JOHN UPTON from the

President An Easier Burden This will be the last editorial I’ll write as president of the

Baptist World Alliance. I have appreciated and enjoyed the opportunity afforded me by our general secretary, Neville Callam, and the BWA to share brief reflections on the experiences I’ve had as president through these editorials. I look forward to reading our incoming president’s experiences as he writes in the years to come.

The five years of my tenure have evaporated as quickly and quietly as the morning dew. I stand amazed at the swift passage of time. I find myself thinking through warm thoughts of worship, travels, visits, conversations, meetings, planning sessions, meeting with religious and government officials, experiences and a thousand other things. Then, after I think of all I have experienced during this time, I stand equally amazed that all those things happened in just five years. The mind is a wonderfully bewildering thing. The gift that I treasure most in the BWA has been the gift of relationships, both within Baptist life around the world and within the broader Christian community. Being the body of Christ in the world and unifying that body have become important themes in my own mind and ministry. My convictions are different now and more rooted in diverse relationships. What do these relationships ultimately mean? Are they just

nice acquaintances or do they mean something deeper? I guess if your life is easy and reasonable, contains no worries, if you do not struggle or have any concerns, or just don’t care much about anything, then acquaintances would be enough. No, these relationships are for those who live with concerns, stresses, struggles, burdens. They are for people like us who care deeply, who often find life threatening and difficult, and who sometimes get really, really tired of it all. These relationships are essential to people like us. Thank you for being there. I have come to understand more clearly Jesus’ invitation

to “come to him all who are weary and carry heavy burdens” because he will give us rest. These are powerful and haunting words because they speak to the deep, deep sighing in us and to the weariness of our burdened hearts for the world. We do bear burdens, don’t we? We bear all kinds. We have

heavy obligations, problems that are beyond us to solve. We have expectations we can’t meet; burdens of regret; burdens of guilt; politics that wear us down; the burdens of other peoples hurts; the burden of needing to do something we don’t know how to do; the burden of longing, just longing for some sense of completion and fulfilment that seems too often to elude us. I like that Jesus doesn’t name the burden or describe the weariness. He just says, “Come to me.”

I am sometimes concerned that we think there is a kind of prize for the one who carries the heaviest load. There seems to be a kind of spiritual satisfaction we can get in hugging our chains. Sometimes I wonder if we really want a Christ yoke. Instead we listen to those other voices saying to us, “Carry the weight! Carry the weight of your own importance; carry all those expectations and obligations and resentments. A prize awaits you if you do.” I call that a religion, not faith.

Yet, when I am with my friends and

colleagues in BWA life on a regular basis it is like an unburdening. I find wise counsel, warm companionship,

open dialogue,

honest insights, truth-telling, and just plain fun. I find myself removing one false burden after another because of the rest found being with friends and with the fresh insights I gain. It’s nice to not have to carry so many unnecessary false burdens. Yet, it is still a yoke we carry, even if it

is Jesus’ yoke. Yes, it is the burden of love, God’s love for all the world and for us, but that is an awful heavy weight isn’t it? God’s love for the world is heavy because it is a burden of heartbreak for all the meanness, loneliness, and violence in this world. It is a burden of grieving and deeply caring and working very hard to get God’s love expressed in the world. That is a burden. The weight of that burden is immensely heavier than all our baggage of false burdens put together. God’s love outweighs the universe. And Jesus says, “My yoke is easy, my burden is light.” Outweighing the

universe requires

some engagement of work, sweat, time, money, sacrifice, all we’ve got, and all we are. It is easy only because the yoke is not set on one pair of shoulders. Christ is under it, too. You are yoked to it with me as I am with you. It is a wonderfully shared yoke. To take his yoke is to be in glad, strong company. And since the burden after all is the love of God for the entire world, then what is it that finally rests on our shoulders? I’ll tell you what it is. It is the hand of God’s love on our lives together. I call that rest. Christ’s own hand on our shoulder. I call this a burden of joy. Now, I look forward, for years to come, to carrying that together! Thank you, my BWA family, for five wonderful years.

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