Matt 11:28-30

[TommyWommy]

What did Jesus mean when He said, “My yoke is easy and my burden is light?” We are also told to take up our cross and follow Him and to expect suffering. Carrying a cross is not an easy thing, even for Jesus. So, what is the “easy, light burden” Jesus is talking about here? Is it His grace?

 

[TommyWommy]

Umm…is this one going unanswered because it’s too hard, or too easy?

 

[NHInsider]

This is one of those things where our unfamiliarity with common things of the time makes it harder to interpret. The “yoke” is important. A yoke (for humans) is used to make carrying something heavy, easier. You’d find it very difficult to carry two full pails of water, one in each hand, very far. Much, much easier to hang them from a yoke on your shoulders. lehmans.com/jump.jsp?itemType=PRODUCT&itemID=6163

So Jesus isn’t promising that we won’t have burdens/troubles. But if we put ourselves into/under His yoke, we will find the burden light.

I have heard preachers suggest that the yoke in question is like an ox yoke, where the two animals pulling together can draw more than the sum of what either could draw alone. prairieoxdrovers.com/index.html
Then image is that the Lord is in one side of the yoke while the believer is in the other.

I’m not sure we can determine from the Hebrew which “yoke” the Lord may have meant, so we are free to be inspired by both possibilities.

 

[MarcoPolo]

What did Jesus mean when He said, “My yoke is easy and my burden is light?” We are also told to take up our cross and follow Him and to expect suffering. Carrying a cross is not an easy thing, even for Jesus. So, what is the “easy, light burden” Jesus is talking about here? Is it His grace?

In my first days on this forum, I asked this exact question to the Ask an Apologist forum, but it was not selected. After a few years here now, I think the two concepts should be understood as such. Suffering here is temporal, and compared to suffering with Christ, we are rewarded to live forever with Him. You see the disproportionate generosity of God? So in that regard, the burden we must bear in this life is brief, light, temporal.

 

[thistle]

What did Jesus mean when He said, “My yoke is easy and my burden is light?” We are also told to take up our cross and follow Him and to expect suffering. Carrying a cross is not an easy thing, even for Jesus. So, what is the “easy, light burden” Jesus is talking about here? Is it His grace?

D-R Bible, Haydock Commentary:

Ver. 28. All you that, &c. That is, you who are wearied with the heavy load of your sins, and the grievous yoke of the old law. (Menochius)

Ver. 29. Take up my yoke, &c. Fear not the yoke of Christ, for it is a yoke of the greatest sweetness. Be not disheartened when he mentions a burden, because it is a burden exceeding light. If then our Saviour says, that the way of virtue is exceeding narrow, and replete with difficulties and dangers, we must call to mind that it is so to the slothful only. Perform therefore with alacrity what is required, and then will all things be easy; the burden will be light, and the yoke sweet. (St. Chrysostom, hom. xxxix.)

Ver. 30. For my yoke is sweet, &c. For though, in regard of our weak nature, it be a very heavy yoke, yet the grace of God renders it easy and light, because our Lord himself helps us to bear it, according to that of the prophet Osee, (Chap. xi, ver. 4) I will be unto them as he that takes the yoke from off their heads. St. Bernard says, that our Saviour sweetens by the spiritual unction of his grace, all the crosses, penances, and mortifications of religious souls. St. Augustine owns, that before he knew the power of grace, he could never comprehend what chastity was, nor believe that any one was able to practice it; but the grace of God renders all things easy. (Rodriguez, On Mortification. Chap. xix.)