Christian Art | Daily Bible Verses For Advent | King James Audio Bible KJV
Matthew 11: 28-30 | Daily Bible Verses For Advent | Week 2, Wednesday | King James Audio Bible KJV
28 ¶ Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.
29 Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls.
30 For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.
We face difficulties in our lives. The crowds who listen to Jesus must have felt cruelly burdened, labouring and seeming to find no true reward. They must have sensed injustice and longed for their Messiah to set them free.
In a spiritual sense, they must have felt weighed down also with the many regulations prescribed by the Pharisees, while all the many religious observances seemed to bring no true spiritual reward, no peace to their souls, no oneness with the will of God.
Christ is come to bring rest to the people, to grant them peace. It is in the Gospels that we find peace, justice, truth – Christ as our comforter, our friend, our spiritual food. If we come to Christ, we find our burdens lightened.
‘Any other burden oppresses and crushes you, but Christ’s actually takes weight off you. Any other burden weighs down, but Christ’s gives you wings. If you take a bird’s wings away, you might seem to be taking weight off it, but the more weight you take off, the more you tie it to the earth. There it is on the ground, and you wanted to relieve it of a weight; give it back the weight of its wings and you will see how it flies.’ St Augustine
Concluding Prayer | Love Revealed By Jesus Christ
At your bidding, Lord,
we are preparing the way for Christ, your Son.
May we not grow faint on our journey
as we wait for his healing presence.
We make our prayer through our Lord.
King James Audio Bible | Endnotes
Jesus of Nazareth lived a life of perfect obedience to the Father. Philippians 2:5-8: ‘Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus: Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God: But made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men: And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.’
Nazareth was a small Jewish village in the region of Galilee during the time of Jesus. It was located on the trade route between Egypt and Syria, which brought a mix of cultures and beliefs to the area. However, Nazareth was not an important city – it was hardly a town and was often looked down upon by the residents of Jerusalem and other larger cities.
At the time of Jesus, the population of Nazareth was likely less than 500 people, mostly poor and working class. Many residents were likely involved in agriculture, fishing, or artisanal trades such as blacksmithing and pottery. The synagogue in Nazareth was likely a small building where the local community gathered for worship and religious instruction.
Jesus grew up in a place of utter obscurity. They did not use Roman coinage in Nazareth. They were not on the map. That was where it was chosen that God should be born – almost nowhere.
A Significance Of Jesus Of Nazareth
The place was so obscure that people have argued that Jesus Of Nazareth must be a corruption of Jesus a Nazarene. But that’s the point. If you had to choose a place for God the Son to be incarnate. This is nowhere. Therefore it is perfect – it can be everywhere. Jesus reveals himself in the regions of Galilee. The Gospels vary as to Jesus’ visit/s to Jerusalem. It is an extraordinary journey in the Gospels between the regions of Galilee and Jerusalem.
T.S. Eliot’s poem ‘Journey Of The Magi’, written in 1927, explores themes of transformation, faith, and the search for meaning. Inspired by Eliot’s conversion to Anglicanism, the poem tells the story of one of the Magi, the wise men who travelled to witness the birth of Christ [ … ]
While the Pharisees deny him, two blind men, who because of their blindness would be excluded from normal Jewish worship, are able to see Jesus for who and what he is. The way in which the blind men hail Jesus is significant: ‘Thou Son of David.’ This implies recognition of Jesus as the Messiah. It is as if, despite physical blindness, there is an inner light – and this is a thought we may all take to ourselves as we seek Jesus [ … ]
The world into which Jesus was born was not just one of imperial power—it was a world of cruelty, excess, and moral depravity beyond modern comprehension. The Caesars were not merely rulers; they were demigods in their own eyes, demanding worship, reveling in debauchery, and enforcing their will through brutality. Rome was a world where the strong crushed the weak, where spectacles of torture and death entertained the masses, and where mercy was seen as weakness [ … ]
