Sunday’s scriptures center around things that hold us bound. Zechariah speaks of us being “prisoners of hope” while Paul says that Jesus releases us from a life captive to sin. In the gospel text, Jesus invites us to be released from our burdens but also – paradoxically – to wear his yoke. The yoke as a means to rest was a strange idea for the disciples, but the first disciples also viewed a yoke as a symbol of obedience to God’s law and wisdom. A yoke as a means to rest ought to sound strange to us as well. Generally, our instinct is to resist yokes and laws, or at least not immediately connect them with the idea of freedom. Through the image of the yoke, however, Jesus invites us to think of God’s law and wisdom as a means to surrender and accept something graceful and positive. Jesus reframes the idea of a yoke by telling us that a yoke will help us grow as disciples and give us true freedom.
Join us on Sunday as Deacon Bri shares this message and we bless and install our Camp Hope learners and leaders!
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