When I lived as a missionary in China, in the province of Yunnan, I had to become accustomed to living at 2500m (8000 feet) above sea level in a mountainous area, where there were no roads, and no wheeled vehicles of any kind.
Everything has to be carried on the backs of mules, or on the backs of men and women.
A good carrier, man or woman, could carry up to 44kg over mountain tracks for a distance of 32km in a day, and repeat that day after day.
High above our mission station in Tali there was a marble quarry. I used to watch men and women picking their way down the mountain-side carrying slabs of marble so heavy I could not lift them from the ground.
But what I remember most is how tired and exhausted, and even tortured, were the faces of those men and women. They did not live long, those burden-bearers of Yunnan.
It must have been the same in ancient Palestine.
Burdens, and burden-bearing, would be known to all, and experienced by many. And it did not take long for the writers of Holy Scripture to see the similarity between the painful experience of bearing a heavy physical burden, and the even more painful experience of bearing a heavy mental and spiritual burden.
Moses was the first one to make this comparison.
He asked the Lord, "Why have you brought this trouble on your servant? What have I done to displease you, that you put the burden of all these people on me?" (Num 11:11 NIV).
We all feel like this when the burden of caring for other people, especially when they are difficult, becomes too much for us.
Bear one another's burdens
The answer the Lord gave to Moses was that he was to share this burden of responsibility with "70 men of the elders of Israel" (Num 11:16).
This is now a Christian directive. We are to "bear one another's burdens, and so fulfil the law of Christ" (Gal 6:2).
This is how Jesus lived. He was, in himself, the Good Samaritan. he sought out the wounded, the suffering, the needy, on every road he travelled, pouring into their wounds the oil of his compassion, the wine of his love.
As the prophet foretold, he "bore our griefs and carried our sorrows" (Is 53:4). His way of life is a law which all his followers must obey.
The Church of Jesus Christ should be the place where burdens are shared, the place where we really seek to enter into the sorrows and perplexities of others; to sit where they sit; to put our shoulder, quietly and humbly, beneath their burden.
Every Samaritan service, every Youthline, every doctor or social worker will tell you that all around there are desperate people who do not know where to turn; lonely people who can spend days without a single person speaking to them; grieving people who can find no comfort.
And this outward looking must not be confined to our immediate community. There is the world a large. In hospitals, in mental institutions, in prisons, in the starving areas of the world, in areas of political repression everywhere humanity is bearing crushing burdens.
So many people today, for selfish reasons, refuse to become involved in the lives of others. They say they are too busy, and have enough problems of their own.
But this must never be true of the Christian. We are bound by the law of Christ to bear one another's burdens.
Bearing one's own burden
However, Scripture also tells us that "each man will have to bear his own burden" (Gal 6:5).
There are many burdens in life where no one else can help. It may be the result of a wrong decision. It may be the result of choosing the wrong job, or the wrong partner in life.
Whatever it is, it adds up to a burden which I must bear, and which no one else can bear for me.
Perhaps your burden is poor health, dragging weariness which makes it so hard to maintain a cheerful spirit. Perhaps you are longing to be married, but the right person has not come along. Perhaps you have been born plain, awkward or shy, and feel you are not really accepted by others.
There are many burdens in life where we are on our own.
I am certain God is pleased with the man who accepts his circumstances, which are far from his own choosing, and conducts himself within that circumstances with dignity and courage.
I am certain God is pleased with the woman to whom life has brought burdens terribly hard to be borne, and yet does bear them with an uncomplaining spirit, and never thinks of troubling others.
Psalm 55:22 says, "Cast your burden on the Lord, and he will sustain you."
This world "burden", in this third text, has a slightly different meaning to the others.
It means, in the Hebrew, "What he (God) has given you". So we could translate, "Cast what God has given you upon him."
This means we need to recognise that all our circumstances are God's will for us, and that we must find our peace in that will.
This text also teaches us that we are not called on to bear the burden of others, or to bear our own strength. We are to commit it all to God: we are to cast it all on the Lord by a definite act of the will.
The word "sustain" expresses the idea of external support. It assures us that our God desires to carry us with our burden.
"Thy bright hand shall hold me" cries the Psalmist (139:10); and that indicates one of the beautiful ministries of our God. He is the one who holds us up, with our burden, never to let us fall.
"Bear one another's burdens." We cannot escape that responsibility if we are to obey the law of Christ.
"Each man will have to bear his own burden". There are situations where we have to carry it all on our own. But we must not stop there, for to stop there is to miss completely the highest and best that God has for us.
We must take those burdens, whatever they are anxieties, sorrows, disappointments, perplexities, grief and, in our prayers, cast them all on the Lord.
If we do this we have God's promise that he will give us the strength to carry all these burdens which life has placed on us. All who trust in him will be sustained by him.
"Hearken to me ... all who have been borne by me from your birth, carried from the womb; even to your old age I am he, and to gray hairs I will carry you. I have made, and I will bear; I will carry and will save" (Is 46:3-4).
Tuesday
MATTHEW 8:1-17
"He took our infirmities and bore our diseases" (v17)
A. Plummer, in his "Commentary on Matthew" (p 122) says: "To those who believe that Jesus Christ was what he claimed to be, that is, to those who believe in the Incarnation, there is no difficulty about miracles.
They are the natural works of a supernatural person."
This is the first instance in which we have Christ healing a leper. The leper had a marvellous trust in Christ when he said, "Lord, if you will, you can make me clean."
The fact that our Lord "stretched out his hand and touched him" shows there is no sin he is not willing to forgive. For Christ's miracles are also parables.
We learn from these miracles of healing that Christ's sympathy with those who were suffering was so intense that he felt the same pain they felt.
He took their "infirmities" on himself as a burden to bear for them.
However, as John Clavin said in a sermon on Isaiah 53:4, "By healing outward disease our Lord Jesus Christ wants to lead us higher, and make us see why he came into the world ... For the soul also has need of a physician.
And who shall that be? We shall find none in heaven or on earth save our Lord Jesus Christ."
Wednesday
ISAIAH 58:5-11
"Is this not the fast that I choose?" (v6).
Fasting played an important part in the life of the Israelite, but, like all religious practice, it could be very mechanical.
Fasting was supposed to be a sign of heart contrition and confession, yet with some it could be hypocritical, even wicked. "Behold, you fast only to quarrel and to fight, and to hit with wicked fist" (v4).
Isaiah said the proper way to be found pleasing in God's sight was "to loose the bonds of wickedness, to undo the thongs of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke" (v6).
He defines this in terms of feeding the hungry, giving shelter to the homeless, clothing the naked, and satisfying "the desire of the afflicted: (v10).
God would have us bear the burdens of others. "Then shall your light break forth like the dawn ... Then you shall call, and the Lord will answer; you shall cry, and he will say 'Here I am'" (v8-9).
Also we are assured that in bearing the burdens of others we will ourselves be greatly blessed. "The Lord will guide you continually, and satisfy your desire with good things ... you shall be like a watered garden, like a spring of water, whose waters fail not" (v11).
Thursday
JOB 7:4-6,13-21
"I am a burden to myself" (v20 AV).
In this passage of scripture Job is full of self-pity. He had lost all he had prized in life his family, his wealth and his health.
Covered with boils from head to foot (2:7) "he sat down among the ashes (2-8), and tried to work out why this had happened to him, seeing "there was none like him on the earth, a blameless and upright man, who fears God and turns away from evil" (1:8).
All he could now say was, "I loathe my life" (v16).
Nevertheless, Job, throughout this terrible experience, never ceased to say, "The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord."
"In all this Job did not sin or charge God with wrong" (1:21-22).
We can say, then, that Job faced with a very great burden of physical, mental and spiritual suffering took that suffering on his own back, and did not attempt to lean on his friends, Eliphaz, Bildad and Zophar, for help.
He was a wonderful example of the truth that in many situations, "each man will have to bear his own burden."
Friday
PROVERBS 19:13-21
"Listen to advice and accept instruction" (v20).
In our time counselling, and the need for counselling, has come very much to the fore. Courses on counselling are available to all. We have our school counsellors, our marriage counsellors and our community counsellors.
Dr Jay Adams, of the Westminster Theological Seminary, Philadephia, has become a world authority on counselling.
In one of his books he makes the statement that the only person who can counsel effectively is a minister of the Gospel who has been trained to apply the truths of the Bible to every human predicament.
He writes: "Why should a Christian, who feels in need of counselling, go to an unbelieving psychiatrist, whose life is probably more mixed up than his own?
"No, he should go to a minister whose mind and heart are illuminated by the Holy Spirit. He alone can help him."
I agree with Dr Adams; except I feel that any Christian, not only a minister, "who has been trained to apply the truths of the Bible to every human predicament," would do just as well.
If you feel you must have someone to help you carry your burden seek out a Christian "whose mind and heart are illuminated by the Holy Spirit."
Saturday
1 CORINTHIANS 10:1-13
"God keeps faith, and he will not allow you to be tested above your powers, but when the test comes he will at the same time provide a way out, by enabling you to sustain it" (v13 NEB).
The Greek word used here, "peirasmos", which is usually translated as "temptation", has the broader sense of "testing", and covers trials of all kinds.
Testing is part of life. We cannot escape it. And sometimes this testing is so severe that we feel we must break under the strain.
But Paul assures us that we have a faithful God who will not allow us to be tested above our powers. We think we will break, but we will not if our trust is wholly anchored in him.
Moreover, there is always "a way out." The word used here is a dramatic one. It conveys the picture of soldiers trapped by the enemy on a mountain trail. They have blocked the way forward and have cut off any possibility of retreat.
In our time of testing this way out may take many forms, but the result will always be that we will be able to obtain the victory.
Sunday
ISAIAH 46:5-11
"They lift it upon their shoulders, they carry it" (v7).
In this passage Isaiah exhibits a fine scorn for the idols of the heathen.
He finds it to be quite ridiculous that a man should fashion something out of metal or wood, and then bow down before it as if it were a god!
It is even more pathetic when these idols are carried away by captives who had found them completely unable to save them from their fate.
"Bel bows down, Nebo stoops, their idols are on beasts and cattle; these things you carry are loaded on weary beasts. They stoop, they bow down together, they cannot save the burden, but themselves go into captivity" (v1-2).
The God of Israel was vastly different. Far from being carried he is the God who will carry you (v4).
Our own world is extremely idolatrous, and we must ever give heed to the last command of the Apostle John, "Little children, keep yourselves from idols" (1 Jn 5:2 AV).
We must ever keep in mind that the only one who will never fail to support us in the hour of trial is our Heavenly Father.
Monday
PSALM 38:1-8
"My iniquities have gone over my head; they weigh like a burden too heavy for me" (v4)
This is the third of the "penitential psalms" (6, 32, 38, 51, 102, 139, 143). They are all attributed to David.
It is clear his sexual excesses had led to a foul disease. This had led to his friends shunning him, and to his enemies plotting his ruin.
David acknowledged his suffering was deserved, and knew the torment of mind and body he was experiencing was God's chastening.
This experience opened his eyes to see that in God's eyes he was a sinner who fully merited God's wrath and condemnation; and this led to his repentance an cry for forgiveness.
He said, "I confess my iniquity, I am sorry for my sin" (v18).
Having repented and confessed David cast himself on the mercy of God. "Do not forsake me, O Lord! O my God, be not far from me! Make haste to help me, O Lord, my salvation!" (v21-22).
The heaviest burden any one of us has to bear is the burden of our sin, but, praise God, there is "a fountain opened ... for sin and uncleanness" (Zech 13:1) at the cross on Calvary.
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