Bearing Burdens to the Extreme
Bearing Burdens Taken to the Extreme.
“Continue bearing each other’s heavy burdens. In this way you will be fulfilling the Torah’s true meaning, which is upheld by the Messiah Christ. Keep carrying one another’s overwhelming loads, and you will be truly obeying Christ’s Royal Law of Love. By your ongoing offer to stoop down and help shoulder one another’s crushing burdens, you will be completely submitting to the way Christ expects us to live.” (Galatians 6:2).
Bear (Greek, “bastazo”) – to carry, to carry off; to take away, to take up with your hands; to shoulder or share a weight. This word is in the continuous present tense, which means to continue doing so, an ongoing effort and not a one-time activity.
Burden (Greek, “baros”) – a crushing load; an extremely heavy weight; an overwhelming burden; an oppressive weight too heavy for one person to carry alone.
Fulfill (Greek, “anapleroo”) – to accomplish in its entirety; to complete; to perform fully; to observe perfectly.
Law of Christ (Greek, “nomos”) – the teachings of the Messiah that highlight the intended meaning of the Law of Moses; Christ‘s words in the Gospels that clarifies the heart of Torah; the set of biblical expectations established by Jesus that reveals what the Lord had in mind in the Hebrew Scriptures; the spirit of the Law of Moses behind the letter of the Law, as expressed by Jesus Christ.
Bearing the Cross. Why was burden-bearing so near and dear to Paul’s heart, so much so as to believe that when one bears the burdens of others, one in fact is completing the expectations of Christ? Perhaps Paul focused on burden-bearing because this human act of love perfectly described what Christ did on the Cross for our salvation. The whole point of Christ’s burden-bearing was to heal and ransom us out of His profound love for us. Burden-bearing represents and demonstrates God’s love for us, and summarizes all that he did on Calvary. So when we bear the burdens of another, we are participating in the love Christ has for others. When we pick up our cross daily, we can’t help up but bear the burdens of others. “Surely it was our weaknesses He carried; it was our sorrows and our pain of punishment that weighed Him down. God has placed on Him the guilt and sin of us all… Through what He experienced, my Righteous Servant will make many righteous, in right standing before God, for my Servant bears the burdens of their sins.” (Isaiah 53:4, 5, 11).
The Premise. Caring for others reflects the heart of God, and is grounded in the Biblical fact that all human life is sacred. There is a shared human dignity between all people, regardless of race, health, age, faith, status, station in life, the country of origin. Burden-bearing begins with those closest to us… our spouse, our children, our extended family, our church community, our neighbors in need, in that order. Any father or mother who, through a personal distance, or indifference, or overwork, or arrogant disdain, doesn’t bear the burdens of those closest to him/her in a personal and profound way, then that person is disobeying Christ. That person will not fulfill the law of Christ. That person does not reflect the heart of God.
Context – Burden-bearing can be applied to any excessive weight on a believer’s shoulders, whether physical or spiritual. In this passage though, Paul seems to be directly applying this word to spiritual burdens… guilt from a particular sin; a difficult time of temptation; sorrow over spiritual failure; being overtaken by the weight of an unexpected sin or wrongdoing; the expressed need for forgiveness; a time of doubt; an obvious need for sound Christian teaching; the need for a fellow believer be warned about the path one is traveling. Whatever this spiritual burden might be, fellow believers are expected to be aware of the spiritual well-being of fellow believers, and then to helpfully carry that believer by bearing his burden, by helping to shoulder the weight of it. Paul is referring in this passage to matters that are spiritual in nature, something that is weighing excessively on a brother/sister’s spirit. Bearing someone’s burden is putting God’s agape love into action.
“This is my command: Love one another the way I loved you. This is the very best way to love. Put your life on the line for your friends. By this all will know you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” (John 15:12-13; 13:34-35).
Christian author Charles Williams (1886-1945) was a close friend of C. S. Lewis and J. R. R. Tolkien and was a key member of their exclusive literary group called “the Inklings.” He authored many highly acclaimed novels, as well as poetry, plays, essays, and whatever else kind of writing there might be. He was a notable theologian as well, who developed his “Doctrine of Substituted Love.” He strongly believed that we Christians are expected to take burden-bearing literally, to the extreme. He developed the idea that just as God substituted Himself for us sinners on the Cross, we are to continue in that spirit of Christ by literally carrying each other’s burdens. He believed that Christ was participating in an established law of the universe, and that we should do likewise. Williams once said that, “We are to love each other as He loved us, laying down our lives as He did, that His love may be perfected.” We do this by embodying acts of substitution in each other’s lives. Williams believed that by bearing burdens in this tangible way, we are intentionally participating in Christ’s self-sacrifice. We thus follow Christ through our acts of substitution, fleshing out His act of bearing our burdens on His Cross.
One of Charles Williams’ most popular novels was Descent Into Hell, another of his “supernatural thrillers” like War in Heaven and All Hallow’s Eve. These excerpts from Descent Into Hell describe his “Doctrine of Substituted Love” in a helpful way:
“I’m afraid. Dreadfully afraid,” she said. But he then said, “But I don’t quite understand. You have friends. Haven’t you asked one of them to carry your fear?” “Carry my fear!” she said. “How can anyone else carry my fear?” He said, “Has no one ever relieved you of your fear? Haven’t you ever asked them?”
“It can be done, you know. It’s surprisingly simple. And if there’s no one else you care to ask, why not use me? When you leave here, you’ll think of yourself that I’ve taken this particular trouble over instead of you. And I’ll give myself to it. I’ll think of what comes to you, and imagine it, and know it, and be afraid of it. And then, you see, you won’t.”
“Listen, when you go from here, when you’re alone, when you think you’ll be afraid, let me put myself in your place, and be afraid instead of you. What can be easier than for me to carry a little while a burden that isn’t mine?”
“When Christ or St. Paul said, “Bear one another’s burdens,” he meant something much more like carrying a parcel instead of someone else carrying it. To bear a burden is precisely to carry it for you. If you give a weight to me, you can’t be carrying it yourself.”
“You must give your burden up to someone else, and you must carry someone else’s burden. This is the law of the universe, and not to give up your parcel is as much to rebel as not to carry another’s burden. This is being obedient to the whole fixed nature of things.”
And finally, the author Williams says of his main character who indeed carried that friend’s burden of fear, “His goodwill went to its utmost, and utmost goodwill can go very far.”
It’s interesting that Williams extended his theory of substitution to include the idea that when we suffer, we could very well be carrying someone else’s burden without knowing it. So when we suffer, the other person is being relieved of the suffering. Likewise, when we are light-hearted and unburdened and free of pain, it could be that someone else is bearing your suffering unknowingly.
Because Charles Williams and C. S. Lewis maintained such a long-standing and deep friendship. Lewis felt that he needed to grapple with this idea himself. It turns out that Lewis was ambivalent about it, believing it to be “a powerful and legitimate idea” but perhaps only “wishful thinking” in the end. Lewis said once that he couldn’t completely condone it theologically. But the idea was important for him to explore, and Lewis was even inspired to include his version of it in his novel “Till We Have Faces.” Lewis ended up saying that “substitution is not a viable spiritual discipline.” Lewis concluded that only Jesus had shoulders strong enough to literally bear our burdens. He said, “Substitution was allowed to One. I believe that Christ has done vicariously whatever can be done literally. This is something we dare not do. We shouldn’t presume on the mystery of God’s ways to turn this principle into a technique or discipline to be practiced intentionally. Substitution was performed decisively and exclusively by Christ.”
As we explore this a little more, though, I wonder if a believer is always able to draw such a clear line between burden-bearing that is proper and improper, between what is healthy and unhealthy. We are usually able to bear the physical burdens of others clearly enough, and perhaps even the spiritual burdens of others. But might our figurative bearing of burdens ever approach the literal bearing of the spiritual burdens of others? Isn’t it at least slightly possible that an empathic believer would be so involved in the spiritual burden of another that there is even the slightest of exchange there?
Taking this further, is there such a thing as false burden-bearing? Is there a point when bearing the other’s burdens becomes unhealthy? Burden-bearing is one aspect of taking the yoke of Jesus upon our shoulders. When we do that, He says that we will find rest, for His yoke is easy and His burden is light. (Matthew 11:28-30). If our burden-bearing becomes spiritually burdensome, overly stressful and too heavy, or obsessive, or is an unwelcome imposition on the burdened; if we sense that we are inviting co-dependency, are becoming spiritually ambitious, or are seen as a busybody; if we are developing a messiah complex, or are subtly assuming to be the savior of the world by taking on everyone’s pain… Then we need to consider if we are actually bearing the yoke of Christ, or if instead we are bearing a burden for selfish reasons, for our ego, or a good name, to feel less guilty, or to achieve a purpose that is not in line with Jesus, who is “meek and humble of heart.” When we are bearing burdens of others and shouldering the yoke of Christ in the process, it is meant to be costly in a healthy way, and life-giving to both the caregiver and the recipient. Burden-bearing is sacrificial, but not pathological. When it’s not life-giving, it’s time to do some soul-searching and to seek Jesus for wisdom. Burden-bearing is taking upon us the yoke of Christ, who is the Author of life and health.
Perhaps the healthiest burden-bearing is when we come alongside someone who is burdened, and offer to join them as you bring that parcel of pain to Christ, the only One who is equipped to bear such a mystery. Only Jesus is able to literally carry our troubles. Perhaps instead of literally bearing someone else’s pain or burden, we should instead encourage the burdened to offer the pain to Christ and to what He accomplished on the Cross. In that way the burdened person is able to participate in the life of Christ and join in His “fellowship of suffering” (Philippians 3:10). I wonder if by literally bearing someone’s burden and relieving that person of it, we deprive that burdened person of truly joining that holy fellowship.