EGO SUM QUI SUM
Aristotle’s Book 8 of Physics and Book 12 of Metaphysics talks of God as an Immortal, unchanging being, ultimately responsible for all wholeness and orderliness in the sensible world. This unmoved mover moves other things but is not itself moved by any prior action. God is “I am” because He transcends time and space. He dies not exist in time and never changes. He is the only one who could ever legitimately make such a claim.
In the gospel, Christ says “Come to Me”…Christ alone knows the Father; therefore Christ alone can reveal the Father. In these gracious words Christ extended to the multitude an invitation to become His disciples. The invitation to discipleship includes taking the yoke of Jesus, especially those who labour in soul and mind, which causes one to be burdened with care. This invitation would come with special force to the listening multitude, for religion of Israel had degenerated into a meaningless round of labour in an attempt to find salvation by works. Those who are heavy laden are invited: all mankind bear many heavy burdens, but in addition to the usual burdens borne in common by all humanity, the scribes and Pharisees had bound many other heavy burdens on the backs of the Jewish people, burdens grievous to be borne. The people were heavy laden with so many rabbinical requirements that an entire lifetime was ordinarily too short to learn them all. Instead of giving rest of soul to those who already bore a heavy burden of sin, these rabbinical requirements served only to crush out of the people any spark of life and hope that might remain. The people who sought to be conscientious groaned beneath the burden while many, the publicans and sinners gave up hope completely. The latter were outside the pale of religious respectability and no longer made a profession of religion. These unfortunate and discouraging results were the very ills Jesus came to alleviate, and was polemical with the adherents. Jesus promises to give his followers rest/respite/intermission (anapausis). Those who come to Christ do not cease to work but instead of laboring for the meat which perishes and becoming utterly weary in the attempt, they labour for that meat which endures unto everlasting life (John 6:27). He urges his listeners to “take His yoke’…to submit to the discipline and training of His way of life. The purpose of a yoke was not to make the burdens of draft animals heavier, but lighter,not harder ,but easier to bear. By ‘my yoke’ Christ meant His way of life, the divine will as summed up in the law of God and magnified in the Sermon on the Mount (Isa 42:21, Mat. 5:17,22). Jesus hearers were familier with the imagery for the rabbis also referred to the Torah as a yoke (Deut 31:9), not in the sense of its being a burden ,but rather a discipline, a way of life to which men were to submit. Jesus is the meek one: One who is meek intends nothing but good toward others. He is Lowly/ humble: A person humble in his own estimation assigns himself a low position in comparison with others; he esteems others better than himself. Christ is a sympathetic teacher and those who learn of Him will also be gentle and humble. So-called Christians who have not learned to be gentle and humble have not learned in the school of Christ (Phil 2:2,8). You will find rest: those who find the rest of which Jesus speaks will walk in the old paths and conform their lives to the good way of God’s own choosing. (Jer 6:16). My burden is light: He who truly loves Christ will delight to do His will (Psal 40:8) Those who take the yoke of submission to the Master who come to learn in His school will find the rest of soul He has promised. The heavy burden of legal righteousness, of trying to gain salvation by means of merit supposedly earned by one’s own works rather than secured through the merit of Christ, and the still heavier burden of sin itself, will all be rolled away.