The Saviour’s Yoke, Waiting & Promises, and How Zion is Built

The Saviour’s yoke

Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy-laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am gentle and humble in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls.

For my yoke is soft, and my burden is light.

Matthew 11:28-30 (including Greek and French alternative translations from the Authorised Version)

The Saviour’s yoke, which He bids us take upon ourselves, is light because He has lightened it, through bearing the burden of our sins, weaknesses, and afflictions. He has taken the heaviest, most painful and hard yoke upon Himself, so that ours might be light.

He bore our griefs and carried our sorrows. ~ Isaiah

I read a really good article in the Interpreter journal about this, which led me to the summary/insight above:

The Yoke of Christ: A Light Burden Heavy With Meaning | Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship

_{“Gethsemane”, by Adam Abram}

Waiting and Promises

I’m in Acts at the moment (almost finished) – quite a bit ahead of the Sunday School readings. A few weeks back, I was reading Acts 1, the first part of which describes the Saviour leaving the apostles at the end of His forty-day ministry after His resurrection. This is what it records about the Lord’s ascension into heaven:

And when he had spoken these things, while they beheld, he was taken up; and a cloud received him out of their sight.

And while they looked stedfastly toward heaven as he went up, behold, two men stood by them in white apparel;

[Who] also said, Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye gazing up into heaven? This same Jesus, [who] is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come in like manner as ye have seen him go into heaven.

Acts 1:9-11

The apostles were promised, here, that Jesus Christ would return as He had left them, and that, therefore, they didn’t need to gaze into heaven after Him, missing Him, as though He was gone forever.

But this wouldn’t actually happen for at least two thousand years! The promised return is much closer to us (and He has returned, briefly, in vision, to introduce this final Gospel dispensation), but many will still die without seeing it. The patience and hope of the apostles had to be for something they would never experience in this life, but which was pronounced as a certainty and reason to not be concerned.

So much patience is required of us! We have to hope in and work for promises that we might never see fulfilled in our lifetimes. We need faith in those things – all those things – we cannot see, which are real. God gives us glimpses of their fulfillment – glimpses of Heaven, so that we get just a sense of what it’s like, gaining hope to keep believing. But we can’t hold them; we have to just have faith that they’re real.

I’m so grateful for those glimpses, though. They act as infusions of spiritual power, bringing peace, confidence, and hope.

How Zion is built

Zion cannot be built up unless it is by the law of the celestial kingdom.

Doctrine & Covenants 105:5

No earthly projects of aiming for equality, or eliminating poverty, or ‘social justice’ will or can do it. It can only succeed when built with the law of the celestial kingdom – and, therefore, only by people living that law (and working towards it).

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