“Come to me, all you who labor and are burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am meek and humble of heart; and you will find rest for yourselves. For my yoke is easy, and my burden light” (Mt 11:28-30). 

Our first instinct when we hear this invitation is to immediately respond with an enthusiastic yes. Yes, Lord, I am burdened and overworked. I am weary. Yes, Lord, I need rest. Yes, Lord, I will come to you.... 

Perhaps our enthusiasm diminishes a bit when Jesus goes on to invite us to take up His yoke. After all, didn’t we just accept His invitation to escape labor and burden? We might even be thinking that Jesus is trying to pull a fast one on us, that He is using the old bait and switch to get us to follow Him and then He will lower the hammer on us. 

So, what does Jesus really mean when He invites us to come to Him? When we say yes to following Jesus, it means that, like Jesus Himself, we will need to surrender our lives to the will of the Father. 

When Jesus tells us to go and do for others what He has done for us, He is explaining clearly what following Him is going to entail. With our whole lives, at work or at home, at rest or at play, in happy and sad moments, being with Jesus means we ask ourselves what God the Father wants us to do right now. 

Accepting the invitation of Jesus will require us to take up our crosses. We won’t be required to go looking for them, as the crosses we will need to carry will present themselves when we least expect them. An illness, a tragedy, a financial or family crisis are but a few of the crosses that will come our way as we journey through the gift of life. When these hardships come along, and they will, we can immediately wonder why or blame God. Some will even go so far as to wonder if coming to Jesus is worth the effort when bad things can still happen to “good” people. Or, on the other hand, we can confidently take up the cross laid before us and, with blessed assurance, know that all things are possible for God. We can, when we come to Jesus, be assured that the cross is a moment, and resurrection is forever. 

Being with Jesus is not something we can do when it fits our schedule or is convenient. Throughout His teaching, Jesus reminds us of the importance of patience and persistence. The Father’s plan for us may be revealed in a bolt of lightning or a clap of thunder, but most likely, we will be treated to glimpses of it throughout our lives. If we give up quickly, if we assume Jesus is all about immediate gratification, we will likely be disappointed. 

Finally, the fact that Jesus invites each of us to come to Him means that we are tasked with the responsibility of helping one another to accept the invitation. By word and example, by prayer and worship, by the spiritual and corporal works of mercy, we make known to one another the kingdom of God that Jesus revealed during His time on this earth.

As much as we might like “coming to Jesus” to be a party, this just isn’t the case. Accepting the invitation to come to Jesus means we commit ourselves to a lifetime of obedience, generosity, patience, conversion, and surrender. As difficult as this may sound, there is no need to be afraid. If we are with Jesus, He is with us. If we are with Jesus, we are with the Way, the Truth, and the Life. If we take on His yoke and heed His teaching, then not only will Jesus find faith when He returns, He will also take us to the place He has prepared for those who with their whole lives have come to Him.