The month of the Sacred Heart of Jesus has ended, and perhaps we are still left with a question: has my heart become more like Christ’s? Is it more content, secure and at rest in the Lord? Or is it still bogged down by painful, sometimes unnoticed burdens?
Last week, as we celebrated the Birth of John the Baptist, the readings from Luke (1:57-66) and Galatians (4:21-5:1) shed light on one such burden: the pressure to prove I am enough… enough to be loved, noticed, and matter.
This is a silent, limiting, and paralysing burden that St Paul calls a “yoke of slavery”: “Do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.” What is this yoke? It is the voice that says, “make yourself enough, make yourself free, prove your worth, secure your future, earn your place, get ahead.”
This voice makes us work harder, present an impressive version of ourselves and strive for control. Yet beneath the activity is the fear, that unless I make myself valuable or admired, I will not be safe, loved, or worthy. That fear leaves no room for the grateful freedom of a child. And once we yield to this burden, we begin looking sideways:
“Am I doing as well as them?”
“Do I have what they have?”
“Are they more admired, gifted, secure?”
Such comparison enslaves us to discontentment. We become discontent, not only with ourselves, but with the blessings, success, and rewards of others. When another person is doing better than we are, it seems like a judgement upon our own lives.
As a result, we cannot receive our own gifts with gratitude because we are preoccupied with what God has given someone else. Luke’s account of John’s birth gives us a striking contrast.
When Elizabeth gives birth, her neighbours hear that the Lord has shown her great mercy, “and they rejoiced with her.” They rejoiced with her! They didn’t treat her blessing as competition. They saw God’s mercy and shared her joy.
That is true freedom: resting deeply enough in God’s goodness to rejoice when he blesses another, even while we are still waiting for God’s intervention in our own lives…yes, even when God seems to be blessing our adversaries more than us. From the beginning, John the Baptist belonged to this freedom.
Zechariah wrote, “His name is John.” That name means ‘the Lord is gracious,’ or ‘the Lord is merciful.’ His identity proclaimed that his life was gift before it was achievement. He did not manufacture his identity, purpose, or mission. He received them. He lived from grace and, therefore, with gratitude, clarity, and inner freedom.
This is the kind of yoke that Jesus calls us to take upon ourselves:
“Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me… For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”
Christ’s yoke is not another demand to make ourselves better, prove our worth, or become enough by our own strength. It is the invitation to receive our identity, purpose, and mission from him. It is receiving his merciful love with confidence, especially where we feel least deserving of it.
Then, it is learning from him and walking with him, even to the Cross. St Paul says we are children of the promise. Children don’t earn a place in their Father’s home. They receive and are nourished by what their Father provides.
So too, children acknowledge that Christ has carried what we never could: the burdens of sin, shame, fear, and death. The Father gives what we cannot earn: forgiveness, communion with the Trinity, and eternal life. Unlike the yoke of slavery, which impossibly suggests we must make and prove ourselves, Christ’s yoke is light because it grants what it promises.
It doesn’t remove the Cross or trivialise suffering; it assures us that we do not carry the cross alone. Christ has already carried it, and now carries it with us and for us. Where the yoke of slavery says, “I must do things to become free,” Christ’s yoke says, “You are free, even in suffering and trial, because you belong to me.”
This freedom does not make us passive. It enables us to discipline our desires and resist sin, not because we are trying to earn God’s love, but because we already belong to him and share in his grace. John the Baptist exemplified this freedom. He fasted, spoke the truth, and acknowledged goodness in others.
When Christ comes, John says, “He must increase; I must decrease.” Christ becoming greater did not make John less; it made John fully himself.
Free from comparison and the need to be centre, John became free enough to give everything, even his own life, for Christ.
