Sermon “A Burden Never Carried Alone”

There was a time when you wrote a letter and waited six weeks for a reply. These days, if someone doesn’t text back in six minutes, we’ve already checked our phones six times. Things move fast now. But some stories don’t feel that far away at all.

Take my parents. They were engaged before they ever saw each other’s faces. They married and had four children, including me. That wasn’t unusual. Marriages were often arranged by families. Some of you probably remember a time like that, maybe from your own family, maybe from your parents’ or grandparents’. But I sometimes wonder, in the room where those decisions were made, was my mother even there?

This isn’t new. Go back a few thousand years and you’ll find the same room. Genesis 24, far from Abraham’s home in the land where his relatives lived, somewhere near today’s Turkey and Syria border, ten camels are waiting outside. Gifts of gold and silver. Fine clothing. Inside, a family is having a conversation that will shape one young woman’s future. This is the story we read today.

Abraham wants to find a wife for his son Isaac. So Abraham sent his trusted servant to his relatives’ home. Along with the gifts he has brought, the servant explains why he has come. He has come to ask for Rebekah’s hand in marriage. He believes God has led him to her.

Bethuel, Rebekah’s father, listens. Laban, her brother, listens. They nod. “This is from the Lord; we can say nothing to you, one way or the other.” (24:50) This conversation continues. Rebekah’s name keeps coming up. Her voice never does.

Then, the next morning, someone says, “Let’s call the girl.” They called Rebekah and said to her, ‘Will you go with this man?’ She said, ‘I will.’  This is the only time Scripture hands Rebekah the microphone.

The next day, Rebekah mounts a camel. She has never seen Isaac. She doesn’t know what kind of man he is. At that time, and over that distance, a daughter who left her family home might never return. She may never again see her father’s face, hear her brother’s voice, or smell the home where she had grown up. Everything familiar is now behind her.

How will this man treat me? What will this life even look like? She had to leave carrying questions. That in itself was already a heavy weight to bear. One thing she’d said with her own mouth, days before. “I will go.” That word was probably what kept her walking. A trust spoken once, holding her steady every time her steps faltered.

Day after day, the same horizon. But Rebekah wasn’t alone. Her nanny was there. So were the girls she’d grown up with, sent to travel at her side.

On a strange night, camped in the middle of the desert, there was someone beside her who spoke her language. When she wondered what Isaac would be like, there was someone to listen.  For a woman who had left her father’s house, that nanny was the one person left who still knew it. None of that disappeared. But someone was beside her to help carry it.

Jesus says: Come to me, all you who are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.

A yoke was never meant for one ox. It was made for two, walking side by side under the same beam. Jesus said, “Take my yoke.” In his day, the word “yoke” was familiar but usually as something heavy that someone else had placed upon you. Jesus didn’t add yet another yoke. It’s as if he’s saying, “Not that one, take mine”. It wasn’t a promise to remove the burden. It was an invitation to carry it with him.

When Jesus says, take my yoke, he isn’t telling us that life suddenly stops being hard. The burden remains. What he’s saying is this: he will step into that yoke with us. Rest isn’t the absence of a burden. It’s the presence of someone beside you. Maybe the real reason we’re exhausted isn’t that the load is heavy. It’s that we’ve been trying to carry it by ourselves.

Rebekah’s journey lasted days, maybe weeks. And at the end of the desert, she finally arrives. Isaac brings her into his mother Sarah’s tent. Scripture states it plainly: “Isaac loved her… and was comforted.”(24:67)

We all carry burdens on this earth. No one is exempt. My parents, too, climbed onto that camel towards someone whose face they had never seen, down a road with no way back.

I have climbed onto that camel too. Mine was a plane, but it was no different from a camel. I left behind my familiar language, walked among unfamiliar faces. It was immigration. Perhaps you’ve said those words too: ‘I will go.’ Your journey may not have begun with a plane or a camel. But you’ve had your own road to walk, your own burdens to carry.

And somewhere along the way, we learned. Humility. The Lord’s way. And rest. We rarely see it while we’re living it. Only when we look back do we begin to notice. A door opened. Someone appeared at just the right time. Only then do we realise that God was there all along. Not because we were strong, but because the Lord had been walking beside us. Even now, we carry that yoke, still learning from him. And perhaps you’re carrying a burden of your own today.

Just as Rebekah was. And just as with her, no one could answer for you. Laban could not answer for her. Not even Abraham’s servant. The men did the talking, but it was her one word that began the journey. “I will go.”

Jesus’ invitation is no different. Come to me, I will give you rest. No one can answer that invitation for you. So much of your life may have been decided without you. But this question is different. Today, he asks you “Will you come to me?”