[This is the message prepared for presentation at the funeral of Elmer, a member of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio. The funeral took place earlier this evening.]
Matthew 11:28-30
Mark 1:15
Galatians 5:22-23
John 11:21-27
Yesterday, I visited with one of the people in our congregation who knew Elmer best. He told me, with conviction, “Elmer was the gentlest man I ever met.” This echoes Sharon’s words: “Elmer was a gentleman.” Someone just told me, "He was a gentle giant."
The dictionary says that one way the word gentleman can be defined is, “...a man whose conduct conforms to a high standard of propriety or correct behavior.” That’s certainly part of what marked Elmer as a gentleman. But even more, I think, Elmer had a gentle spirit, a servant’s heart. In Elmer, love for God and love for neighbor was manifest in a simple willingness to do for others.
Everyone who got to know Elmer at Living Water can attest to his gentleness. On learning of Elmer’s passing, one member of the congregation wrote, “Loved Elmer's hugs and smiles. Heaven has a beautiful saint. I will miss him!”
Elmer was also a man who loved to have fun. He had a ready laugh, liked to dance and play golf (and did so nearly to the end of his life) and spend time with people.
Where exactly did Elmer’s gentle, loving personality come from? Well, genetics played its part, I’m sure. And he likely was nurtured to be such a person by his family. Nature and nurture have their effect.
But I think that there was a deeper reason for why Elmer was the kind of man he was.
You know, Jesus invites all we human beings--sinful mortals in need of saving--to daily turn from sin and turn instead to Him for the forgiveness of our sins and life with God that begins in this imperfect world and that will be brought to perfection when all who trust or believe in Jesus will be raised from the dead just like Jesus.
Jesus speaks of this promise a lot.
For example, Jesus once told the crowds that were thronging around Him: “The kingdom of God has come near. Repent [that is, turn from and repudiate your sin] and believe the good news!” [Mark 1:15]
The good news is what Jesus talked about on another occasion: “For God so loved the world [He said] that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” [John 3:16]
But what interests me in connection with Elmer is how Jesus talked about the good news--the gospel--that saves those who lay down their sins and trust their lives to Him in yet another verse of the Bible. There Jesus says, “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble 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 gentleness of spirit we all observed in Elmer came from the Savior in Whom he believed.
This is the Savior Who promises that if we will lay down the burdens of sin, death, and futility into which we’re all born, and take on instead, the yoke of being a follower of Jesus, this gentle, humble Savior will give rest, serenity, peace to our souls.
Once we rest easy in Jesus, we have nothing to prove to God or the world, no incentive to crawl over others in order to stand out or be successful, only to do our best to love God and love others in response to what God has done for us in Christ.
When we daily renounce our sins and daily follow Jesus, we are infused with the power to live with the joy, hope, life, compassion for others, and being at ease in our skin that we saw in Elmer.
Through our faith in Jesus, God unleashes the Holy Spirit in our lives and we reflect the very gentleness we all so appreciated about Elmer.
God’s Word tells us, “...the fruit of the Spirit [the evidence of God living in us] is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.” [Galatians 5:22-23] This is what we saw in Elmer.
Of course, the good news of new life through faith in Jesus transforms much more than our lives on this planet. It also gives us an eternity with God, an eternity without fear or death, without goodbyes or grief, without pain or sorrow. It gives us a life with God that never ends.
In the passage we read a few moments ago, we’re told about Jesus going to the little village of Bethany, where a friend of his, a man named Lazarus, has just died. One of Lazarus’ sisters, Martha, is upset with Jesus and tells Him that if He had been around to help Lazarus, her brother would still be alive. But Jesus reminds her, “I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me will live, even though they die; and whoever lives by believing in me will never die.” (John 11:25-26)
Because he believed in Jesus, trusted Jesus as the Lord of his life, the gentleman we remember today, Elmer, will enjoy a perfect life with God that never ends. I’m sure that Elmer wants nothing less than that for all of you.
Let the gentle Savior Jesus cover your sin, overcome your mortality, and give you life with God.
Let Jesus into your life to give you life eternally and to transform you in His gentle image each and every day. Amen
[I'm the pastor of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio.]
Showing posts with label Matthew 11:28-30. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Matthew 11:28-30. Show all posts
Thursday, January 17, 2019
Sunday, June 21, 2015
Jesus or a Comfortable Life?
[This was shared during both of today's worship services with the people and friends of Living Water Lutheran Church in Springboro, Ohio.]
Job 38:1-11
2 Corinthians 6:1-13
Mark 4:35-41
In today’s Gospel lesson (and really in all our Bible lessons for today as well), Jesus confronts us with a simple question: Do we want Him or do we want to be comfortable?
Do we want the God we meet in Jesus Christ or do we want easy, trouble-free lives?
Some of the hucksters on TV sell a brand of Christianity that tells us if we believe in Jesus and stay positive, we’ll be flush with cash, healthy, and successful.
The problem, of course, is that Jesus never promises any of this to those who follow Him.
Jesus does promise wonderful things.
He promises that when we repent and believe, we will be part of the Kingdom of God.
He promises that when we trust in Him as the only Son of God and the only way to reconciliation to God, we will have everlasting life with God.
Believers in Jesus know that we have the presence and guidance of God with us in this life.
He will give weary souls rest.
He will be with His people always, even to the close of the age.
Christ’s people have the hope of the life for which we are made--a life which at present we can only see as through a mirror dimly, a resurrected life in which tears are dried, bodies restored, work is meaningful,* and joy is complete.
But not once does the God we know in Jesus Christ promise that following Him will make us comfortable in this world.
Not once does He say that decisions will be easy.
Not once does He say problems will go away.
Not once does He say that the life of discipleship--of following Him, of sacrificing ourselves and our own comfort out of love and worship for God and out of love for neighbors--those we can see and those we can’t see--will be easy.
In fact, Jesus says, "In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.” (John 16:33)
Our first lesson for today comes to us from the Old Testament book of Job. It’s thought to be the oldest book in the Bible, recounting events that took place long before Abraham. In it, a man who strives to follow God, who repents not only for his own sins, but also those of his children, is struck down by many of the horrors that the world and the devil can bring to human beings.
All his property and livestock are destroyed.
All his children are killed.
He is stricken with a horrible disease, his body covered with open sores.
Job had worshiped God and played by the rules. But in one fell swoop, his whole world was decimated.
Following God had not brought Job a comfortable life.
Through much of the book that bears his name, Job's friends try to tell their suffering friend that had he been more faithful, these bad things wouldn’t have come to him. He insists he doesn’t deserve his suffering and angrily challenges God to explain Himself.
At the end of the book, God chastises Job’s so-called friends. Faith in God isn’t a pass to easy street and Job’s distress wasn’t caused by Job being sinful.
But, as we can see from our first lesson, neither does God explain Job’s suffering.
Job suffered in spite of being a follower of God because we live in a fallen world in which bad things happen even to faithful people.
In our second lesson, written in about 55 AD, the apostle Paul recounts some of the suffering he underwent not in spite of following and proclaiming the God revealed in the crucified and risen Jesus, but because he followed and proclaimed the crucified and risen Jesus. Paul said that he and his ministry team commended themselves to people in the church at Corinth precisely because they had endured calamities for the sake of their faith in the God we know through Jesus.
He writes: “...as servants of God we commend ourselves in every way: in great endurance; in troubles, hardships and distresses; in beatings, imprisonments and riots; in hard work, sleepless nights and hunger; in purity, understanding, patience and kindness; in the Holy Spirit and in sincere love; in truthful speech and in the power of God; with weapons of righteousness in the right hand and in the left; through glory and dishonor, bad report and good report; genuine, yet regarded as impostors; known, yet regarded as unknown; dying, and yet we live on; beaten, and yet not killed; sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; poor, yet making many rich; having nothing, and yet possessing everything.”
Believers in Jesus are called to keep following Jesus even when it’s inconvenient, painful, challenging, uncomfortable.
When it commands sacrifice.
When it threatens our reputations, our financial security, our lives.
Jesus calls us to choose between life with Him and being comfortable.
He does this emphatically in our Gospel lesson, Matthew 4:35-41.
The incident narrated here comes right after Jesus gives a series of parables describing what the Kingdom of God, the kingdom He is going to die and rise to bring into being. It all begins with a command, which Jesus disciples obey. “That day when evening came, he said to his disciples, ‘Let us go over to the other side.’ Leaving the crowd behind, they took him along, just as he was, in the boat. There were also other boats with him.”
Of course, when Jesus issued His command to the disciples, they probably wouldn’t have given it a second thought. Most of them were experiences fishermen accustomed to plying the Galilean waters at night, as He was now commanding them to do at sundown.
Following Jesus may often seem a simple thing, comfortable. We don’t know what storms may lay ahead.
You know what happens next. Verse 37: “A furious squall came up, and the waves broke over the boat, so that it was nearly swamped. Jesus was in the stern, sleeping on a cushion. The disciples woke him and said to him, ‘Teacher, don’t you care if we drown?’”
We Christians ask a version of that question every time adversity strikes, every time Jesus calls us to do hard things we’d rather not do, uncomfortable things: forgive someone who has hurt us; confront a fellow believer with a hard truth; give sacrificially. “Lord,” we wonder, “don’t you care if we drown? Don’t you care if we lose our comfort? Don't you care if what you're calling me to do could result in killing my reputation, killing my investment portfolio, kill my health, kill me?”
Jesus' answer, quite frankly, is, “No.” The God Who tells us that "whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will find it," the God Who went to a cross to bear our sins cares more about our character than our comfort.
He cares more about our learning to follow Him faithfully than He does about our ease. Our ease can come in eternity.
For now, our call is to follow even in the darkest, most difficult times.
Verse 39: “He [Jesus] got up, rebuked the wind and said to the waves, ‘Quiet! Be still!’ Then the wind died down and it was completely calm. He said to his disciples, ‘Why are you so afraid? Do you still have no faith?’”
When storms come, we wonder how we can survive. We forget that nothing can separate those who trust in Him from the love God gives through Jesus Christ. Nothing.
A young woman, a member of our church in Cincinnati, was dying. She and her husband had two young children. She gave her testimony of faith during worship one Sunday. This was in 1999. She talked about all the things she hoped to be able to see in this world: her children grown, the new millennium. She knew that she might not see any of these earthly hopes come into being. And it saddened her. She tried to understand. Yet she also told us that she was confident that the Lord Who was leading her through her darkest valley would not only lead her to Himself, but also lead her children. She said that she knew that Christ's Church in which her children were baptized would faithfully share Christ with them, forge their characters by the power of the Holy Spirit, and help them to know the eternity of hope we have in Jesus Christ.
After Jesus had sternly spoken to the disciples, they contemplated in awe-filled fear, “Who is this? Even the wind and the waves obey Him?” The answer can be found all through Scripture. But I mention just two places.
In Psalm 104:7, the psalmist confesses of God, “...at your rebuke the waters fled, at the sound of your thunder they took to flight…”
Genesis 1:1 tells us that God the Holy Spirit moved over the waters of primordial chaos and brought into being peace, order, and life.
The One Who calmed the storm that so frightened the experienced fishermen sailing with Jesus that night was and is God Himself.
Storms, challenges come and go in this life.
Jesus will sometimes ask us to do things, to endure things, to sacrifice things, which in our own power, we are incapable of doing.
But, listen: Whenever we can’t, God can.
And after the storm, the God we know in Jesus Christ still stands.
And so do all who put their faith in Him.
They’re the ones who were more concerned with following Jesus than with being comfortable. I pray each day that God will forge me to be one of their number.
What storms are you going through today?
What is Jesus asking you to do that you don’t believe can be done?
Is there a comfortable sin for which you need to repent?
Follow Jesus and let the One Who can still our storms see you through. Amen
*Work is not a punishment for human sin, as some suppose. Human beings, created in the image of God, are meant to share in His work. But after the fall into sin and the world's subjection to futility, work was marred, along with all human enterprises, by futility. In eternity then, God's resurrected people will be restored to our full function in the new creation and once again fulfill our calling to manifest God's image in work marked by purpose, joy, and fulfillment.
Job 38:1-11
2 Corinthians 6:1-13
Mark 4:35-41
In today’s Gospel lesson (and really in all our Bible lessons for today as well), Jesus confronts us with a simple question: Do we want Him or do we want to be comfortable?
Do we want the God we meet in Jesus Christ or do we want easy, trouble-free lives?
The problem, of course, is that Jesus never promises any of this to those who follow Him.
He promises that when we repent and believe, we will be part of the Kingdom of God.
He promises that when we trust in Him as the only Son of God and the only way to reconciliation to God, we will have everlasting life with God.
Believers in Jesus know that we have the presence and guidance of God with us in this life.
He will give weary souls rest.
He will be with His people always, even to the close of the age.
Christ’s people have the hope of the life for which we are made--a life which at present we can only see as through a mirror dimly, a resurrected life in which tears are dried, bodies restored, work is meaningful,* and joy is complete.
Not once does He say that decisions will be easy.
Not once does He say problems will go away.
Not once does He say that the life of discipleship--of following Him, of sacrificing ourselves and our own comfort out of love and worship for God and out of love for neighbors--those we can see and those we can’t see--will be easy.
In fact, Jesus says, "In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.” (John 16:33)
All his property and livestock are destroyed.
All his children are killed.
He is stricken with a horrible disease, his body covered with open sores.
Job had worshiped God and played by the rules. But in one fell swoop, his whole world was decimated.
Following God had not brought Job a comfortable life.
Through much of the book that bears his name, Job's friends try to tell their suffering friend that had he been more faithful, these bad things wouldn’t have come to him. He insists he doesn’t deserve his suffering and angrily challenges God to explain Himself.
At the end of the book, God chastises Job’s so-called friends. Faith in God isn’t a pass to easy street and Job’s distress wasn’t caused by Job being sinful.
But, as we can see from our first lesson, neither does God explain Job’s suffering.
Job suffered in spite of being a follower of God because we live in a fallen world in which bad things happen even to faithful people.
He writes: “...as servants of God we commend ourselves in every way: in great endurance; in troubles, hardships and distresses; in beatings, imprisonments and riots; in hard work, sleepless nights and hunger; in purity, understanding, patience and kindness; in the Holy Spirit and in sincere love; in truthful speech and in the power of God; with weapons of righteousness in the right hand and in the left; through glory and dishonor, bad report and good report; genuine, yet regarded as impostors; known, yet regarded as unknown; dying, and yet we live on; beaten, and yet not killed; sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; poor, yet making many rich; having nothing, and yet possessing everything.”
Believers in Jesus are called to keep following Jesus even when it’s inconvenient, painful, challenging, uncomfortable.
When it commands sacrifice.
When it threatens our reputations, our financial security, our lives.
Jesus calls us to choose between life with Him and being comfortable.
The incident narrated here comes right after Jesus gives a series of parables describing what the Kingdom of God, the kingdom He is going to die and rise to bring into being. It all begins with a command, which Jesus disciples obey. “That day when evening came, he said to his disciples, ‘Let us go over to the other side.’ Leaving the crowd behind, they took him along, just as he was, in the boat. There were also other boats with him.”
Following Jesus may often seem a simple thing, comfortable. We don’t know what storms may lay ahead.
We Christians ask a version of that question every time adversity strikes, every time Jesus calls us to do hard things we’d rather not do, uncomfortable things: forgive someone who has hurt us; confront a fellow believer with a hard truth; give sacrificially. “Lord,” we wonder, “don’t you care if we drown? Don’t you care if we lose our comfort? Don't you care if what you're calling me to do could result in killing my reputation, killing my investment portfolio, kill my health, kill me?”
He cares more about our learning to follow Him faithfully than He does about our ease. Our ease can come in eternity.
For now, our call is to follow even in the darkest, most difficult times.
When storms come, we wonder how we can survive. We forget that nothing can separate those who trust in Him from the love God gives through Jesus Christ. Nothing.
A young woman, a member of our church in Cincinnati, was dying. She and her husband had two young children. She gave her testimony of faith during worship one Sunday. This was in 1999. She talked about all the things she hoped to be able to see in this world: her children grown, the new millennium. She knew that she might not see any of these earthly hopes come into being. And it saddened her. She tried to understand. Yet she also told us that she was confident that the Lord Who was leading her through her darkest valley would not only lead her to Himself, but also lead her children. She said that she knew that Christ's Church in which her children were baptized would faithfully share Christ with them, forge their characters by the power of the Holy Spirit, and help them to know the eternity of hope we have in Jesus Christ.
In Psalm 104:7, the psalmist confesses of God, “...at your rebuke the waters fled, at the sound of your thunder they took to flight…”
Genesis 1:1 tells us that God the Holy Spirit moved over the waters of primordial chaos and brought into being peace, order, and life.
The One Who calmed the storm that so frightened the experienced fishermen sailing with Jesus that night was and is God Himself.
Storms, challenges come and go in this life.
Jesus will sometimes ask us to do things, to endure things, to sacrifice things, which in our own power, we are incapable of doing.
But, listen: Whenever we can’t, God can.
And after the storm, the God we know in Jesus Christ still stands.
And so do all who put their faith in Him.
They’re the ones who were more concerned with following Jesus than with being comfortable. I pray each day that God will forge me to be one of their number.
What storms are you going through today?
What is Jesus asking you to do that you don’t believe can be done?
Is there a comfortable sin for which you need to repent?
Follow Jesus and let the One Who can still our storms see you through. Amen
*Work is not a punishment for human sin, as some suppose. Human beings, created in the image of God, are meant to share in His work. But after the fall into sin and the world's subjection to futility, work was marred, along with all human enterprises, by futility. In eternity then, God's resurrected people will be restored to our full function in the new creation and once again fulfill our calling to manifest God's image in work marked by purpose, joy, and fulfillment.
Saturday, March 28, 2015
Galatians 6:2, 5 (A 5 by 5 by 5 Reflection)
As some may know, I'm using the Navigators' 5x5x5 Bible Reading Plan for my daily times with God. Today's reading is Galatians, chapter 6. I've read this chapter many times. But today, something stood out: The seeming contradiction between verses 2 and 5.
Verse 2:
I take it also to mean the new commandment that Jesus gave to His followers to love fellow believers as Christ has loved them, with their whole lives.
Finally, I take this "law" to encompass Jesus' great commission that all who are part of His Church make disciples.
But since Galatians 6 deals with the internal life of Christ's Church, I think Paul has in mind the first two components of what I believe he means by the "law of Christ."
The thrust of the passage is that, even in restoring those who have rebelled against Christ, being careful not to fall into temptation ourselves (v. 1), we in the Church are to bear each other's burdens.
I've seen this exemplified in the people of Living Water Lutheran Church in the days leading up to and following my wife's recent surgery. On the night before the surgery, during our Lenten midweek service, the people in attendance gathered around me (my wife was unable to attend) and prayed for her healing and for my encouragement. We received many calls, cards, and emails of encouragement, assuring us of people's prayers. On the day of the surgery, a couple from the congregation drove the hour-plus to the hospital to be with my daughter, mother-in-law, and me; they stayed all day. Someone sent us a gift card to a local restaurant. Several have brought or offered to bring meals. Some have offered to take my wife to where she needs to be, since she can't drive right now. These are the kinds of things, I believe, that Paul has in mind when he tells Christians to "bear one another's burdens." The love of Christ is seen and experienced in these acts and gestures of love, the power of Christ is demonstrated when we pray for one another.
I also have a friend who lives miles away who is wonderful about praying for people whose needs are brought to her attention. In addition, this friend is compassionate, generous, and forgiving of others, whatever their needs. All of these traits too, demonstrate the Christian bearing others' burdens.
But then we come to Galatians 6:5:
"You know," he said, "if everyone studied the Bible the way you two are, we wouldn't need welfare or charity programs for the poor. There wouldn't be any poor."
My classmate asked the guy how he'd arrived at that conclusion. He pointed to Galatians 6:5 and said, if everybody carried their own loads, everyone would be working.
I'd half-forgotten that encounter until I read this passage again this morning.
Of course, even thirty years ago, I realized that the man at the fast food restaurant was taking one passage of Scripture out of context with no regard for the total witness of Scripture on what the believer's stance toward the poor should be.
For example, throughout the Old Testament moral law, God's people were told to make provisions for the poor, the orphaned, foreigners, and the widowed. Farmers weren't to harvest their crops to the edges of their fields and if, after harvesting, they realized that parts of their fields were unharvested, they weren't to go back to harvest the rest of their crops. All of these leavings were to remain for the benefit of the poor who could glean them.
Jesus and the New Testament commends a similar concern for the poor.
Whether any of this bears relevance to government relief programs is one question. But there can be no question that what the man called "charity" programs, at least those in which Christians who have give to others who have not, is both commended and commanded by God.
So, is Paul contradicting himself in Galatians 6:2 and 6:5?
I dug a little deeper today.
In Galatians 6:2, the word translated as burdens that Paul uses in the Greek in which his letter was originally composed is baros. The word he uses in Galatians 6:5 translated as loads is phortion.
While these words can have similar meanings, there are subtle shades of difference between the two.
According to one New Testament Greek-English lexicon, baros, carries the meanings of "heaviness, weight, burden, trouble." In the context of Galatians 6, the burdens referred to are clearly those experiences in life that weigh us down, things like physical illness, relational discord, financial troubles, worry over loved ones, poverty, grief, heartbreaks, depression. The call in Galatians 6:2 is for Christians to lighten the burdens of fellow believers when they encounter these weights of life.
That same lexicon says that phortion can mean burden or load, with particular reference to the cargo being carried by a ship. It can also reference burdensome religious duties or "faults of the conscience that burden the soul."
In the context of 6:5, a different meaning emerges: the obligations we have to respond to the free gifts of God's forgiveness and new life that comes to all who believe in Christ. This "load," to be borne by every Christian is what Paul calls in Romans 12:1 our "true and proper worship" or, in other translations, "spiritual worship" or "reasonable service."
In other words, concern and care for the poor and all who are in need are among the good fruits that will spring from the life a person made new by the forgiveness and grace of Jesus Christ.
In fact, Galatians 6:5 appears to have no direct reference to work for an income, but the work of every believer as a priest and minister of the gospel.
As with Jesus in His parable of the final judgement in Matthew 25:31-46, Paul isn't saying that we are saved by our good works, by shouldering some odious burdens, but that, touched and transformed by Christ, we will, almost as an involuntary Holy Spirit-created response to grace, do good works, including caring for the poor. (See Ephesians 2:8-10)
The "load" that Paul talks about in Galatians 6:5, is what Jesus also talks about when he tells those heavily laden either by the implacable demands of a dog-eat-dog world or by religious striving to be "good:
When we do that, in Martin Luther's words, Christians become "the Holy Spirit's workshop." God goes to work on us, transforming us even without our conscious awareness. It's as though we fall into Christ's orbit and can't always see the ways in which He is changing us. The "load" is to keep living in daily repentance and renewal so that the Master Craftsman can continue to to make us over in the image of Christ.
In dispelling the seeming contradiction between Galatians 6:2 and 6:5, The Lutheran Study Bible says simply: "Those who are willing to accept personal accountability for their own actions before God (bearing their own "load"...phortion) are more willing to to bear others burdens (v.2, "burden"...baros)..."
So, Paul's message in a nutshell, seems to be: "Christians: Bear the burdens of others. Your willingness to do so is the measure of God's grace operating in your life; it's your 'load' as a believer."
Salvation is a free gift and each believer is responsible to God for how they use their salvation.
To not use the power of God living within us as Christians to help others is like being gifted with the power to make music and never singing a note or playing a tune.
Or like having the power to do medical research that might save lives, but staying away from the lab.
Or being a gifted athlete and never trying out for the team.
Just as God wants Christians to use their spiritual gifts for the mutual upbuilding of all in Christ's Church, He also wants us to use His grace to take on the ministry of caring for others.
Verse 2:
Bear one another’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ.The "law of Christ," I take it, is first, Jesus' great commandment, summarizing the two tables of the Ten Commandments, that we love God with our whole beings and love our neighbors as we love ourselves.
I take it also to mean the new commandment that Jesus gave to His followers to love fellow believers as Christ has loved them, with their whole lives.
Finally, I take this "law" to encompass Jesus' great commission that all who are part of His Church make disciples.
But since Galatians 6 deals with the internal life of Christ's Church, I think Paul has in mind the first two components of what I believe he means by the "law of Christ."
The thrust of the passage is that, even in restoring those who have rebelled against Christ, being careful not to fall into temptation ourselves (v. 1), we in the Church are to bear each other's burdens.
I've seen this exemplified in the people of Living Water Lutheran Church in the days leading up to and following my wife's recent surgery. On the night before the surgery, during our Lenten midweek service, the people in attendance gathered around me (my wife was unable to attend) and prayed for her healing and for my encouragement. We received many calls, cards, and emails of encouragement, assuring us of people's prayers. On the day of the surgery, a couple from the congregation drove the hour-plus to the hospital to be with my daughter, mother-in-law, and me; they stayed all day. Someone sent us a gift card to a local restaurant. Several have brought or offered to bring meals. Some have offered to take my wife to where she needs to be, since she can't drive right now. These are the kinds of things, I believe, that Paul has in mind when he tells Christians to "bear one another's burdens." The love of Christ is seen and experienced in these acts and gestures of love, the power of Christ is demonstrated when we pray for one another.
I also have a friend who lives miles away who is wonderful about praying for people whose needs are brought to her attention. In addition, this friend is compassionate, generous, and forgiving of others, whatever their needs. All of these traits too, demonstrate the Christian bearing others' burdens.
But then we come to Galatians 6:5:
For all must carry their own loads.I'll never forget eating lunch, more than thirty years ago, with a seminary classmate at a fast food restaurant in Columbus. We were working on a project together and we both had our Bibles open, discussing the project. A middle aged man approached us, who, it became clear, had a bee in his bonnet.
"You know," he said, "if everyone studied the Bible the way you two are, we wouldn't need welfare or charity programs for the poor. There wouldn't be any poor."
My classmate asked the guy how he'd arrived at that conclusion. He pointed to Galatians 6:5 and said, if everybody carried their own loads, everyone would be working.
I'd half-forgotten that encounter until I read this passage again this morning.
Of course, even thirty years ago, I realized that the man at the fast food restaurant was taking one passage of Scripture out of context with no regard for the total witness of Scripture on what the believer's stance toward the poor should be.
For example, throughout the Old Testament moral law, God's people were told to make provisions for the poor, the orphaned, foreigners, and the widowed. Farmers weren't to harvest their crops to the edges of their fields and if, after harvesting, they realized that parts of their fields were unharvested, they weren't to go back to harvest the rest of their crops. All of these leavings were to remain for the benefit of the poor who could glean them.
Jesus and the New Testament commends a similar concern for the poor.
Whether any of this bears relevance to government relief programs is one question. But there can be no question that what the man called "charity" programs, at least those in which Christians who have give to others who have not, is both commended and commanded by God.
So, is Paul contradicting himself in Galatians 6:2 and 6:5?
I dug a little deeper today.
In Galatians 6:2, the word translated as burdens that Paul uses in the Greek in which his letter was originally composed is baros. The word he uses in Galatians 6:5 translated as loads is phortion.
While these words can have similar meanings, there are subtle shades of difference between the two.
According to one New Testament Greek-English lexicon, baros, carries the meanings of "heaviness, weight, burden, trouble." In the context of Galatians 6, the burdens referred to are clearly those experiences in life that weigh us down, things like physical illness, relational discord, financial troubles, worry over loved ones, poverty, grief, heartbreaks, depression. The call in Galatians 6:2 is for Christians to lighten the burdens of fellow believers when they encounter these weights of life.
That same lexicon says that phortion can mean burden or load, with particular reference to the cargo being carried by a ship. It can also reference burdensome religious duties or "faults of the conscience that burden the soul."
In the context of 6:5, a different meaning emerges: the obligations we have to respond to the free gifts of God's forgiveness and new life that comes to all who believe in Christ. This "load," to be borne by every Christian is what Paul calls in Romans 12:1 our "true and proper worship" or, in other translations, "spiritual worship" or "reasonable service."
In other words, concern and care for the poor and all who are in need are among the good fruits that will spring from the life a person made new by the forgiveness and grace of Jesus Christ.
In fact, Galatians 6:5 appears to have no direct reference to work for an income, but the work of every believer as a priest and minister of the gospel.
As with Jesus in His parable of the final judgement in Matthew 25:31-46, Paul isn't saying that we are saved by our good works, by shouldering some odious burdens, but that, touched and transformed by Christ, we will, almost as an involuntary Holy Spirit-created response to grace, do good works, including caring for the poor. (See Ephesians 2:8-10)
The "load" that Paul talks about in Galatians 6:5, is what Jesus also talks about when he tells those heavily laden either by the implacable demands of a dog-eat-dog world or by religious striving to be "good:
“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble 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 light burden to which Christ refers, I think, is taking His loving lordship over our lives, believing in Him as our God and Savior.
When we do that, in Martin Luther's words, Christians become "the Holy Spirit's workshop." God goes to work on us, transforming us even without our conscious awareness. It's as though we fall into Christ's orbit and can't always see the ways in which He is changing us. The "load" is to keep living in daily repentance and renewal so that the Master Craftsman can continue to to make us over in the image of Christ.
In dispelling the seeming contradiction between Galatians 6:2 and 6:5, The Lutheran Study Bible says simply: "Those who are willing to accept personal accountability for their own actions before God (bearing their own "load"...phortion) are more willing to to bear others burdens (v.2, "burden"...baros)..."
So, Paul's message in a nutshell, seems to be: "Christians: Bear the burdens of others. Your willingness to do so is the measure of God's grace operating in your life; it's your 'load' as a believer."
Salvation is a free gift and each believer is responsible to God for how they use their salvation.
To not use the power of God living within us as Christians to help others is like being gifted with the power to make music and never singing a note or playing a tune.
Or like having the power to do medical research that might save lives, but staying away from the lab.
Or being a gifted athlete and never trying out for the team.
Just as God wants Christians to use their spiritual gifts for the mutual upbuilding of all in Christ's Church, He also wants us to use His grace to take on the ministry of caring for others.
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