Kurusiyak Noma Wee Lyrics by Unknown Artist

Rather than being a cross, let me become a redemption for the world,
rather than being a yoke, let me become a freedom for the world
Not being a tyrant
who loads crosses onto the heads of others,
but taking the burden of the cross onto my own shoulders,
let me bring comfort to a world
Not being a lordly master
who loads burdens onto the lives of others,
in the mission of breaking every yoke,
let me remain a servant

This is a striking hymn of Christlike service, and it turns the images of the cross and the yoke into a choice about the kind of person one will be. It opens with a bold prayer: “rather than being a cross, let me become a redemption for the world; rather than being a yoke, let me become a freedom.” The singer does not want to be a weight on others but a source of their liberation, exactly as Christ turned his own cross from an instrument of death into the means of the world’s salvation.

The verses sharpen that choice into a social conscience. There are two ways to live, and the hymn firmly rejects one of them. “Not being a tyrant who loads crosses onto the heads of others,” and “not being a lordly master who loads burdens onto the lives of others.” It refuses the role of the oppressor, the powerful one who makes others carry his weight.

Instead it embraces the way of Jesus, who said his own yoke was easy and who came not to be served but to serve. “Taking the burden of the cross onto my own shoulders, let me bring comfort to a world,” and, in a beautiful final line, “in the mission of breaking every yoke, let me remain a servant.” What the listener is left with is a bracing, counter-cultural prayer, the desire not to rule over others or add to their burdens, but to carry the cross oneself, to break the yokes that crush people, and to be, like Christ, a willing servant who sets the world free.