As I was doing research for this Sunday’s message based out of Matthew 11:25-30, I came across some thoughts from Paul Tillich in The Shaking of the Foundations.

The sense of being burdened “is the general human condition to be heavy laden and to labor restlessly under a yoke too hard to be endured.”

For Tillich, the yoke to be taken way means the yoke of religion. “It is the yoke of the law, imposed on the people of His time by the religious teachers, the wise and understanding, as He calls them in our words, the Scribes and Pharisees, as they are called usually.”

Even today, we tend to create our own yokes in Christianity without realizing it sometimes. We take up new “laws.”

“The law of religion is the great attempt of man to overcome his anxiety and restlessness and despair, to close the gap within himself, and to reach immortality, spirituality and perfection. So he labors and toils under the religious law in thought and in act.”

This text comes during the weekend of celebrating American independence. I love the Fourth of July. I’ve studied the Revolutionary time period probably more than any other time period and have a deep admiration for the Founders. Thomas Jefferson was 34 when he wrote the Declaration of Independence. Washington, in his 40s, was considered an “old man.” The sheer courage and genius of this group is admirable to me.

But how was our independence won? Through striving. Our own striving. It was necessary, but it was OUR effort.

Sometimes we carry that same attitude over into our walk with Christ. Now understand, as Dallas Willard would say, “Grace isn’t opposed to effort, it’s opposed to earning.” There is action on our part. But sometimes we carry our walk with Christ as striving to achieve something.

Rather, our action is to be in “yoke” with Christ. As he labors, we are yoked together with in labor. HIS strength carries us, guides us, directs us. We are “at work” and “at rest” as well.

On this great celebration of INdependence may we also remember our DEpendence. Both are forms of great freedom.