In that same hour, He rejoiced in the Holy Spirit and said, “I thank You, Father, Lord of Heaven and Earth, that You have hidden these things from the wise and understanding and revealed them to little children; yes, Father, for such was Your gracious will.” Luke 10:21 ESV1
Read Matthew 11:25-30 & Luke 10:21-24
As I sit down to write today, I am full of emotion and surrounded by uncertainty. My husband’s job of thirty years is in jeopardy. My oldest daughter and her family may soon have no place to live. My youngest daughter was rejected for the internship toward which she has worked for two years. And there is so much unpredictability concerning my son’s application to graduate school that my heart is racing.
I have no idea what the next week will bring, let alone the next month or year. Yet, I have worship music blaring, and tears of gratitude are running down my cheeks. Why? Because we have been through uncertain times before, and God has never left or forsaken us (see Hebrews 13:5-6). Instead, through each problematic time, He has revealed Himself in a more significant measure to us. The process hasn’t always been easy, but each new revelation has given us what we needed to continue in this life in accordance with His plan for us.
I believe these revelations of Himself, that prepare the Children of God for the future and provide peace in uncertainty, are the very thing to which Jesus was referring when “He rejoiced in the Holy Spirit and said, ‘I thank you, Father, Lord of Heaven and Earth, that You have hidden these things from the wise and understanding and revealed them to little children; yes, Father, for such was Your gracious will. All things have been handed over to Me by My Father, and no one knows who the Son is except the Father, or who the Father is except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal Him’” (Luke 10:21-22).
Immediately after Jesus praised His Father for His gracious will in revealing Himself to the childlike, Jesus called out to those around Him, “’Come to Me, all who labor and are heavily laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you, and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy, and My burden is light’” (Matthew 11:28-30).
The phrase, “He rejoiced in the Holy Spirit” in reference to Jesus is only mentioned in Luke 11:21. The Greek word Luke used is agalliao; it means delight; great joy2; and gives the connotation of jumping for joy. About what are the Holy Spirit and Jesus so excited? They are ecstatic about opportunities to reveal the Father. With each new development in the lives of God’s Children, Jesus jumps up and down in excitement, because He gets to show more of the Father through the situation!
In His rejoicing, Jesus addressed the “’Father, [as] Lord of Heaven and Earth’” (Luke 10:21). As the Lord of Heaven and Earth, God is sovereign. There is nothing that happens in Heaven or on Earth which is out of His knowledge or control. “And we know that for those who love God, all things work together for good, for those who are called according to His purpose” (Romans 8:28). What rest it brings to know that nothing comes our way except by the permission of God. What we are experiencing now has gone through God’s filter.
The Father has put Jesus in charge of revealing Himself to humans. Jesus said, “’All things have been handed over to Me by My Father, and no one knows who the Son is except the Father, or who the Father is except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal Him’” (Luke 10:22). Jesus gets to choose to whom and through what He will reveal the Father. Because we are experiencing these tough times, we can be confident that we have been picked explicitly by Jesus for a special revelation. Jesus knows just what revelation we need, because He, in some capacity, has been in situations like ours (see Hebrews 4:14-16).
Sadly, though, we are not always open to letting Jesus reveal the Father during stressful situations. Jesus alluded to this when He thanked His Father for “’[hiding] these things from the wise and understanding and [revealing] them to little children’” (Luke 10:21b). Jesus pointed out that those who are, from a human perspective, wise and understanding have a particularly hard time accepting the revelations of God. Our knowledge and pride, among other things, can make it almost impossible for us to let go and trust God. But if we are humble, like children, we are more likely to believe God and be more willing to submit to the plans of the Lord. Being childlike is greatly esteemed in the eyes of God. Jesus later “said, ‘Truly, I say to you, unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the Kingdom of Heaven. Whoever humbles himself like [a] child is the greatest in the Kingdom of Heaven’” (Matthew 18:3-4). Lord, help us to be humble and trusting now.
The multitude of people to whom Jesus was directly speaking in the above passage was struggling under the impossible demands of the religious leaders of the day. Through their interpretation of the Law and the rules and regulations they insisted the Jews must follow, the Pharisees were indeed tying “up heavy, cumbersome loads and [putting] them on people’s shoulders, but they themselves [were] not willing to lift a finger to move them” (Matthew 23:4).
Many people desiring to please God were laboring and being heavy laden and needing rest. But Jesus didn’t command the weary to lay down their burdens and run. Instead, He proposed that they take upon themselves another weight–a yolk, an instrument used in forced, heavy labor. At first thought, this seems like an oxymoron. Why take up another burden on top of the one that is already too heavy to carry?
What about Jesus’ yoke could possibly be so effortless? Consider this: the nature of a yoke is teamwork; two are working together. Those yoked to Jesus don’t pull burdens alone. Jesus is right beside them. Jesus does move more than a finger to help lift loads. In all reality, Jesus is the One with the strength. He is the One doing all the work; “apart from Him [one] can do nothing” (John 15:5). At best, all humans can do is to attempt to keep up with Jesus obediently. Any pain one feels while being yoked to Jesus is when one isn’t cooperating, and Jesus must drag him/her along.
Jesus’ yoke is not a “yoke of slavery” (see Galatians 5:1). Jesus says His yoke is one of learning. “’Take My yoke upon you, and learn from Me’” (Matthew 11:29a). Jesus instructs those yoked to Him much like an experienced ox teaches a young ox how to plow. When one is hitched to Jesus, one can’t help but learn from Him and get to know Him. One learns from Jesus to be like Jesus. In the process, Jesus reveals more of the Father to His yoke partner.
Jesus described Himself as “gentle and lowly in heart” (Matthew 11:29b). When one is so close to Jesus that he/she is yoked with Him, he/she learns, little by little, to be gentle with other people and lowly in heart, or submissive, to God. It is a natural process. When one stays yoked to Jesus, Jesus stays yoked to him/her, and he/she can’t help making progress in the right direction (see John 15).
When one is yoked to Jesus, He guarantees he/she “will find rest for [his/her] our soul” (Matthew 11:29c). The Amplified Bible3 expounds on the word rest in Matthew 11:29 defining it as relief, ease, refreshment, recreation, and blessed quiet. Rest for one’s soul is something all deeply desire and ultimately need. But this kind of rest only comes when one ceases striving (see Psalm 46:10) and starts submitting to the directions of the One to whom he/she is yoked, namely Jesus.
Jesus is speaking to us today. May we, in our current situations, come again to Jesus, cooperate with Him, accept His leading, and learn from Him to be like Him. May we find rest for our souls as He helps us endure the burdens He has chosen for us. And may our eyes and hearts be open to all that Jesus wants to reveal to us of His Father in these matters.
After praising His Father and instructing any who were weary in the crowd to come to Him, Jesus “[turned] to the disciples, He said privately, ‘Blessed are the eyes that see what you see! For I tell you that many prophets and kings desired to see what you see, and did not see it, and to hear what you hear, and did not hear it’” (Luke 10-23-24). Jesus was talking about His coming as the Messiah, something that many in the past had longed to see (see Hebrews 11:13, 1 Peter 1:10-12 and John 8:56). But sticking with the subject at hand, I can’t help but think that many Believers have prayed for greater revelations of God, but in the suffering of the very circumstances which were intended to answer those prayers, have missed what Jesus had prepared to reveal. I don’t want my family and me to overlook what Jesus desires to make known to us in our difficult situations.
I am aware that knowing God more deeply is more important than the resolution of our current problems. “’This is eternal life, that [we] know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom [He has] sent’” (John 17:3). And I believe that it is only through “the Spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of Him, [that] the eyes of [our] hearts [will be] enlightened, [to] … know what is the hope to which He has called [us], what are the riches of His glorious inheritance in the saints, and what is the immeasurable greatness of His power toward us who believe” (Ephesians 1:16-19). That wisdom, revelation, and knowledge don’t come without difficulty waking us to our need for them.
I am confident that “God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. Therefore we [should] not fear though the earth gives way, though the mountains be moved into the heart of the sea” (Psalm 46:1-2). I am sure that “’The Lord is [our] helper; [we need] not fear; what can man do to [us]’” (Hebrews 13:6). And I can rejoice not in immense success “’but … that [our] names are written in Heaven’” (Luke 10:20b), and no one can take away that security.
Through the uncertain times in the past, God has revealed Himself to us. Like we always have, I am sure we will come out on the other side of these situations better off, in some aspect, than we were before. In the end, we will be able to praise God for His plan and His faithfulness.
But right now, I am sad for the losses we have recently experienced. So, I am going to let Jesus do the jumping up and down for us. I know we are going to be just fine when all of this gets settled, but I am apprehensive of the process it is going to take to get resolved. Perhaps, what God reveals of Himself through these experiences, will be precisely what we need to help us be more excited and less fearful the next time our lives get upset. And when all is said and done in this round to trouble, “may [we] be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God” (2 Corinthians 1:4).
1 Scripture quotations marked with ESV are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version (ESV), copyright 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. All Scriptures are taken from the ESV unless otherwise noted. To aid in understanding, I have capitalized references to God.
2 Definition found in the New Testament Lexical Aids of The Hebrew-Greek Key Study Bible, New International Version, copyright 1996 by AMG International, Inc.
3 From the Holy Bible, Amplified Bible (AMP) Copyright 2015 by The Lockman Foundation, La Habra, CA 90631.