The Lord's Gideon [Easter 4]

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READINGS:

Isa. 40:25-31

I Peter 2:11-20

St. John 16:16-22

Alleluia!  Christ is Risen!

To all of you, baptized into the death and resurrection of the Resurrected Son of God:  Grace, Mercy, and Peace are now yours from God our Father, through our risen Lord and Savior, Jesus the Christ of God!

Who truly speaks to you all today saying,

“So they were saying, ‘What does he mean by ‘a little while’? We do not know what he is talking about.’”

I don’t know.

This brief statement summarizes the story of Gideon’s illustrious career as a Judge in the book of Judges. Memorialized as a “hero of faith”, in the 11th chapter of Hebrews, Gideon is set up in God’s Church to be remembered with reverence, as the letter says, “And what more shall I say? For time would fail me to tell of Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, of David and Samuel and the prophets” (Heb 11:32).

We even honor Gideon’s memory in our Hymn, “O little flock, fear not the foe”, written in the 17th century. In it we sing that our Lord will avenge our wrongs and uphold us and His Word, when His Gideon arises.

Gideon's part in the History of Salvation comes from the book of Judges in chapters 6-8. Gideon is found by God’s angel in a wine press, threshing some wheat. Wine. Bread. We’re building a case here.

He was threshing grain in the wine press because the Midianites were terrorizing Israel and had forced them to live in the mountains. Remember, Ezekiel 34 last week about God promising to shepherd His people on the mountains? 

Hiding in the mountains, the angel promises Gideon that the Lord is with him and that he is a valiant warrior. This hero of obedience and faith replies in this way:

“…if the Lord is with us, why then has all this happened to us? And where are all his wonderful deeds that our fathers recounted to us, saying, ‘Did not the Lord bring us up from Egypt?’ But now the Lord has forsaken us and given us into the hand of Midian.” (Judges 6:13)

Gideon says, “I don’t know” to God multiple times. Gideon then continues to test God  asking Him to wait, demanding signs from Him, and even doubting His Word. Its not exactly a flattering life of a hero of obedience. In spite of himself, Gideon was allowed to win God’s victories over His enemies.

You better believe you are called to a life of obedience to our Lord. God would be able to accomplish great things through you if you could just forget your weaknesses, trust in the Lord, and follow His guidance. In fact, most preachers will tell you that doing the things that Gideon did to God is a sign of weak faith and that those sins always have bad consequences. If that’s true, what does that say about the God who answered that weak faith?

The Lord told Gideon that, in his current strength, by himself, he would be the one to deliver Israel from the hand of the Midianites. Jesus told the Apostles that the Christ must suffer, die and rise again three days later and that, during that time, for a little while they will not see Him and again a little while and they will see Him. And they replied to Jesus, “We don’t know”.

This day, though you live in a land full of riches and have your own houses and land to return to, you are living in mountain caves of exile. In sin, you have allied yourself to the devils of Midian who promised you food, wealth, and power but have only delivered you strife and death.

Though Gideon is dead, he lives because the Lord’s true Gideon has risen from the dead. This Gideon does not thresh His wheat to make bread in secret. He does not have empty wine vats and He does not doubt God’s Word, even when it leads Him to His own crucifixion.

Jesus begins His Gideon path, the same way Gideon did: by tearing down the altar of Ba’al. Jesus attacks and smashes the devils altar of sin, lawlessness, and death and builds a true Temple over it, in just three days. Where Gideon took only 300 men to conquer the Midianites, out of 22, 000, Jesus takes only Himself, facing down His betrayer and his captors as they led Him away in chains.

Gideon overhears a dream that one of the enemy has in Judges 7:13. He said, “Behold, I dreamed a dream, and behold, a cake of barley bread tumbled into the camp of Midian and came to the tent and struck it so that it fell and turned it upside down, so that the tent lay flat.”

The true power Gideon wielded was not charisma nor his ability to obey God. Gideon’s true power was faith. Faith to hear God’s Word and believe. Faith to say “I don’t know” and yet do as the Lord commands. Faith to say “I don’t know” when the Lord promises that a loaf of bread will smash His enemies flat.

Jesus goes as the Father commands: by Himself. Jesus leaves His Father’s kingdom in order to make bread and wine in secret; in the midst of a world completely covered in sin and death. Jesus has no weakness of faith where He needs God to prove Himself. He knows the Father and the Father knows Him (Jn. 10:15). He and the Father are one Lord, one God (Jn. 10:30).

While Jesus never says, “I don’t know” to God, in His humanity He does not know a few things. He does not know the day or the hour of the last day (Mk. 13:32) and neither does He know the details of His own last day on earth, as evidenced by His blood-soaked prayers in Gethsemane. In His humanity, Jesus has the same limits we do.

Yet, in His Godhood, Jesus does know. He knows that the weak faith of Gideon is the weak faith of all people. He knows that Gideon will fail, in the end, to make any lasting good stick on earth. Just as His disciples will abandon Him.

This all ends with Jesus. No more will His chosen prophets fail. No more will His chosen people scatter and die. No more will there be and “I don’t know” with our heavenly Father. Because a cake of bread has tumbled out of heaven onto our tent of sin and death, so that they fell, were turned upside-down, and now lay in hell forever.

In Jesus, our belief finds a sure and certain footing, a confidence to say “I do know”. In Jesus, the Bread from Heaven falls upon us and crushes us. He dashes our sin to pieces and turns death upside down, into life. In the battle against the “…principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places” (Eph. 6:12), the victory belongs to Jesus alone, in His Body and Blood.

While we wait to see Jesus face to face, we do not have to wait to see His salvation, which He gives in baptism. While we must weep and lament in this life, we do not have to hold back our Joy at hearing the sound of His Gospel. While we must sorrow, we will not have our joy torn from us, for in His Supper we are given such a complete and perfect gift, that in this day, we have no more we need to ask of Jesus.

In Gideon, we see ourselves. Quick to take up the banner on the good days and quick to doubt. Some days we know everything there is to know and most days we just don’t know. Jesus tells Nicodemus, in John 3: “we speak of what we know, and bear witness to what we have seen, but you do not receive our testimony. If I have told you earthly things and you do not believe, how can you believe if I tell you heavenly things?” (v. 11-12)

We must believe the earthly things before we can comprehend the heavenly. We must believe that God became man. We must believe that God suffered and died and rose again. We must believe that God’s salvation comes to us through earthly means. 

Then, with Christ in our earthly hearts on account of faith, we may “ have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth” of all of our heavenly Father’s wisdom and love towards us, His poor miserable sinner-saints. 

In the Word and Sacrament, we mount up on eagles’ wings, run, and not grow weary (Isa. 40:31). In the Church, God is glorified by your works of hearing and receiving the Lord’s Divine Service to you (1 Pet 2:12). For now, in Christ, we saints suffer unjustly for our sins, having been justified by faith (1 Pet 2:19). So it is in the unjust, grace-filled wounds of Christ, every part of our life is gracious in God’s sight. 

To answer Gideon’s question and our sin-filled question: the Lord is with us. The Word was made flesh and dwells among us. His wonderful deeds in Word and Sacrament bring us out of the real Egypt of sin and death. The Lord has not forsaken us, but all of this sin befalls us that we may believe that it is only in Christ that we are set free from such things.