The yoke isn't
always easy. Because life can be difficult - it can be heavy.
And if we try to
do it alone, we tire, and stumble, and generally are miserable. The yoke goes
off-kilter when there is but one trying to pull it. It is too much to be done
well, to be done properly.
Life is heavy; and
it is too much to be done by ourselves without help.
And so God
provides for us ways to deal with the heaviness.
The solution:
coming together with God and with one another.
For when we do
that, we are sharing the load. We are sharing the heaviness. 100 pounds
for one person is unbearable; that weight for 10 people is possible; that
weight for 100 people is negligible; and the community that forms as the weight
is shared lifts us, supports us, encourages us. The weight is no longer a
struggle, but a gathering point.
And when it comes
to emotional weight: grief, sorrow, suffering - that is a weight that moves
beyond what can be weighed on a scale and into a heaviness of heart.
This heaviness is
what we feel today; what we have felt over the past week as we have journeyed
in a world where we love Vic but see him no more.
This is where we
lean on each other the most. When our hearts are so heavy that they threaten to
paralyse us.
And this is
exactly where our faith comes in, to share in how we carry that weight. To
remind us that God never intended us to bear this weight, this grief,
alone.
The weight does
not diminish; faith does not magically remove it from us. Rather, it provides a
divine helper to come alongside us, to walk with us, to share the load.
It is our faith
that invites us to recognise Jesus is beside us. In our grief; Jesus shoulders
the yoke; helps to guide and direct us so that we can find again the right
path, the correct journey, the way that we are wanted to go.
It can feel
strange at first, as we start to discover and develop a new 'normal'; we
continue to stumble and bumble, but Jesus never lets us go. He never lets us
journey alone. He stays right beside us as we get back on our way, where we get
back to being able to carry the weight of this life.
And he doesn't
leave us then; he never leaves us. He never wants for us to think we have to
journey alone, no matter what we think we can do.
This is the
truth that brings us comfort. To know that we are never without help and
direction. To know that we will never be left behind. To know that we will
never have to carry the heaviness of this world alone.
It is comfort,
indeed. The comfort of faith.
This is
this faith which Vic proclaimed, in word and action, every day of his
life. It is the faith he celebrated in every relationship: with
family, with friends, with anyone he encountered. He lived his faith fully, and
is an example to the rest of us.
So while the
burden of our grief is heavy, we are helped through it by the gift of faith.
The faith that assures us that Vic is not gone, but has moved to the next life.
The faith that promises us that we will see Vic again at the Resurrection. The
faith that sustained Vic in this life and is rewarding him in the next.
Vic's journey in
this life was with Jesus. It was a walk of faith, of hope, and of love. I pray
we all might have faith as strong as Vic's, that we too would live in
hope.
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