Ever have someone tell you, It looks like you’re carrying the weight of the world on your shoulders? This is quite an astonishing feat if you were to think about it. Weight relates to the pulling strength of earth’s gravity toward an object. Apparently mass weighs 2.2 pounds, if that is the case it puts the weight of the world at 13 trillion trillion pounds (13,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000). Now that is a lot of weight and I found out that it takes 520 pounds to crush a human skull. 520 goes into 13 trillion trillion 25 sextillion times, (apparently that is a number despite its vulgarity) so if you had that many skulls around to help against the force of gravity then that would be a wild stroke of luck and the crushing effect may not be so devastating. Saying someone is carrying the weight of the world is in fact outrageous and that person would be flat. Flat or incredibly strong and you have just been complimenting glum looking people whenever you speak this phrase. I almost blew up Google searching these wild stats.
All this to say, things can be tough.
I hope you have gleaned from all this information that we are not able to have the weight of the world on our shoulders, even if we pretend for a time that we can. Some burdens feel insurmountably tough to carry and push the bearer into the ground. The neck shackled with the bonds of different worries is dragging a ball and chain through sinking sand. No matter what we do it is hard, there is no easy way through and there is no white flag to wave for mercy. As dramatic as this sounds, I have felt crushed by burdens, not to the point where anyone should worry for me but to a point where I am just so tired of it all. My worry for loved ones, the future, for things out of my control, for things that make my blood boil and for the tension in my body from stress, these are all things that lend themselves to me wanting to wave a white flag, to say, “give me a break.” These things are all turned up to 10 when I do not see things as they really are. Yet, there is the world and its rules for living a certain way to fit in to society. I am finding more and more that society is requiring me to become someone I cannot and will not be. It is a weight on my shoulder as it creates fear for the future, for ostracization and disdain for my way of life. Even with the walls collapsing in on my heart I will keep my eyes upon the light of the world. For that light allows me to see things as they are. My ears too will eagerly burn for the beckoning to follow. There is a voice in the wilderness calling me home along a narrow road. The voice shouts above it to say, “Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, because I am gentle and humble in heart. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.” Matthew 11:29-30 has Jesus encouraging those who are listening to people who saw themselves as experts in ethics known as Pharisees. The Pharisees burdened those who followed their ways by heaping unfulfillable law on them and had them believe there was no other way to please God but to fulfill it. These laws of course were not fulfilled by the Pharisees themselves. Jesus also directs our lives and leads us by the hand through it. His ethics though they may appear burdensome are liberating.
Matthew 5 (https://www.blueletterbible.org/esv/mat/5/1/s_934001) is the sermon on the mount where Jesus outlines what a follower of his must do and how they have been misguided by the Pharisees. He delivers a message of hope as his ethics will liberate those who follow them. The burden of righteousness that the Pharisees expected is lifted and Jesus offers surpassing righteousness. When I am overcome, my eyes are downcast toward earth and the world whips me as I try to stay feebly in line to the whims and wills of something I cannot bear. If we treasure the world then our hearts follow it, if it pleases us we will stay amongst it. There is a better offer and C. S. Lewis illustrates the point. “We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.” We follow and fall under the weight of the world and relish it when an offer to be free of it as available. An offer to be free of worry. If my heart treasures Jesus then his gracious character frees my worry as I try to be more like him.
Follow the one who loves me and suffered death for me or follow the world that would see me die? My choice to follow Jesus truly liberates me. The heavy weight upon my shoulders is a shared load. Christian poet W. H. Auden wrote, “stagger onward rejoicing.” The weight of the world does nothing except bolster my fortitude and resolve. Through my tribulations I have found joy. They should beat me and gravity should keep on crushing me. What I see on social media, how I feel when things are hard, tough finances and feelings of inadequacy are compromised in knowing it is a shared load. My strength going forward is always to be gained from knowing the promises of God that assure me of a future. A place and a way has been prepared and what I painstakingly store up here on this fragile dirt will wither away like my earthly body. My treasure is stored in heaven.
The sharer of my load waits.
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