotional garbage. Some of us have spent so long running from it, pushing it down, and avoiding it that we can’t even name it. Others of us know it intimately, but even with all of the pain it causes us we cling to it like a security blanket because it is familiar. Some of us have tried to give our trash to God, but at the last minute we keep pulling it back, putting it in our bags and going on with it, because we are afraid its too much for God to handle or we are afraid of the yoke of Christ. 

You should have received a stone when you came into worship this morning. If you didn’t please raise your hand and someone will bring you one. I invite you to write on the stone a word for one of the burdens you are carrying. And after you write on your stone, carry it around with you for the next three weeks. May it be a physical reminder of the emotional weight that Christ is asking you to give up. 

And as you come across that pocket in the coming weeks, remember that God invites us to something better. God, through Jesus Christ, invites us to come, all of you who are weary and heavy laden, and have rest. Come and take the yoke of Christ upon you, learning from him, and finding rest for your soul. Come for his yoke is easy and his burden is light. Come to Jesus and find life anew. Come to Jesus and live. Amen.