Let Us Come to Jesus. Fourteenth Sunday Ordinary Time Year A

Sunday Breakfast with the Word Fourteenth Sunday Ordinary Time of The Year A

 

Let Us Come to Jesus

1, Zechariah 9:9-10, Romans 8:9, 11-13, Matthew 11:25-30

 

 

 

Introduction

 

Whenever we read what Jesus says and does, what we can see is a heart who is willing to save, a heart willing to bless and make us wholesome again and a heart willing to accept us whenever we come to Him. 

 

Jesus desires to see us live in peace, standing strong despite the challenges and remaining close to Him. He came only to save and He sacrifices his life for this cause.

He says that He came so that we may have life. The problem is that He keeps inviting us to Him but we keep ourselves busy with many things and partially have time for God. Our problem in life is not that God does not want to save us but that we have become tired and do not have trust in our Creator.

We seek our solace elsewhere and become tired whenever the name of God is mentioned. We are the problem and not God.

 

The God who Invites us.

In the gospel, Jesus invites His hearers to come to Him. He invites all who are overburdened by sorrows, works, challenges, problems, guilt, worries and religious burdens by the pharisaic laws to come to Him and have a rest.

It means that in Him and through him, there is surely a change. In the same way, Jesus is inviting us to encounter Him. 

 

Jesus Reveals the Father.

 

Before this invitation today, Jesus says a prayer to the Father. He blesses the Father, the Lord of heaven and of earth for hiding His mysteries from the learned and the clever and revealing them to mere children. 

With this, Jesus reveals the nature of the Father and the Father’s love for His disciples. Let us interpret it step by step.

 

1. In the gospel, Jesus begins by blessing the Father. In that prayer, He says “I thank you Lord of heaven and earth”. 

This is a reminder that only God has dominion over every power, every thing that is and everything that will come into being. Bringing to our consciousness that despite how we think we can run away from God, it is only He that still has dominion over everything.

 

2. Jesus in that prayer also reminds us that everything has been entrusted to Him. 

The emphasis is that He also has dominion over everything, over our problems, our afflictions, our sorrows, and our future.

He is the only way to the Father. We cannot know the Father more if not through Jesus. Therefore, when we come to Him in prayer, we have to know He has dominion over the situation already.

 

3. From the prayer, Jesus also reveals the Father as one who is ever willing to reveal Himself to those who take Him as Father.

Jesus’ use of the word “children” indicates the attitude of people who see themselves as under the lordship of the Father.

The Father is willing to relate with us and reveal more of Him if we can humble ourselves and come to Him.

 This reveals that the Father is always free with His grace, especially to those who acknowledge their nothingness before God.

 The Children are those who are poor in spirit, the persecuted, and those who live by His word and depend on Him. They are the meek, the sinners who come to Him for repentance, lepers, the merciful, and the sick who depend totally on him and search for him.

 

4. The prayer of Jesus is an eye-opener that the way God thinks is different from ours. Therefore, some of the people we think can never be blessed, maybe the people already blessed.

The people we think are nothing can be the people God has designed to do great things. He acts in ways that confound human wisdom. So, let us not count ourselves out when God has not counted us out.

 

 

5. The God who invites us is willing to give us everything if we can humble ourselves and come to Him. 

The first reading says He is victorious, humble and riding on a donkey. Though a king, He is humble to the core, though a king but willing to give us peace.

In the gospel, Jesus reiterates this by saying “ I am humble and lowly in the heart”. He is not a wicked God.

 

The King Who comes to You.

 

In this reflection, I am trying to connect the dots so that the message of today’s readings will become so clear. 

In the first reading from the Prophet Zechariah, we read how God tells the people to rejoice for the King is now coming to them, victorious and triumphant.

 

This King rides on a donkey, but He is always Victorious. He is the one willingly coming to the people to banish chariots, horses and bow of war, then proclaim peace. 

 

In essence, He is a king of peace and his empire will stretch from sea to sea to the ends of the earth. The question we now have to ask is, who is this King that is coming to liberate His people?

Who is this king that is riding on a donkey, A king of humility and peace, a King that is coming to grant us victory? Who is this King that God willingly gives to His people?

Let us look at the character of this King.

 

1. In the first reading, Zechariah comes with a message of hope, asking the people of God to “rejoice” and “shout aloud!“. This is like asking someone to begin to dance, that something good is coming to the person. This tells us that this is a message of hope that their kingdom is going to be restored. It is not a sorrowful message. 

 

2. Secondly, this King is righteous. He will live rightly. He is not a king of hatred or Wickedness. This king aims to save His people and nothing more.

3. Thirdly, he is a King of salvation willing to save His people. This King is not coming to be served. He is coming to serve His people. 

 

4. This King is Humble and riding on a donkey. We know very well that donkeys are not for war, unlike horses that symbolize war and power (Isaiah 31:1-3; 1 King 4:26).

Hence, this King will save his people not mounted on a horse but on a donkey. Therefore, His Kingship is that of a peaceful one. 

 

5. He shall also rule from sea to sea from river to the ends of the earth. He will be the King of everybody. In Him, there is no discrimination.

Therefore, from these qualities, we shall confidently confirm whom Zechariah is prophesying about. He is no other person than JESUS.

Jesus is the one we read about, how he entered Jerusalem triumphantly riding on a donkey. He is the king of peace, the King who has come to save His people. In John 12, we find Jesus riding into Jerusalem on a donkey.

Also, remember that when the crowd found out that Jesus was coming into Jerusalem on a donkey the people came out in large numbers and cried, “Hosanna (save us),”.

They wave their palm branches, which is an action done for a king. Even the gospel writers made us understand that Jesus is the long-anticipated King that Zechariah prophesied. 

He is the one who comes to save us from sin, guilt, eternal damnation, problems and difficulties. Jesus is the one who comes to give us peace. To accept Jesus and live in closer communion with Him is to also accept peace.

 

With this exposition, we can understand the reason Jesus invites us to come to Him and have rest.

We can understand it better as He thanks the Father for revealing the mysteries about Him to His children; those who are willing to remain closer to Him. 

 

 

Jesus invites You.

 

“Come” is a word used as an invitation to do something. When Jesus says “Come” in the gospel, He uses two key statements “Those who labour and those who are overburdened’. 

Labour indicates hard work and excessive suffering. Therefore, Jesus extends his invitation to all who are suffering, all who work but gain nothing. 

He also invites those overburdened by the customs and demanding laws of the Pharisees which become so hard for the people.

 

So, in essence, Jesus invites those who feel overburdened by the demands of the law. They are those who think that God is burdensome when He is not. 

 

Jesus is making us understand that it is no longer how much we try to keep and follow strictly the demands of the laws but how close we are to Jesus.

 

Also, He invites all who feel overburdened by the things of the world, by others, those who also overburden themselves and overburdened by the weight of their sins, those who are tired and weary, tired of worshipping God, tired of their situations, their lives, faith and have lost faith in God to find peace and forgiveness of sins. 

 

The first reading says that when the King comes, He will banish the bow of war and proclaim peace to the nations. He will stretch His dominion from sea to sea. This invitation is a call to come to Jesus to have peace and this can only happen if we allow him to be our Lord. 

 

We are suffering because we assume control and take the position of God in our lives. Jesus should lead and we follow.

 

His Yoke is Easy

 

A yoke is something that is placed on an animal to properly guide it to perform the work required of its master. The yoke is sometimes attached to two oxen so that both of them will work together to do the work the master wants to be accomplished. 

 

The Jews have been under the strict laws of the Pharisees which were so burdensome. Jesus compares his yoke, as easy and light with the number and burdensome rules the Jews were subjected to by the Pharisees. 

 

Today He invites them to take upon His yoke and not the Pharisaic laws. This simply means placing Him as our master and submitting to His will. This is when we seek to make His will our will. This is when we take Him as our Lord and Shepherd. Our salvation comes from Him and not from the law.

 

In Jewish custom, yokes are placed by masters. The oxen or horses will not have any choice but to be yoked. But that of Jesus differs. His yoke is that of peace and relationship with Him.

 

He is inviting us to relate with Him. Full encounter with Jesus will give us peace. Also, this invitation is different in the sense that it is voluntary.

He only invites us but the choice to come is ours. He wants to be our master, but it is left for us to let Him in or not.

 

When We come to Jesus.

 

To come to Jesus is when we fully accept to remain closer to Him. It is when we accept Him as the Lord, King and President of our lives.

This is when we yield everything to Him. Even during troubles, we know deep down within us that He is our shepherd. When He is our shepherd, we have nothing to be afraid of.

Therefore, when we come to Jesus, we shall have peace of mind even in the most troubling moments.

 

 

2. When we come to Jesus, His Spirit will possess us. We shall detest hatred, wickedness, lies, adulterous lives, and the life of prayerlessness. Then, our interests will not be unspiritual as Saint Paul says in the second reading, but in the spiritual.

Paul says in the second reading that since the Spirit of God has made his home in you, your interest is always in the spiritual. 

Saint Paul also says that unless you are possessed by the Spirit of Christ you would not belong to him, and if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, then he who raised Jesus from the dead will give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit living in you.

When the Spirit of God becomes alive in us, we shall always live the life that God desires.

 

 

By then, we shall discover that we do not have to obey our unspiritual selves or live unspiritual lives. Paul encourages that if by the Spirit of God we put an end to the misdeeds of the body we will live.

 

 

3. Therefore, when we come to Jesus, we shall desire to live a holy life. When we come to Jesus, our magnitude of faith will rise. We are no longer in fear or worry.

Hence, we know that a mighty hand is in control of everything. When we come to Jesus we shall encounter mercy and forgiveness of sins. We shall not glory in sin again. We shall know that Jesus is ever ready to show mercy. 

 

When we come to Jesus, our lives will transform. We shall then long to be like him and live like Jesus. We shall then become the light for others. Let us come to Jesus always. 

 

 

Conclusion.

 

1. To come to Jesus is also obedience to his command. Virgin Mary tells us in John 2:5 to “do whatever he tells you”.

 

When the servants obeyed, significant things happened. When we obey to come to Him, our lives will begin to change. But man finds it better to run away, yet He regrets it at last.

 

 

2. What we owe Jesus as truly his disciples is to continually come to him. Running away from God in moments of crisis is not the best option, the best option is still to run to Him.

 

3. There are great benefits when we take His yoke upon us. He will never leave us the same, He will give us peace, and He will overcome our internal struggles and battle.

 

The greatest is that He will fill us with the Holy Spirit. And Paul said in the 2nd reading that If the Spirit of He, who raised Jesus from the dead is in you, then He will give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit living in you.

In Him, we have life and have it in abundance. Only in the Spirit can one develop a sense of joy even in affliction.

 

4. The yoke that Jesus offers is simply His teaching, discipleship, and coming to Him which is not burdensome but life-giving. To take his yoke upon ourselves is to be yoked to deliverance, peace, blessings, salvation, graces, upliftment, and eternal life. 

 

5. Jesus in the gospels tells us to learn from Him, for he is gentle, meek and humble. He came and carried His cross gently without complaints and regrets. Asking us to do the same. But we choose to be faithless and full of complaining.

The world is full of challenges. Just like Jesus, we have to follow the world with patience and perseverance.

 

 

6.Finally, Let us humble ourselves and come to God. God so much loves it when we sincerely take Him as Father and depend on Him like little children.

 

He will take us as a Father, care for us as one and teach us as one. Just as the disciples of Jesus depend on him, we are to follow Jesus like a sheep following a Shepherd and walk with Him all the days of our lives.

 

So stay inspired, faithful and be blessed. There is always Light at the end of the tunnel.

May God bless you dearest and give us the grace to remain close to Him. Amen.

Happy Sunday