Second Wednesday in Advent

Isaiah 40:25-31; Psalm 103:1-10; Matthew 11:28-30

“Take my yoke upon you . . . for my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”

“[God] gives power to the faint, and strengthens the powerless.”

Here are two challenging promises.   We might want to hear words of comfort, such as yesterday’s passage from Isaiah or today’s Gospel, and they are part of the promise.  We might want God to come and find us when we’re lost.  But this isn’t a simple offer from God.  It’s not a promise that God will do all the work.  It’s a promise that God will strengthen us to do what needs to be done, if we cooperate.  Cooperating means “waiting for the LORD”: listening in prayer and sacred conversation for what God desires for us, praying for the strength to do what we are given to do, taking on the yoke of love and hope and faith no matter what the world presents to us.  It means actively seeking God’s strength and wisdom.  Challenging work.

Challening, yes; but the payoff is huge.  Really, being passive and hoping God will intervene in our lives doesn’t carry much power.  There’s no promise in that.  The promise is that we will become agents in our own lives, citizens with the saints not only in “heaven” but on earth, here and now.  We will become a source of strength and peace for others, a sign of God’s work in the world.

And there’s another promise.  We will not be alone in this.  We may not be able to count on God to magically make things go our way, but we also are not just putting our noses to the grindstone as though we are all there is.  God is with us.  All the time.  God precedes and lures us along, inviting us to dare more than we ever would, to risk loving in both intimate and societal ways.  Remember?  “When you turn to the right or to the left, you will hear a voice saying, “This is the way; walk in it.”  Now we are reminded that not only will we be guided, we will be actively supported and strengthened.

In the rooms of recovery programs people talk about the “easier, softer way” that they tried before following the Steps.  Eventually, they learn that following the instructions is indeed the “easier, softer way.”  It’s hard work, but it leads to life and hope and peace and joy.  The way that looks easy usually leads to despair.  So take this yoke upon you, the yoke of love.  You will find it easy and light.

Where do you need to hear these words today?  Where, to whom, do you need to speak them?