Devotional: My Yoke is Easy
“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, 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.”
- Matthew 11:28-30
As a kid, whenever I heard the word “yoke,” I thought of an egg yolk. Not realizing they were different words, it didn’t make sense to me. When I finally learned what a yoke was, Jesus’ words made a little bit more sense, but it still took some meditation, prayer, and research to grasp the metaphor of a yoke.
The technical definition of a yoke is “a wooden crosspiece that is fastened over the necks of two animals and attached to the plow or cart that they are to pull.”
The point of a yoke is to unite two animals to ease their labor and actually multiply the amount of work they can accomplish. To grasp this visual, one Belgian draft horse can pull 8,000 pounds. However, when two trained, equal-in-stature Belgian horses are yoked together, they can pull up to 32,000 pounds! (the5mc.com). Not only is the work-load doubled, it is quadrupled. Clearly there is a reason why Jesus uses the imagery of a yoke.
As I was contemplating this, though, these were some thoughts that were floating in my mind: Isn’t it a challenging road to follow Christ? Didn’t Jesus say that we will face tribulations and trials? I thought He also said to pick up our cross daily? So, then how is taking on His yoke easy and His burden light?
As I did research on how the word yoke is used throughout the Bible and in different contexts, I found three different uses of yoke.
Firstly, a "yoke” typically symbolizes slavery.
The Lord has always been in the business of desiring to set His people free. In the Old Testament, He set the Israelites free from literal slavery.
In Jeremiah 2:20, The Lord speaks regarding Israel’s defiance: “For long ago I broke your yoke and burst your bonds; but you said, ‘I will not serve.’ Yes, on every high hill and under every green tree you bowed down like a whore.”
Jeremiah 30:8-9 – “‘In that day,’ declares the Lord Almighty, ‘I will break the yoke off their necks and will tear off their bonds; no longer will foreigners enslave them. Instead, they will serve the Lord their God and David their king, whom I will raise up for them.”
Leviticus 26:13 says, “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt so that you would no longer be slaves to the Egyptians; I broke the bars of your yoke and enabled you to walk with heads held high.”
Through Christ, God sets us free from our slavery to sin.
Galatians 5:1– “For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.”
Romans 6:6-7– “For we know that our old self was crucified with Him so that the body ruled by sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin— because anyone who has died has been set free from sin.”
Romans 6:16 – “Do you not know that if you present yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness?”
What does it mean to be set free from sin? It means that we no longer have to obey our sinful desires. It means that we have victory to walk according to Christ’s righteous way. It means that sin can no longer condemn us to hell; we are freed from its oppression.
Jesus asks us to take upon His “easy” yoke, which makes sense when we look at the original Greek word, chrestos. It means “useful;” “virtuous;” “good;” and “manageable.” Jesus’ yoke is “easy” because it produces goodness, virtuousness, and usefulness. It is manageable because He partners with us in the labor of love.
The yoke of sin, however, does not produce virtue, it is not useful, and it is not manageable. Sin is a heavy weight that compounds if we submit to it.
Imagine two animals connected in a yoke: what would the yoke of sin look like? Probably a Belgian draft horse yoked with a donkey. Or a powerful ox yoked with a stubborn mule. That second animal becomes a burden instead of a help. It makes the work harder, not easier. Sin, therefore, makes our lives harder instead of easier. It holds us back from our potential in God’s kingdom.
Secondly, a yoke symbolizes the burden of the law.
The purpose of the Old Testament law was to shine light on humanity’s sinfulness and God’s holiness. There are 613 God-given laws, not including the man-made laws added on by the Jewish leaders. It is impossible that we, as fallen people, could keep every single law. In Romans 7, Paul declares that we are no longer bound to the power of the law.
Romans 7:5-6 – “When we were controlled by our old nature, sinful desires were at work within us, and the law aroused these evil desires that produced a harvest of sinful deeds, resulting in death. But now we have been released from the law, for we died to it and are no longer captive to its power. Now we can serve God, not in the old way of obeying the letter of the law, but in the new way of living in the Spirit.”
Acts 15:10 – “Now, therefore, why are you putting God to the test by placing a yoke on the neck of the disciples that neither our fathers nor we have been able to bear?” In this context, there was dispute about whether Christian Gentiles should be circumcised or not. Peter spoke up at the Jerusalem Council to proclaim that there is no need to place upon the non-Jewish believers the yoke of the Old Testament laws.
Galatians 2:16 – “Yet we know that a person is not justified by works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ, so we also have believed in Christ Jesus, in order to be justified by faith in Christ and not by works of the law, because by works of the law no one will be justified.”
Romans 4:4-5 – “Now to the one who works, wages are not credited as a gift but as an obligation. However, to the one who does not work but trusts God who justifies the ungodly, their faith is credited as righteousness.”
Jesus’ yoke is “easy” because we do not have to follow the law in order to justify ourselves before God! It is not our good works that get us into heaven; it is not our good works that save us from condemnation. The easy yoke is believing and trusting that Jesus saved us– all Him, nothing of us.
What would it look like to be yoked to the law or to “good works?” Imagine, once again, a Belgian horse, but this time he is doing all the work by himself. There is no other animal connected to him. The yoke is heavy and the load is not light.
Lastly, a yoke symbolizes uniting with something or someone.
Jesus united, or yoked, himself with humanity so that we could then be yoked with Him.
Hebrews 2:14-15– “Since the children have flesh and blood, He too shared in their humanity so that by His death He might break the power of him who holds the power of death—that is, the devil— and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death.”
Romans 7:4 – “So, my dear brothers and sisters, this is the point: You died to the power of the law when you died with Christ. And now you are united with the one who was raised from the dead. As a result, we can produce a harvest of good deeds for God.”
Romans 6:5 says, “For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly also be united with him in a resurrection like his.
Taking on Jesus’ yoke is uniting with Him. It is no longer simply us; it’s us and Him. His yoke is easy because we are not doing the work alone! He makes the work manageable because His Spirit empowers us.
What would this look like with the imagery of two animals plowing together? I believe it looks like two Belgian horses plowing side by side, one stronger and one weaker. The stronger one carries along the weaker horse when it is weak or tired. However, the weaker horse learns from the stronger one and grows in strength. By remaining connected to the stronger horse, the amount of work possible compounds over time.
When we are united with Christ, He gives us the supernatural strength we need to love and do good works according to His will. Without His help, we couldn’t accomplish anything. Jesus said, “Learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart.” We need to constantly submit to His guidance and leading, to be like Him (the strong horse).
Overall, even though we will face trials in this world and following Jesus leads to persecution, His yoke is easy because we don’t face this world alone (He is always with us), we are able to conquer sin, and we don’t have to worry about striving for our salvation. Everything was taken care of by Him; now He wants us to partner with Him. His burden is light because we do it with His power, not our own.
This is what He requires of us:
Mark 12:30-31 – “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no commandment greater than these.”
1 John 5:3 – “For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments. And His commandments are not burdensome.”
Take a moment: What yoke are you carrying?
Christ has set us free from the yokes of sin and the law, but do you sometimes place those yokes unnecessarily upon yourself?
If you constantly feel restless, condemned, strife, or lack of victory over sin, Jesus said, “Come to me, all who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.”
Come to Him today. Rest in Him. Fix your eyes on Him. Learn from Him. Let go of the old yokes and take on His yoke. This is what it means to live by faith.
-Alina