The Lord tells how to come to him, how to enter his service and find rest for our souls. He speaks to those who have felt the great need of their souls.
Pride fosters pride, and makes it very hard to submit. Meekness and lowliness make submission easy. If a master is proud, we are wary of submission because we expect to be taken advantage of and hurt in some way. Pride is oppressive and can be expected to behave unjustly. It seeks its own advantage and it does so at the expense of those who are in its power. It is unsafe to submit to the proud, and if we are forced to do so, we feel a deep discomfort. The work that we do for the proud master is not appreciated, not valued. It is all for his benefit. His eye is on himself. But to submit to the meek is to submit to those who do not have the fatal flaw of pride, who can be trusted to do us no harm, to seek our welfare, even though it costs him. A meek master does not demand what is unreasonable. He is easy to please and genuinely appreciates the willing service of his servants.
Because Christ is meek and lowly in heart he was willing to take our sins on him and pay for them. What ruler in this world would suffer personally for each of his people? This makes him so attractive to us. He has already done the greater thing for us when we had no power to influence him. How can he now fail to do the lesser thing for us and deal wisely and kindly with us as his servants? Christ says this about himself and he expects us to believe him; he is utterly honest and straightforward with us. We can trust him implicitly.