When Truth Feels Like a Yoke

March 3, 2019

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OPENING SONGS

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Wish it was True

The WHite Buffalo

BEautiful Planet eartH

Vengelis

Sunrise

Cory Bradford-Watts

READINGS

From Biblical & Hebrew Scripture

Genesis 27:1-40

When Isaac was old and his eyes were so weak that he could no longer see, he called for Esau his older son and said to him, “My son.”

“Here I am,” he answered. Isaac said, “I am now an old man and don’t know the day of my death.  Now then, get your equipment—your quiver and bow—and go out to the open country to hunt some wild game for me.  Prepare me the kind of tasty food I like and bring it to me to eat, so that I may give you my blessing before I die.”

Now Rebekah was listening as Isaac spoke to his son Esau. When Esau left for the open country to hunt game and bring it back,  Rebekah said to her son Jacob, “Look, I overheard your father say to your brother Esau,  ‘Bring me some game and prepare me some tasty food to eat, so that I may give you my blessing in the presence of the Lord before I die.’  Now, my son, listen carefully and do what I tell you: Go out to the flock and bring me two choice young goats, so I can prepare some tasty food for your father, just the way he likes it.  Then take it to your father to eat, so that he may give you his blessing before he dies.” Jacob said to Rebekah his mother, “But my brother Esau is a hairy man while I have smooth skin.  What if my father touches me? I would appear to be tricking him and would bring down a curse on myself rather than a blessing.” His mother said to him, “My son, let the curse fall on me. Just do what I say; go and get them for me.”

 

So he went and got them and brought them to his mother, and she prepared some tasty food, just the way his father liked it.  Then Rebekah took the best clothes of Esau her older son, which she had in the house, and put them on her younger son Jacob. 16 She also covered his hands and the smooth part of his neck with the goatskins. Then she handed to her son Jacob the tasty food and the bread she had made. He went to his father and said, “My father.”

“Yes, my son,” he answered. “Who is it?” Jacob said to his father, “I am Esau your firstborn. I have done as you told me. Please sit up and eat some of my game, so that you may give me your blessing.” Isaac asked his son, “How did you find it so quickly, my son?”

“The Lord your God gave me success,” he replied. Then Isaac said to Jacob, “Come near so I can touch you, my son, to know whether you really are my son Esau or not.” Jacob went close to his father Isaac, who touched him and said, “The voice is the voice of Jacob, but the hands are the hands of Esau.”  He did not recognize him, for his hands were hairy like those of his brother Esau; so he proceeded to bless him.  “Are you really my son Esau?” he asked. “I am,” he replied.

Then he said, “My son, bring me some of your game to eat, so that I may give you my blessing.” Jacob brought it to him and he ate; and he brought some wine and he drank.  Then his father Isaac said to him, “Come here, my son, and kiss me.” So he went to him and kissed him. When Isaac caught the smell of his clothes, he blessed him and said, “Ah, the smell of my son is like the smell of a field that the Lord has blessed. May God give you heaven’s dew and earth’s richness— an abundance of grain and new wine. May nations serve you and peoples bow down to you. Be lord over your brothers, and may the sons of your mother bow down to you. May those who curse you be cursed and those who bless you be blessed.”

After Isaac finished blessing him, and Jacob had scarcely left his father’s presence, his brother Esau came in from hunting.  He too prepared some tasty food and brought it to his father. Then he said to him, “My father, please sit up and eat some of my game, so that you may give me your blessing.” His father Isaac asked him, “Who are you?”

“I am your son,” he answered, “your firstborn, Esau.” Isaac trembled violently and said, “Who was it, then, that hunted game and brought it to me? I ate it just before you came and I blessed him—and indeed he will be blessed!” When Esau heard his father’s words, he burst out with a loud and bitter cry and said to his father, “Bless me—me too, my father!” But he said, “Your brother came deceitfully and took your blessing.”

Esau said, “Isn’t he rightly named Jacob[a]? This is the second time he has taken advantage of me: He took my birthright, and now he’s taken my blessing!” Then he asked, “Haven’t you reserved any blessing for me?” Isaac answered Esau, “I have made him lord over you and have made all his relatives his servants, and I have sustained him with grain and new wine. So what can I possibly do for you, my son?” Esau said to his father, “Do you have only one blessing, my father? Bless me too, my father!” Then Esau wept aloud. His father Isaac answered him, “Your dwelling will be away from the earth’s richness, away from the dew of heaven above. You will live by the sword and you will serve your brother. But when you grow restless, you will throw his yoke from off your neck.”

From Swedenborg's Theological Writings
Click here for free ebooks of Emanuel Swedenborg's Theological Writings

when truth feels like a yoke

By rev. grant h. odhner

And it shall come to pass when you shall have the dominion, you shall break his yoke from off your neck. (Genesis 27:40)

These words express a promise of liberation, liberation from the frustrations of the life of truth.

We all have some idea of what a peaceful life is. It is a life in which the mind has rest - not rest from labors so much as rest from conflicting emotions, rest from uncertain allegiances and wavering convictions, rest also from the feeling of compulsion by others or by self. All of us at times long for peace of mind. We long to be able to act with feeling - spontaneously, without second-thoughts, or without restraining and dampening deliberations.

The kind of peace we would like is not a deep thing. In its origin it really is, but in its effect upon our everyday lives it's not. What we would like is a peace that eases our natural lives, so that our actions flow freely from a clear conscience, so that our decisions are not so labored, and so that our uses and relationships are not continually interrupted by the selfish fears and desires that cause unrest. The angels of heaven enjoy such a peace. There people enjoy a mind that's undivided by conflicting thoughts. There they are moved by just one love, a ruling love, a love that reigns supreme in their minds. And so they act with spontaneity and a fullness and easiness of expression.

At the outset of our life of regeneration, when we first make some commitment, we look to the promise of heavenly peace. This is one of the hopes we cherish. Our notion of what is truly happy and peaceful, of course, changes a great deal as the Lord forms our minds anew. Hopefully our ideas deepen, and become more internal and less self-oriented; yet still our hope for peace, for relief from the combat, unrest, and self-consciousness that accompany much of regeneration, cannot but grow.

Goodness of life, with its easiness, and peace of mind, does not come at once; for a long while it is at best a visitor to our life, that comes and goes for longer or for shorter periods, now more strongly, now more weakly. Nor is such goodness complete until the Lord has regenerated us and brought us into heaven, where our "old person" can be at last put to sleep.

This goodness that graces the natural life is represented by Esau. Esau, the rightful heir, the one who should have been blessed from the start, but who was deprived for a time of his legitimate place and honor... Jacob's stealing of Esau's blessing seems cruel. Esau's eagerness as he anticipates his father's blessing is evident in his words when he brings in his game for his father.

Let my father arise and eat of his son's venison, that your soul may bless me. (Genesis 27:31)

And we can really feel his and his father's disappointment, grief, and then anger, when the truth becomes apparent.

And Isaac said, "Who are you?" And he said, "I am your son, your firstborn, Esau." And Isaac trembled exceedingly, and said, "Who? Where is the one who hunted game and brought it to me? And I ate all of it before you came, and I have blessed him - and indeed he shall be blessed." And when Esau heard the words of his father, he cried with an exceedingly great and bitter cry, and said to his father, "Bless me, even me also, O my father!" (Genesis 27:32-34)

It is "exceedingly bitter" to us at times when we long for our natural life to be blessed, but seem to be always struggling or always plagued by some minor or major mental dissonance. As Israel promises, Esau - goodness of life - will come to the fore, but first he will be under the dominion of his brother, Jacob.

The spiritual principle taught in this drama is that in the life of regeneration, goodness of life is indeed the end in view, the firstborn, yet in time the truth seems to have dominion. Jacob, who steals Esau's birthright and blessing, represents truth, truth that works to change our natural lives.

The truth and goodness, represented by Jacob and Esau, in reality are inseparable "twins." They are and must be together, if either is to be genuine. But in our unregenerate state they seem to be enemies. Our first sense of what would be good in our life is impure and faulty. Our heredity makes us enjoy things that go against the laws of charity. And the thought of refraining from these enjoyments - as the truth would have us do - is repugnant to us. In short, the Lord is unable to bless our natural state as we are at first, not until the truth has been learned and has been taken to heart, not until we have been made new people.

After stealing the blessing, Jacob flees from Esau, and journeys to Padan Aram. There he works for many years for Laban, his uncle. Through many struggles and episodes Jacob becomes rich and is blessed with wives and many children. This journeying of Jacob pictures in the spiritual sense the "long haul" of regeneration - learning the truth, committing it to life through self-compulsion and struggle. It pictures the phase of life in which there is the frequent absence of the feeling of spiritual security and peace. These qualities are characteristic of the time in life in which truth has the dominion.

The life of truth often seems unpleasant. As long as we still need to bring ourselves by compulsion under the yoke of truth there is going to be some conflict and unrest in our minds. This is what the Lord was referring to when He said:

Do not think that I have come to send peace on earth: I did not come to send peace, but a sword. For I have come to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother.... And a man's foes shall be those of his own household. (Matthew 10:34-36)

The Lord's truth does indeed bring peace. It is simply not the peace that we expect at first. It is not a worldly peace that delights our unregenerate person - "My peace I give to you," He says, but "not as the world gives do I give to you" (John 14:27). The truth is seen by our old person as a sword. This is why Isaac said in blessing Esau: "By your sword shall you live, and shall serve your brother" (Genesis 27:40).

The Lord aptly pictures the unrest that His truth brings as conflict within a household - father against son, daughter against mother, ... Esau against Jacob. What could be more mixed than the joy and frustration of family life during certain times in its growth? As long as there are unregenerate interests and lessons to be learned among its members, there will be times of hurt or just plain nagging disquiet. So the unregenerate mind is a learning mind, a mind with conflicting interests, some noble, some selfish.

Again, in a home, when there is disturbance, the law of the home must in some way be asserted, or else there is chaos. A parent may long to rule with the face of love, may long for disorder to subside with a hug and some words of peace, but this is not always possible. The result is that commands sound where you wish there were none, and confrontations mar the home's quiet. So in the mind that is undergoing spiritual growth-pangs; truth must repeatedly be asserted, to instruct, to meet and assure "testing" thoughts and affections, and to quell the uprisings of unregenerate parts of us.

Carrying the analogy a bit further, when those in a family mature somewhat, learn to get along, and even to control themselves when times get rough, the home can experience many more sweet moments of peace. When the years of rebellion and tension are past, in retrospect you can see a thread of happiness and inner peace running through these years. But earlier this inner theme was obscured and barely perceptible. It is similar in the life of regeneration. The happiness and peace that truth brings to us (though present) is often lost to our sight, and all we feel is frustration.

Conscience can seem like a droning, nagging taskmaster at times. Its persistent input, forcing us to evaluate, to criticize ourselves, to be rational when we don't want to be, to love when we don't want to love, and so forth - at times this makes life tedious and burdensome. "Wouldn't it be nice," we think in such states, "just to do our work without evaluating our motivation, without concern for how others are seeing us?" "Wouldn't it be nice to show love for our partner, without nagging thoughts of whether we've done our duty by him or her, or whether we have been faithful?" And even "Wouldn't it be nice to go to the refrigerator without being plagued by tacit deliberations of conscience?"

Clearly, the dictates of conscience on all levels have their place. That's not the point. The point is that part of us, and rightly so, longs for the day when the life of truth will not seem so hard and relentless.

Hopefully we can be sustained at such times with the thought that a more enduring state of peace will come, that the state of needing to be truth-oriented will end. Jacob in his journeying was sustained by the hope that he would again be brought to his father's house in peace. Remember, on the eve of his escape to Padan Aram, the Lord appeared to him, and said:

Behold, I am with you and will keep you wherever you go, and will bring you again to this land; for I will not leave you until I have done what I have spoken to you. (Genesis 28:15)

And Jacob then vowed:

If God will be with me, and keep me in this way that I am going ... so that I come again to my father's house in peace, then the Lord shall be my God. (Genesis 28:20-21)

And the Lord's promise was good. He did bring Jacob back to Canaan, back to his father's house; and there was peace. Jacob found a new Esau, now a rich, powerful, generous and forgiving man. Esau had been blessed as it turned out.

So also the Lord's promise to the person who sets out on the journey of regeneration is made good. The life of truth is wholly reconciled with a goodness of life, and there is peace.

But often it is difficult to keep the Lord's promise before us, the promise of rest from the labor of reformation. When the frustration of inner conflict and self-compulsion is upon us, it seems as if life had always been this way, and always will be. The rewards of the life of truth are easily forgotten or seem distant. And we lose trust that there is a purpose to all this, that the Lord is with us at every step, and is keeping us "wherever we go." This is when our burden becomes the heaviest; for if the Lord is not leading us and secretly working for us, then we stand alone. The Lord - we are then believing in effect - is no longer guiding our struggles; He is no longer leading us through experiences that all look to our future happiness, but is letting us drift, and is leaving us to labor alone with whatever states we happen to fall into. This burden is immense! We've lost the vision.

The Lord was speaking to this state of mind when He said,

Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. 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. (Matthew 11:28-30)

"Come to Me" the Lord said. Turn to Me in trust. Approach Me in My Word. ... Trust in the Lord has the power to renew us and give us hope, and from this we are given a sense of rest in our labors.

It is interesting that the Lord did not say that He would remove the work from us, if we came to Him. Rather, He said, "Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me." Take the yoke of truth upon you, and become My disciple. The Lord urges us to take His yoke upon ourselves, because the life of truth is the only way to the happiness of heaven. The Lord said, "I am the way, the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but by Me" (John 14:6). The "Father" is the Divine good, the Divine blessing. This blessing will be ours if we patiently do the work that the truth shows us. His promise is there: goodness will gain the dominion; peace will come. As Esau was promised:

And it shall come to pass when you shall have the dominion, that you shall break his yoke from off your neck.

Or, seeing it a different way, the time will come when we will not experience conflict in living the life of truth; we'll discover that, in fact, His "yoke is easy and His burden is light."

For further reading:

Genesis 27:1-40;

Matthew 11:25-30;

Arcana Coelestia 3601-3603 by Emanuel Swedenborg;

Arcana Coelestia 8888-8893 by Emanuel Swedenborg

CLOSING SONGS

My Yoke is Easy

Dennis Jernigan

True

Spendau Ballet

River

Leon BRidges

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