Come to me, all you who labor and are burdened
The mention of labor reminds of the verse from Isaiah which asks, "Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread, and your labor for that which does not satisfy?" (see Isaiah 55:2). Those who are burdened bring to mind what Jesus said of the scribes and Pharisees who tied up heavy burdens, hard to bear, but did not lift a finger to help (see Matthew 23:4). Trying to live out the law itself apart from grace was a "a yoke on the neck of the disciples that neither our fathers nor we have been able to bear" according to the Peter in the Acts of the Apostles (Acts 15:10).
For the yoke of his burden,
and the staff for his shoulder,
the rod of his oppressor,
you have broken as on the day of Midian.
Jesus himself destroyed the yoke that oppressed his people and invited them to come to him to receive instead a different yoke, one that didn't produce discouragement and frustration, but rather rest. The old yoke necessitated on effort and struggled that devolved entirely upon the individual, leading to two possible outcomes. One was a sense of failure and inadequacy to live up to impossible demands. The other was a false sense of pride from imagining oneself to be perfect. Instead of these, Jesus offered a yoke that was easy to bear and a burden that was light. A yoke like this was only possible because it was a shared yoke with Jesus himself, who bore it first and now offered to share it with his followers.
Take my yoke upon you and learn from me,
for I am meek and humble of heart;
We cannot take this yoke and then run off in any direction we please. In order for us to find the easy yoke to be easy in our own lives we must learn from Jesus, in order to move as he moves. His direction teaches us how to move through life in a posture of rest, in particular by imitating his meekness and humility. Pridefully charging forward and lazily refusing to move are recipes for eventual exhaustion. But the steady progress of a humble heart following the guidance of the Holy Spirit is infinitely sustainable. Those who take the yoke of Jesus upon themselves in this way will discover what Isaiah prophesied on our first reading.
Though young men faint and grow weary,
and youths stagger and fall,
They that hope in the LORD will renew their strength,
they will soar as with eagles' wings;
They will run and not grow weary,
walk and not grow faint.
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