Christian Art | Jesus Preaches Hope And Faith – Peace | Daily Bible Verses For Advent | King James Audio Bible KJV
Matthew 11: 28-30 | Daily Bible Verses For Advent | Week 2, Wednesday | Also Thursday, Week 15, Ordinary Time | 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.
It is in Chapter 11 of Matthew’s Gospel that Jesus’ mission has encountered serious difficulties. Through Chapters 11 and 12 there are challenges, which confirm what Jesus has told the disciples in the Discourse of the Mission, concerning his bringing not peace but a sword, of Jesus’ Mission being a sign of Christian contradiction. There is real enmity in the region of Galilee, the scribes and the Pharisees especially rejecting the truth of Jesus, while even John the Baptist fails to understand [ … ]
We are given different accounts of Jesus teaching his disciples the Lord’s Prayer, the Our Father, in today’s verses from the Gospel of Luke, and also in the Gospel of Matthew, during the Sermon on the Mount. Here the situation is quite different from that of Matthew. Jesus has been praying, seemingly apart, to his Father, and so it is after this that the disciples ask Jesus to teach them how to pray. This is unusual: prayer, especially of the psalms, would have been an integral part of these Jewish people’s daily routine. We are alerted to the Lord’s Prayer being an additional offering, an innovation of grace, and a further initiation for the Christian. The prayer furthermore reflects John the Baptist’s teaching of his disciples [ … ]
T.S. Eliot’s poem ‘A Song for Simeon’ explores existential themes of mortality and the pursuit of meaning in a world characterized by impermanence. Eliot prompts readers to engage with universal struggles encompassing life, death and spiritual fulfilment [ … ]
