Come!

“Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” Matthew 11:28.

“Come”, Jesus proclaims, “all ye that labour and are heavy laden”. The weight of this verse hinges on the first word. We tend to read this verse with a casual inflection related to the idea of calm and rest, but that wouldn’t be correct. The word, “Come”, is exclamatory! As Thayer’s Greek Lexicon teaches, it gets the force of an interjection followed by a hortatory subjunctive. In other words, the hearer or reader should be called to attention and exhorted by the passion and pleading in which He calls. We know that Jesus is intimately acquainted with us in knowing the very number of hairs on our head (Matthew 10:30), but He is also intimate in His call to us, and with this level of intimacy comes a level of passion that is undeniable.

Have you as a father ever pleaded with your son to trust you, or have you been the recipient of that pleading? Have you ever been toiling in something to the point of exhaustion and have someone come and snap you out of it? Maybe it’s a labor of thought that you just can’t shake loose of; maybe it’s a labor of work that has run you ragged; maybe you’re caught up in a cycle of life that seems to do nothing but deprive you of life. Motivated by love, because ‘God is love’ (1 John 4:8), and possessing an omniscience that perfectly knows our struggles and needs, Jesus calls out, “Come”. As a father longs for His children to be full of life and not weighted with burdens, so the Good Father longs for us. Jesus sees you fully, He knows you intimately, and He longs for you passionately. “Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall fine rest unto your souls. FOR MY YOKE IS EASY, AND MY BURDEN IS LIGHT.”