The Search for Wisdom and Rest

Introduction

There’s a phenomenon that you can observe in life that’s popularly known as the “Dunning-Kruger Effect.” Have you heard of it? The concept or phenomenon usually known by that name is a pattern that most people follow in the pursuit of knowledge or skill in a certain subject, it could be theology, science, politics, whatever, and it is typically illustrated with a graph. Imagine that on the vertical axis you have a measurement of “confidence,” how self-assured you are about your expertise on this subject. on the horizontal axis is a measurement of “competence,” that is how much you actually know about the topic in question. At the very beginning, you know nothing, and you have no reason to think you know anything. But then you start to learn, you watch a few documentaries, take one trip to a museum, and suddenly, you think you’ve got this whole thing figured out. You laugh at how utterly stupid all those so-called “experts” must be who see this subject differently than you. I mean, come on, it’s so simple. You have now reached a peak on the graph, sometimes affectionately labeled Mount Stupid. You know just enough to be dangerous, but not enough to justify your self-confidence. But then you start to learn more, and you come down from the peak, you realize, “Oh, maybe this is more complex than I thought,” you learn some humility and even start to despair of ever mastering such a complicated subject. But if you persevere and keep learning, eventually your confidence builds back up, maybe you even become an expert, but if you’ve learned the virtue of humility, you never quite reach the level of that peak again, because a real expert knows that they always have more to learn.

I think that this phenomenon describes a very real tendency of human nature, and it has some relevance to our Gospel text today. Jesus is talking about a process of learning here, but it is not just knowledge of a field like economics or biology. Jesus is talking about the pursuit of Wisdom itself: knowledge and skill relating to the big questions: what’s the purpose of life? What is a good and blessed life? What is God like and how can I get right with him? Jesus will lead us through the mountains and valleys of the process of finding true wisdom.

The Quest for Wisdom (11:25-26)

The Gospel text for today comes right on the heels of Jesus declaring woe and condemnation on towns that had rejected him, his followers, and his message. So it’s a little surprising to hear Jesus, immediately after lamenting a mass rejection of his message, starting our text by thanking his Father that things have worked out this way, because apparently in some way, things are still going according to plan. Matt 11:25-26

Matthew 11:25–26 ESV

At that time Jesus declared, “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.

According to Jesus, it was good and pleasing to God to hide the message of Jesus from some people, particularly people who were “wise and understanding,” or perhaps we should clarify, people who thought themselves to be wise and understanding. You might imagine that these are the kind of people who are spiritually on “Mount Stupid,” people who think they have the answers to all the big questions in their back pocket, and have no need to learn anything from Jesus. They are not weak little children who were born yesterday. They have God and his ways and the secret to life tightly locked up in their system, and they like it that way, thank you very much. People who refuse to be taught; those are the kind of people God refuses to teach.

Yet that is the default position for each and every one of us human beings. To understand this, it’s important to remember that the whole story of the Bible can be looked at as the story of humanity’s failed quest for wisdom. Genesis 1-3 is the story of how Adam and Eve traded away rest with God in a vain attempt to become wise and understanding in their own eyes and on their own terms. On the 7th day of Genesis 1, God took his Sabbath rest from the work of creation, and he invited humans to share that rest with him. The Sabbath was made for man as Jesus says. God wanted Adam and Eve to walk with him, to rely on him for every good thing, and to learn from him. See, God had a noble destiny and an exciting task for human beings: to rule over the earth on God’s behalf. But Adam and Eve still had much to learn from God. They weren’t made to be totally self-sufficient. They were not wise or experienced enough to decide what was good and bad for them on their own. In many ways, they were still little children. In fact, some of the early Christian church Fathers imagined Adam and Eve in the garden as children or adolescents. But then the serpent came along and convinced them that being children with God was not enough. It was high time that they grew up and quit being so naive and dependent on God, and became truly wise and understanding. They should decide for themselves what is good and evil. That’s what the tree of the knowledge of good and evil represents: trying to seize wisdom on your own terms by your own power instead of learning from and relying on God. And so the woman saw that the tree was able to make one wise and she took the fruit and ate. And just like that, we humans traded the Sabbath rest of life with God for a pursuit of being wise and understanding in our own eyes. And when you trade away Sabbath rest, you end up with a life of toil, frustration, and exhaustion.

You end up with “life under the sun” as the author of Ecclesiastes saw it. Ah, see you thought we were done with Ecclesiastes after Bible study, but you should have known I’d find a way to work it in again. See, the exhausting, vain toil of pursuing wisdom by human effort is a key problem for the Preacher, the writer of the book. Again and again he laments that no matter how much effort he puts into seeking wisdom, trying to figure out the answers, it never truly gives him an edge, a leg up on life. In Ecc 2:15 he “What happens to the fool will happen to me also. Why then have I been so very wise?” And I said in my heart that this also is vanity.” then in Ecc 7:16 “Be not overly righteous, and do not make yourself too wise. Why should you destroy yourself?” and at the very end of the book he advises, Ecc 12:12 “My son, beware of anything beyond these. Of making many books there is no end, and much study is a weariness of the flesh.” You might say the Preacher is someone who has been humbled, who has come down off the peak of arrogance and realized just how much he has to learn. He despairs of his own ability to achieve true wisdom. Humans come into the world and have such a short time to frantically try to get a handle on God, life, the universe, and everything, before the great equalizer death comes along, and the Preacher has realized that it’s a fool’s errand on your own, you’ll wear yourself out.

And it’s people who realize that that God reveals himself to. Jesus says that God has revealed the kingdom to “little children,” that is, people who acknowledge that they’re not wise in themselves and have much to learn. God wants to reveal himself to everyone, but he’s going to humble you first. You can’t receive his wisdom when you won’t come down off of the peak of self-confidence, when you won’t admit that you’re exhausted.

So my question is, aren’t you tired? Are you tired of pretending you have all the answers to life’s big questions in your back pocket? Are you tired of feeling like you have to keep up a facade of having life all figured out? Because you can convince yourself for a while that you are truly wise and understanding because you listen to all the top influencers, or because you’ve just got way more common sense than everyone else, or even because you’ve read the Bible. You can surround yourself with an echo chamber of voices that only agree with you, that will reassure you that you are indeed wise, and that will keep anyone from reminding you that you don’t have it all figured out. But if you’re honest, you’re going to get tired of it eventually. Because no matter who you are, no matter where you are in your faith, I guarantee that you have something more to learn from Jesus. As St. Paul says in 1 Cor 8:2 “If anyone imagines that he knows something, he does not yet know as he ought to know.” All of us are little children to Jesus and his Father, it’s time we realize that.

True Wisdom Only Found in Jesus (11:27)

So then in verse 27 Jesus turns from praying to his Father to addressing the people around that are listening, and he tells them where true Wisdom can found: Matt 11:27 “All things have been handed over to me by my Father, and no one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.” In other words, if you want the answers to life’s biggest questions, you have to get them from Jesus. Jesus is the only one who has them. He knows who God is, because he is God; God the Son, the very Word of God who has received everything from God the Father. Jesus knows about the purpose of life, he knows what God wants human life to look like, and he alone knows how to rescue us from our useless and exhausting quest for wisdom on our own terms, and how to bring us back to the blessed life and Sabbath rest that was offered to us in Eden. We can’t achieve it on our own. Jesus is the only expert when it comes to true Wisdom, to knowing how to be right with God, so he has to be the one to offer it.

True Rest is Learning Wisdom from Jesus (11:28-30)

So then Jesus extends his invitation to those who are tired and weary from trying to become wise and understanding on their own steam. Matt 11:28 “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” What beautiful, gracious words, and don’t miss the “all” there. This invitation is not just for some, Jesus is offering Sabbath rest, the life God intended for humans in Eden, to every single person; the only “condition” is that you must be weary and burdened, that is, you must be brought to realize that you need what Jesus is offering. If you’ve been broken down by life, and you’re sick of trying to figure it out for yourself, come to Jesus and rest with him. And if you’re one who is still stubbornly, desperately clinging to the peak of self-confidence and pride, let go. Admit that you’re worn out, that you don’t know everything, Jesus has so much to offer you.

It’s interesting what Jesus says next though, Matt 11:29-30 “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.” “Wait,” you may be thinking, “a yoke? as in a tool to help you carry a burden? I thought this was all about rest, taking away the burden. I don’t need a yoke, Jesus, I need a vacation! You mean that I’m still supposed to work and continue learning? Well, yes! Jesus doesn’t want you to simply remain in ignorance, content to be a helpless infant your whole life. He doesn’t want you to give up the quest for wisdom entirely, he wants you to receive it from the right source. True Sabbath rest isn’t about achieving enough wisdom that you can stop growing. True Sabbath rest is a life of learning wisdom from Jesus. Christ wants us to continue up that slope of increasing knowledge and wisdom. But we have to remember that true wisdom isn’t about arriving at a place of mastery where you can be totally self-sufficient and self-confident. You will never reach a point where you are done learning from Jesus. And that’s a good thing. True wisdom is realizing the excitement and joy that there will always be something new to learn, the glorious adventure of resting with Jesus and learning from him is the whole point, not just a means to an end, and that life will continue into eternity, into the new creation and the life of the world to come.

And the best part is what it is that Jesus wants us to learn: we are to learn from Jesus that he is gentle and humble in heart. The most blessed thing about learning from Jesus is discovering his character, getting to know just how patient and merciful and gentle he is with you. Even though Jesus is the only true expert who has nothing to learn, the only one qualified to have complete self-confidence, he is still “humble in heart,” never brash and arrogant, always ready to welcome you. For all eternity we will never stop discovering new depths to the mercy and kindness of Jesus.

So yes, Jesus does have a yoke, a tool for helping you to carry a burden, and the only thing that can help us carry the immense burden of life is knowing that Jesus already carried it for us. It isn’t up to us to achieve rest and wisdom for ourselves. Jesus carried the full, exhausting weight of living in a sinful world where death cuts short our futile efforts to get a handle on God, life, and everything. He carried the weight of our arrogance and helplessness, never more so than when he shouldered the wooden crossbeam to which he would be nailed, and carried it like a yoke, crushed under its weight. And when Jesus finished his work, carrying the burden of our sin all the way to the end, he achieved rest from his labors, he rested on the Sabbath day in his tomb, and then rose again to bring us into a new creation where we never have to cease resting with, working with, and learning from our Lord Jesus. And that’s a comfortable yoke and a light burden indeed.

Conclusion

I'm really very glad that this was the text I get to preach on today as I say farewell to you all. I have loved the opportunity to teach you, but I have also been blessed to learn from you. And that’s what I want to remember most of all today. As this time of us learning from one another comes to an end, I want to remind you that ultimately we are guiding each other in learning from Jesus. You’re almost done learning from me, and that’s alright. But please, never stop learning from Jesus. I can’t think of a better lesson to leave you with than that.

In Jesus’ Name, Amen.