Come to me all you who labor and are tired and I will give you rest. The three verses that make up today’s Gospel reading conclude the eleventh chapter of the Gospel according to Matthew. Immediately preceding these three verses we see Jesus blessing God for revealing the Good News to the simple while keeping it veiled to the learned. Who were these so called ‘simple’ and why would God keep the good news veiled to the learned?
The simple were the men and women whose lives prepared them to be receptive to the good news which was the content of Jesus’ proclamation. The simple were the men and women who led their normal, day-to-day lives without the sophistication that we find with the special groups that existed at the time of Jesus’ preaching (such as the Pharisees, the Sadducees and the Essenes). They were the fishermen, farmers, carpenters, housewives, shepherds, and vendors who plied their trade within the temple precincts. The simple were those who tried their best to lead lives that were acceptable in the eyes of God without any exaggeration. When they heard the words of the prophets read to them in the Temple or in the Synagogues, they believed every single one of them. They never cared much whether a verse in the Scripture should be understood either literally or spiritually. They took the Lord at his words. The majority of those who thronged to hear Jesus speak belonged to this group. Most of the times, they would come to Jesus as they were: those from the farm would have no time to freshen up; those from the field would stop by in their working, unkempt attire. They must have caught the attention of Jesus on this particular day. And it is to them that Jesus addressed the words that form the conclusion of chapter eleven. 
Jesus was giving a ‘shout-out’ to these brothers and sisters of his as he acknowledged their presence in the crowd. Jesus was letting them know that, in contradiction to what they might have been told in the past, they mattered in the eyes of God. As a matter of fact, they were the reason why he assumed a creaturely nature. More than any other group, they were the ones who desperately needed to hear the good news which Jesus was proclaiming. The proclamation of Jesus was the fulfillment of their hopes. In Jesus, the desires of their hearts were going to be met. He was not going to take away their labors (they would still need to work to earn their living), but in Jesus Christ, their laboring would take on a new dimension. Their labors would not be in vain for their hopes would be fulfilled in Jesus Christ and in the kingdom he was ushering. 
May we who are listening to these words of Jesus today see ourselves as the simple to whom God revealed the Good News. Even as we continue to be weighed down by the labors of our earthly lives, may we hear Jesus calling out to us and telling us that he has come to help us lighten the yoke.