Being a Burden Bearer

 Being a Burden Bearer

      There are common traits among men worldwide, and one of those traits is that we view carrying groceries into the house as if it were a challenge.  We pull into our driveway, open the trunk, and there sits 31 bags of groceries.  Challenge accepted.  We started throwing our arms through the holes in the plastic bags, pulling them further and further up, almost to our elbow, refusing any assistance because, well, we are men.  You can feel the plastic bag dig into your skin, the heavy gallon of milk is at the mercy of the fragile bag, the once perfectly formed loaf of bread is now flat, your eggs...well, let's not talk about the condition of the eggs.  The bananas are bruised, the pain is high, but we can do it because gosh darn it we are men, and men carry 31 bags of groceries.  We balance it all with the strength of Samson and the agility of a well trained mountain goat.  Our keys dangle from our mouths, and then the unthinkable, the unfathomable happens, the can of peaches start to tear a bag, and thus start the epic failure of our well intended, albeit poorly laid plan.  It was a burden too great to carry alone.  It was foolish to do it alone, especially when there was help available.

      There are some weights that are just heavy and we aren't able to bear them alone.  Paul addresses this subject in Galatians 6:2, which says "Bear one another's burdens and thereby fulfill the law of Christ."  Before look at the passage I want to look at the context.  The context is the room in which the passage lives.  This particular book of the Bible is heavy.  Paul uses it as a letter to address people who are departing from the faith for false teaching.  Imagine the heartbreak in the local church.  Countless people that once sat beside you are now following a false teacher, they have departed from faith to folly.  The church in Galatia probably feels like a defeated church.  Their numbers have dwindled, the people probably feel defeated, and the air just feels heavy.  But in the midst of that Paul writes that they are to bear one another's burdens.  This church definitely fits the bill of being burdened.  But what does it mean to bear one another's burdens, what burdens, why, and how do we do it?

      Let's start with the word bear.  The word means to take something up in your hands, to carry something or someone, to uphold a person.  The word is used in other areas of the New Testament to describe someone carrying a pitcher of water, bearing a coffin, picking up stones, and Jesus bearing His own cross.  The idea is carrying something.  I always get the image of carrying something heavy.  I've been in the process of moving, so needless to say there is A LOT of things to carry, some light, some very heavy, some just plain awkward.  Let's look a little deeper at this word bear before we see what or who we are supposed to be carrying.  The Greek language has tenses, past, present, and future.  In this particular passage the word bear is in the present tense, giving the image of a continual action.  Not something that we used to do, not something that we are planning on doing, but something that we are to be constantly doing.  That is something worth taking note of.  The word is also found in the imperative in the Greek language, meaning it is a command.  This isn't something that is a suggestion, it isn't something that we are asked politely to do, there isn't an option of a negative response, instead the implication is that we are going to do it, no matter how hard or difficult it might be.  Obedience is implied.

      So what is this commanded thing that we are supposed to do in the verse?  It says to bear one another's burdens.  Burdens are heavy things that a person carries.  It implies something that is too heavy for a single person to carry.  It's worth noting that the passage doesn't say carry a burden, singular, but instead it says bear one another's burdens, plural, more then one.  We are a burdened people, and each of our burdens are as unique as us.  We live in a world that is tainted with sin and we carry unseen, invisible weight from time to time.  We carry the weights of anxiety, grief, questioning self worth, battle with addictions, loses to temptation, marriages that are failing, children that are wandering, tears that are falling for people that we miss, mental insecurity that rocks us to our core.  I might not know you the reader, but I can guarantee that you have a burden, something that's heavy....something that is almost crushing you under the weight of it.  Right now, at this very moment, you know what that thing is.  This article is designed for a grieving person, but burdens come in every shape and size and create their own distinct grief.  

      Grief is a heavy thing that a person bears, and for many of the men that work with, they carry it silently.  They bury it under a heavy load of work, some of them bury it under drinking...drug use...pornography addiction, etc.  Many of them have adopted a coping mechanism that slowly destroys them.  They are quiet, yet yelling on the inside.  They are alive, but they are dying.  Grief is not a load that can be carried alone.  I found that out through my own personal walk through grief.  Isolated and alone I suffered greatly.  I suffered because without a community I had no one else that was helping me carrying an unfathomable weight.  The weight of my grief crushed me, but God in His providence gave us the Holy Spirit which is our Comforter, BUT He also gave us each other.  Grieving people, all people that matter, need burden bearers to go through life with them.  But, how can we practically bear each other's load?

      One of the greatest ways that you can be a burden bearer is simply by providing your presence.  Sounds simple, but we complicate it.  In those moments we try to fix a person's grief, but let me assure you that grief isn't something that needs fixed.  I've said it before, but grief is a great teacher, but it cannot be a master.  Well meaning, well intended people tend to act like Job's friends and they start talking.  They say things like 'everything happens for a reason' or 'they are in a better place now' or 'God needed another angel (bad theology)' or 'you should have moved on by now.'  All of those things are nice, some of them might even be said with compassion (but not empathy), and some of those statements might even be correct.  But what a grieving person does not need is pre-mature theology.  What does that mean?  To put it simply, they don't need a sermon right away.  They don't need 'the right answer' at the wrong time.  A grieving person is struggling to breathe, so we as burden bearers must take up the task of giving them space to breathe.  Silent sermons in the presence of the grieving are often louder then a great sermon.  Or maybe we want to change the verbiage that we use.  We could use phrases like 'I'm here for you' or 'you don't have to carry this alone' or 'what was hardest for you this week?'

      A second way that you can help be a burden bearer is through action, or practicality.  Offer things like cooking a meal, baby sitting, helping with paperwork, mowing the yard, pick up groceries for them, drive them to appointment, pray with them, sit with them when things are hard, invite them to your home during holidays.  Now, I want to make this very clear, most grieving people, namely widowers, won't ask for help.  They struggle to have the energy to organize people to come and help, plus they probably feel like they are being a burden.  So, don't ask, don't offer, just show up.  Be gracious, but also be persistent.  

      And a final way that you can be a burden bearer is to stay longer then you expect.  Initially crowds of people will flock to the bereaved, but quickly, usually within two weeks, people stop checking in, stop making phone calls, stop offering any help at all.  Typically life after the funeral is hardest because broken routines are quickly noticed, silence becomes loud, and loss seems to cause an absolute collapse in a person's life.  So, weeks later, check in with them.  Months later check in with them.  Maybe you can't remember the last time that you checked in on them, if so, do that.  Send them a text, give them a call, send them a card, have food delivered to their home, and continue invitations even if it feels like they are ignored.

      Each of these ways require action and diligence from you.  It will require sacrifice and surrender.  It will require you to step into some uncomfortable situations that might cost you a little bit of yourself, but isn't that what Christ did for us?  Didn't Christ come from the perfections of heaven, to step into a broken world, placed in uncomfortable positions, all to bear the burden of our sin?  I think that's why Galatians 6:2 says that we fulfill the Law of Christ.  What is the Law of Christ though?  I think it can be summed up with Jesus' own words in John 13:34, "A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another."  I can't think of a people group that needs more love then people who have lost the loves of their lives.  They need a little extra encouragement, attention, a little extra of you.  Step into their grief and help them bear their burden.