We will have moments of great sweat, like drops of blood, and we will ask God to remove our work from us. But those should be rare moments. If we are tilling God’s field and carrying the burdens He gives us, feeling constantly exhausted, anxious, and ungrateful, there is only one culprit—us.

Jesus said His yoke is easy and His burden is light. He wasn’t just referring to the tasks He gives us as our Lord (though that is part of it). He was also describing His experience as He worked harder and more effectively than anyone had ever worked. It’s an indictment against us Christians, obsessed with working harder and optimizing performance, that we don’t consider how our Lord worked.

His self-description is simple. He uses two analogies—shockingly—which compare His work to that of an animal. Oxen were yoked together to plough fields. “Beasts of burden,” as they are sometimes called, were used to carry loads too heavy for humans. In comparing Himself to the oxen, He says the ploughing He does is “easy.” As He walked along the life the Father had prescribed for Him, every single step was work for Him. Everything was intentional, and each inch was progress in the field of the Father’s design. The result was the burying of the seed and the first fruits arose at the end of Christ’s ministry—He died and rose again.

Of course, the end of this process was difficult. Hence, He sweat like great drops of blood (sweat being an indication of hard, not easy, work) and prayed, “Father, if it be possible, let this cup [task] pass from Me.” When He described his yoke as “easy,” He didn’t mean there are never difficulties. If He did, He would be describing a life in an unfallen world. Being born of Mary’s corruptible body, Jesus inherited a body that was subject to the difficulties of life. His life was by no means easy. His easy yoke was an orientation to work that found the work—in general—to be easy. Though we all—including Jesus—must work “by the sweat of our brow,” we all—if we’re in God’s Kingdom—participate in His eternal sabbath rest. This means that the general tenor of Christ’s life and ours should be one in which our work is easy. Christ spent a few days in abject and utter agony. But He spends years, decades even, rejoicing in the gifts of the Father, giving thanks to Him, and serving Him with joy.

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