“Learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly” Matthew 11:28-30

Jesus had been performing miracles, dealing with the unbelief from mere people, the Pharisees and his disciples. We learn of a doubting John who asks if “we should wait for the Messiah, or are you the one?” Jesus then zones in to unbelieving cities, pronouncing woe to them. 

He then prays and thanks his father in heaven for revealing the mystery to those that have childlikeness, those who know how to depend on God. In verses 28, Jesus issues a great call to those who will come to him in faith, “those who labour and are heavy laden” he calls them to “take his yoke and learn from him”. Now this line “learn from me”, said Jesus got stuck in my heart. It got me thinking about the things we can learn from Jesus, which is everything that we need to know. I also see the verses above verse 29 to be explaining a lot about the why we can or should learn from Jesus as well as the how.

Verse 27 says that “All things have been delivered to me by my father, and no one knows the son except the father. Nor does anyone know the father except the son, and he to whom the son wills to reveal him”. First, it is important to identify here that Jesus is not talking about Joseph, but his father in heaven, the one who is revealed in Jesus, Joseph was known and therefore needs not to be revealed. If Jesus is talking about the creator of heaven and earth, we have all the reasons to learn from him. 

Jesus call all those who labour, I think about the Jews who were under the law, the legalists who think they can earn God’s favour by some religious activities that end up being outside appearance that do not reflect the inside, church goers labouring to be righteous without fully understanding grace and the famous Pharisees who laboured to make themselves look religious in front of people. Jesus is also calling those that are heavy laden, by sin and suffering without understanding. That is what people feel like when they have not rested on Christ, they constantly labour and are constantly heavy laden until they give their lives to Jesus who is calling them to come to his rest, coming to rest on him and his finished work.

He says “take my yoke and learn from me” (verse 29), and goes to describe his yoke on verse 30, “my yoke is easy and my burden is light”, If you know anything about agriculture, it is that a more experienced cow will be yoked with a less experienced cow and the heavy side of the yoke will be put on the more experienced cow, and the lighter side on the inexperienced cow. Jesus is saying he is experienced, he did life on earth as a man and we can rely on him to teach us how to walk it. Well, there are a lot of teachers who might want us to learn from, some say ‘experience is the best teacher’ while some say ‘indlela ibuzwa kwabaphambili’ (a Zulu proverb for the experienced or elders). Jesus is clearly saying indlela ibuzwa kuye (he is the experienced elder) and more so, he is not like any other teacher.

Jesus is gentle and lowly. These are attributes that not a lot of people can identify with these days. It is hard to be gentle to people who actually make it hard for you to be gentle to them. Jesus was gentle in speech and action. When I looked up the English dictionary meaning for gentle, it gave me the following synonyms: sensitive, kind, tender, humane, lenient, merciful, forgiving, forbearing, sympathetic, and  considerate. As you can see, Jesus identifies with these words and we can think of a bible story or scenario where Jesus displayed one or more or all these attributes. This is the Jesus that we can learn from when we walk close to him, and actually with him and his yoke. Those who take his yoke and learn from him, find rest for their souls. , they become his disciples as they learn from him. His attributes slowly becomes their attributes as the student becomes like a master. Jesus did life with constant dependance on the father in prayer and his followers or disciples must be likewise.

He is lowly in heart. He took a form of a man and humbled himself, he did not see his equality with God as something to be grasped and retained at all costs. He humbled himself till the end. And surely we can learn from him as believers, and to non-believers, he is still issuing the call even today. A call to give in to his yoke and to learn from him. We can learn from Jesus because he knows the father and he reveals him, because he is gentle and lowly, he is set apart from every teacher and he is God calling his people to himself. To depend on him.