Accept His Invitation - Be Transformed and Set Free

Reading 1:  Zec 9:9-10

Reading 2:  Rom 8:9, 11-13

Gospel:  Mt 11:25-30

It was Zachariah preparing people to look to God, not only to bring them back to the promised land of Israel that they just came back to after their slavery, but also to look to God to provide for them an opening to the promised land of Heaven and how they would get there. His son, who had laid down his life for us in Zachariah, was forecasting not just a king for Israel, but a king of kings, a king of all creation.

For he said his reign will be without end and he will rule from sea to sea and to the ends of the earth. Zachariah One of these people to have great expectations for the greater God and the Messiah. He was sent to save them. Those expectations got bigger and bigger over the centuries, to the point where Jesus, in the eyes of some, couldn't live up to them.

There are many people that by Jesus time we're looking for God to send some sort of mighty military general that wasn't going to rule with a shepherd. Staff, that was too weak, that was too meek. They needed him throw down the shepherd staff. They were looking for someone to take up the sword and start settling scores with their enemies, starting with the Roman Empire for the elite of Jesus time.

The Sanhedrin, the Pharisees, the Sadducees, the chief priest describes the elders, the scholars of the law, the wise and the learned who had studied the Hebrew scriptures front and back, who had the memorized. They read all those prophecies. They did not think Jesus was the fulfillment of those prophecies. They saw Him. They listened to His words. They watched His deeds.

They saw how many of their laws He was breaking. And they look to heaven and said, Is this the best you can do? Could you send someone else to save us? And that is why Jesus tells those same critics to send the Sadducees, the Pharisees today in Matthew Chapter 11. God is not revealing his son to the wise and the learned.

God is not revealing himself to the Pharisees, the Sadducees, the best and the brightest, the elite of Judaism at that time. Instead, Jesus said He is revealing himself to the little ones, to the child, like the last, the lowest and the least the very ones. This good Shepherd came to save those who most need Him.

That's something, of course, the Pharisees and Sadducees refused to believe that somehow God was going to keep something from them. They knew everything that there was to know. And yet, Jesus reminds us that we can get too smart for faith. We have to be childlike in order to believe in children. Yes, they believe in unicorns, but they also see mystery and miracle wherever they look.

And yet the older we get, we begin to become bitter, cynical, skeptical. We need things proven for us. God doesn't have to prove himself to us. He doesn't owe us any explanation. God doesn't owe us anything. He has given us everything. Everything that we need in order to know him and love him and serve him everything that we need in order to carry our crosses for his glory in this life.

 

So that one day we too can pass over to the promised life in heaven. Jesus concludes the Gospel today with three verses that might just become the last words you hear before you die. Because Matthew chapter 11, verse 27 through 30, are baked into the sacrament of the anointing of the sick and the last rites of the Church.

Countless times, priests are standing at the bedside of someone who is dying of illness, age or injury. And we say those same words that we heard Jesus say today. Come to me, all of you, who are weary and find life burdensome, and I will give you rest. The person who has suffered long, who has carried their cross fire faithfully and well, who's ready to lay it down in exchange over the crown of glory.

They're ready to accept that invitation. Come to me. All you who are weary and find life burdensome. But Jesus wasn't speaking in a hospice. He wasn't just talking to those who are dying. It's an invitation also to the living struggle and strife in distress and distress in our life. He invites us to meet. That's why we come here.

We're accepting that invitation to come be renewed and refreshed in grace that comes from God. That's why people stop by the open doors to soak up the feelings. That's why people have been going downstairs into that adoration chapel now for 30 years, and we've accepted an invitation for it.

Despite the desperation.  Come to me and I give you strength.

The Lord, He may not take that cross away. And those crosses are many and they may be heavy. But with by his grace, we do not carry them alone. We do not carry them in vain. And we do not carry them forever. We're carrying them for a purpose. And that is to be purged, prone to purified and prepared for the coming of the Lord or our coming to Him, whichever is going to come first.

My friends, Jesus still invites us in this world full of so much noise and distraction, this world that neither knows God or loves Him or honors his teaching, He invites us, come to me, all of you who labor and are burdened and I will give you rest. And so, along with all the Israelites who come before us and all the centers who will come after, let's heed that simple advice that Moses and Zachariah gave to Israel.

If you want to have long life in the land, keep God's commands. And it is that truth that will set us free.