Baillie on Burden of Christianity
From his 1962 collection of sermons:
WE should prefer perhaps to be under no yoke of any sort and to have done with burdens altogether. We should prefer to live entirely untrammelled lives, and to do our thinking apart from all restraints. Why should man, who is lord of all the creatures, not be lord also of his own life? Why should he subject himself to any discipline at all, whether in thought or in action? Jean Jacques Rousseau began a famous treatise with the sentence, 'Man was born free, but he is everywhere in chains'; and his advice to us was that we should rid our-selves without delay of every yoke and chain that had ever been forged, including of course the yoke and chain of Christ. ... No man was ever more proud than was Rousseau of having won complete freedom for himself, but what one feels as one reads his Confessions is that with every chapter he is forging another link in the chain that ultimately strangled his intelligence no less than it had already strangled his virtue.
But why is it that Christ's yoke is easier and his burden lighter than all others? He gives us the reason when he says, 'For I am meek and lowly in heart.' There is no doubt that here lay the most obvious difference between Christ and the Scribes and Pharisees who loved 'the uppermost room at feasts and the chief seats in the synagogues' and concerning whom Christ said also that `they bind heavy burdens and grievous to be borne, and lay them on men's shoulders, but they themselves will not move them with one of their fingers'. There is equally little doubt that here lies the obvious difference between the bearing of Christ and that of His principal rivals in our own day. Could there be a more striking contrast than that between the meek and lowly Christ and the corrupt pattern of leadership displayed by your strutting dictators, your Napoleons and Hitlers and Mussolinis?
But yet, we ask, what is the precise connexion between Christ's meekness and the easiness of the yoke which He asks men to bear? Why should it be less burdensome to follow a pattern of humility than a pattern of pride? And how can we thus find rest unto our souls? It is because humility is the obverse side of confidence in God, whereas pride is the obverse side of confidence in self. The very essence of the Christian pattern of life is that we rely for our salvation wholly upon God and not at all upon ourselves. Christ's yoke falls easily upon our shoulders, because He Himself has borne it for us, and His burden weighs lightly because He has taken the weight of it upon Himself. 'They themselves will not move them with one of their fingers', He said of the Scribes and Pharisees; but Christ bore our griefs and carried our sorrows; the chastisement of our peace was upon Him; and so we have found rest and peace unto our souls.
And we have also found the only true freedom—'the liberty wherewith Christ has made you free'. The man whose will acknowledges no master thinks himself free, but he is not really so, because he has to bear all his own burdens, and these are too much for him. But if we are humble enough to become Christ's bondsmen, He gives us back our freedom by bearing all our burdens for us.
WE should prefer perhaps to be under no yoke of any sort and to have done with burdens altogether. We should prefer to live entirely untrammelled lives, and to do our thinking apart from all restraints. Why should man, who is lord of all the creatures, not be lord also of his own life? Why should he subject himself to any discipline at all, whether in thought or in action? Jean Jacques Rousseau began a famous treatise with the sentence, 'Man was born free, but he is everywhere in chains'; and his advice to us was that we should rid our-selves without delay of every yoke and chain that had ever been forged, including of course the yoke and chain of Christ. ... No man was ever more proud than was Rousseau of having won complete freedom for himself, but what one feels as one reads his Confessions is that with every chapter he is forging another link in the chain that ultimately strangled his intelligence no less than it had already strangled his virtue.
But why is it that Christ's yoke is easier and his burden lighter than all others? He gives us the reason when he says, 'For I am meek and lowly in heart.' There is no doubt that here lay the most obvious difference between Christ and the Scribes and Pharisees who loved 'the uppermost room at feasts and the chief seats in the synagogues' and concerning whom Christ said also that `they bind heavy burdens and grievous to be borne, and lay them on men's shoulders, but they themselves will not move them with one of their fingers'. There is equally little doubt that here lies the obvious difference between the bearing of Christ and that of His principal rivals in our own day. Could there be a more striking contrast than that between the meek and lowly Christ and the corrupt pattern of leadership displayed by your strutting dictators, your Napoleons and Hitlers and Mussolinis?
But yet, we ask, what is the precise connexion between Christ's meekness and the easiness of the yoke which He asks men to bear? Why should it be less burdensome to follow a pattern of humility than a pattern of pride? And how can we thus find rest unto our souls? It is because humility is the obverse side of confidence in God, whereas pride is the obverse side of confidence in self. The very essence of the Christian pattern of life is that we rely for our salvation wholly upon God and not at all upon ourselves. Christ's yoke falls easily upon our shoulders, because He Himself has borne it for us, and His burden weighs lightly because He has taken the weight of it upon Himself. 'They themselves will not move them with one of their fingers', He said of the Scribes and Pharisees; but Christ bore our griefs and carried our sorrows; the chastisement of our peace was upon Him; and so we have found rest and peace unto our souls.
And we have also found the only true freedom—'the liberty wherewith Christ has made you free'. The man whose will acknowledges no master thinks himself free, but he is not really so, because he has to bear all his own burdens, and these are too much for him. But if we are humble enough to become Christ's bondsmen, He gives us back our freedom by bearing all our burdens for us.
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