Yoke

Jesus said:
“Come to me, all you who labor and are burdened,
and I will give you rest.
Take my yoke upon you and learn from me,
for I am meek and humble of heart;
and you will find rest for yourselves.
For my yoke is easy, and my burden light.”

Matthew 11:28-30

How can the yoke be easy
that settles on our necks?
What burden except Jesus
is light upon our backs?

For he has borne our sorrows
as lambs within his arms.
His very self he offers,
our very selves transforms.

We bore the yoke of Pharaoh
and burden of the law
'til, crushed beneath the harrow,
we cried aloud to God.

He came and bore our weakness—
our death within his flesh.
His burden has relieved us
so that we may have rest.

We are the weight he carried
aloft to Calvary;
he is the weight we bear now,
the yoke that makes us free.

He lays his own divineness
upon our weary backs:
One day, we shall be like him
and rest in God at last!

A milkmaid walking with a shoulder yoke, shown with another female farmworker carrying a rake and a wicker backpack, painting by Gari Melchers – http://chetvergvecher.livejournal.com/932759.html, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=49225857