A Yoke Too Heavy to Bear (Acts 15:10)

 A Yoke Too Heavy to Bear (Acts 15:10)

Someone has said that the job of the preacher is to comfort the afflicted and to afflict the comfortable. There may be an element of truth, but I would say that the job of the Gospel preacher is to lighten the load. We are not to heap up guilt and obligation, but to point to Christ who has borne our penalty and our pain for us.

On this Sunday before Reformation Day, celebrated each year on October 31 (often forgotten due to something else going on that day), we think again of the truth and blessing of something called “justification by faith.” We all want to be justified, but there are different paths by which people try and get there. There is self-justification, as opposed to God-justification. There is justification by works, or accomplishment, or effort, as opposed to justification by faith. There is justification in the eyes of people, doing whatever is necessary to gain their favor, as opposed to justification in God’s eyes, not gaining it, but receiving it as a gift through faith in Christ.

Justification is a legal issue, and God is the Judge. We, His creatures, have offended His holiness in more ways than we know, and for us to seek to stand before the Judge and claim that we have gone ahead and justified ourselves, well, that’s just not going to fly. 

But the most common approach to God, or to “the gods,” is to try to justify ourselves before the deity so that they would be no longer mad at us. It is yoke too heavy to bear. And in Jesus’ day, it is how the Jewish religion had devolved into a “try harder” religion by which one could (hopefully) secure God’s favor by sufficiently(?) keeping the Law (which no one could do perfectly).

And so Paul confronts Peter, recorded in Acts 15 and asks this critical question about testing God and putting a yoke on the backs of disciples who had been saved by grace through faith, but now were to revert back to having to earn God’s favor by practicing old laws that no longer applied. Paul, a good Gospel preacher, was saying, “Let’s not break the back of the disciples.” Yes, let’s not.

I like to say that Jesus has done the heavy lifting for us. He carried the cross that we deserved. He bore the penalty of our sin that would have required eternal punishment for us. He bore the yoke that was too heavy for us to bear. So we are to substitute nothing in our Gospel understanding that replaces Christ. And it can happen easily. But now, we walk with Christ who leads us in lives of freedom, a freedom that loves to love and to serve.