Burden-Bearing

“Brothers, if anyone is caught in any transgression, you who are spiritual should restore him in a spirit of gentleness.  Keep watch on yourself, lest you too be tempted.  Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ.  For if anyone thinks he is something, when he is nothing, he deceives himself.  But let each one test his own work, and then his reason to boast will be in himself alone and not in his neighbor.  For each will have to bear his own load.” –Galatians 6:1-5 (Read 6:1-10.  ESV).

Christians are to be burden-bearers, both for themselves and for others.  This puts into practice what Jesus taught us to do and to be.  Jesus was the ultimate burden-bearer, taking upon Himself the sin curse of mankind.  Paul instructs the Galatian Christians that bearing each other’s burdens is fulfilling the law of Christ.  The Christian is free from obeying the Jewish ceremonial law that had become a burden itself to those under that law.  Yet “the law of Christ” embodies the ethical and relational teachings that Jesus gave when He walked among His disciples.  For example, Jesus said, “Love your neighbor as yourself” (Matthew 22:39, John 13:34).  If we as Christians could ever learn the depth of what Jesus meant by this law of love, we would be at the very heart of “fulfilling the law of Christ.”  But in our humanness, we fall far short of that measure of burden-bearing.  Most of us fall far shy of treating others in such a loving, forgiving manner.  Yet that should remain, still, our ultimate goal. 

At first we might think that Paul wrote in a somewhat contradictory manner in this passage from Galatians 6.  He stated in verse 2:  “Bear ye one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ.”  Then almost immediately in 5 he writes:  “For each will have to bear his own load (burden).”  The Greek word translated “burden” in verse two, and also “burden” (or load) in verse 5 is different in the Greek.  In verse two we are urged to share each other’s cares and sorrows and thus fulfill the royal law of love.  This is to empathize with, to have genuine sensitivity to the troubles and concerns of others, to seek to understand and to console, to bear with.  The interim verse 4 has been translated by Dr. J. R. Dummelow to read: “Let each man test his actions on their own merits and not by comparison with other men” (p. 956-57, One-Volume Bible Commentary.\, 1958).  He gives verse 5 as, “For each must bear his own load of responsibility” (ibid.).  Burden (or load) in this verse uses the Greek word for accountability and indicates that each person is ultimately responsible for his own choices and actions—even those of helping others.  In bearing burdens, that of a brother or sister in Christ—or one’s own—we have the difference in approaching them from a legal standpoint, because we feel an obligation to do so according to the law, or we want to do so because we are motivated by love.  The Christian is accountable, and has a higher law—the law of love—by which to gauge his deeds and actions. A great portion of the eastern coast of our country has been hit by Hurricane Sandy and grave suffering is now occurring as an aftermath of that storm.  Because we are a caring people, we want to share with those who suffer.  Many will go to the stricken areas as volunteers, many at risk to their own lives and certainly with expenditure of their own money, time and energy.  Those of us who cannot go will seek to pray and to give to authentic charitable means of helping to relieve the suffering.  This is part of bearing one another’s burdens.  We have been (and are still in) a “Unite-in-Prayer” effort to pray earnestly for America and that the upcoming election will go according to God’s plan and purpose for our nation’s leadership.  When we learn the outcome, we will need to live with and pray for our leadership and do what we can to strengthen and support them and our nation.

Prayer:  God, teach us truly what burden-bearing and accountability mean that we can fulfill the law of love.  Amen.