Wednesday, December 15, 2021

Advent Midweek III

Advent Midweek III: “Symbols of Salvation: You Shall Defeat Them as One Man”[1]

December 15, 2021

Text: Judges 6:11-24, 7:2-9

            God chooses what is foolish in the world to shame the wise.  He chooses what is weak in the world to shame the strong (1 Cor. 1:27).  God chooses “what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God” (vv. 28-29; ESV).  In fact, He says to the Apostle Paul, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness” (2 Cor. 12:9).

            So it is, that of all people, God chooses Gideon son of Joash to deliver His people from the oppressive terrorism of the Midianites. The “mighty, menacin’ Midianites.”[2]  Every year as the Israelites planted their crops, the Midianites and their friends would descend like locusts on the land, devouring everything.  And they must have raped and pillaged along the way, for they drove the Israelites themselves to the hills to hide in dens and caves for fear of them.  This, by the way, we read, was a chastisement from the LORD.  He sent the Midianites in response to Israel’s idolatry.  Let this be a warning to us.  When we reject God, the Lord sends His rod of discipline.  In love, to be sure, for our good, as a Father disciplines His Son.  But it hurts.  It isn’t pleasant. 

            Now we meet Gideon, in a wine press beating out what little bit of wheat he was able to salvage, hiding from the invading hoards.  He is, as he himself says, the least in his father’s house, from the weakest clan in Manasseh (Judges 6:15).  A rather pathetic figure. 

            But there is the Angel of the LORD, sitting under the terebinth, watching Gideon.  And we know who this Angel is.  This is the preincarnate Christ, the Word, the Son of God, and we are not surprised to find Him under a tree.  Now He speaks, and the first thing He announces is His own divine, gracious presence, “The LORD is with you, O mighty man of valor” (v. 12). 

            The LORD is with you, a greeting familiar to us.  We say “The Lord be with you, and with your spirit,” as a confession of faith, and as a blessing that bestows the reality that our God is just as present with us, Emmanuel, as He was with Gideon at the wine press.  In fact, even more present, if we may speak that way, because He is with us incarnate, with us in flesh and blood. 

            And then, “O mighty man of valor.”  That must be a joke.  Remember, Gideon is hiding.  And he’s a whiner.  He complains: “if the LORD is with us, why then has all this happened to us” (v. 13).  Why doesn’t He do something about our enemies?  Why doesn’t He smite them?  Why doesn’t He help us and deliver us?  Our fathers told us all about how this LORD brought us up out of Egypt.  But now?  Now the LORD has forsaken us and given us into the power of our enemies.  What do you mean, “the LORD is with” us?

            Isn’t Christ’s response to Gideon’s lament rather curious?  Go in this might of yours and save Israel from the hand of Midian; do not I send you?” (v. 14).  Go in this might of yours?  O mighty man of valor?  Gideon, the weakest of the weak, hiding, moaning and complaining… mighty?  Sent to save?  How?  What might?  Why does the LORD say this? 

            Notice, the Source of the Gideon’s might is not within Gideon.  And that is the key to this whole encounter.  The LORD sends Gideon precisely because He is weak, a nothing, a nobody.  Because then everybody will know it couldn’t possibly have been Gideon who saved Israel, but the LORD working through Gideon, who is with Gideon to “strike the Midianites as one man” (v. 16).  The LORD is the One Man.  He is the Savior.  He is Gideon’s Might.  God’s grace is sufficient for Gideon, and for all Israel.  His presence.  His Word of sending.  But I will be with you” (v. 16).  That is the Promise.  And no one will see it coming.  It will be a great surprise, a mighty mystery.  God will get all the praise.  Which is to say, the people will once again believe in YHWH.  They will return to Him in repentance and faith. 

            God chooses the foolish, the weak, the things that are not, to accomplish His saving purpose.  His power is made perfect in weakness.  This is how God works.  So when the time comes for the world’s salvation to appear, for God to deliver us from the mighty, menacin’ demons and their satanic lord, from sin, from death, from hell, and from ourselves… He doesn’t come as an invincible warrior, obliterating His enemies in a blaze of glory.  He comes… as a Baby.  Flesh and blood.  The Son of God, to be sure, eternally begotten of the Father, conceived by the Holy Spirit.  But born to a poor, unwed virgin girl from… Nazareth?...  Born, in of all places, Bethlehem, Ephratha, too little to be counted among the clans of Judah (Micah 5:2)?  In a stable, complete with all the sights and smells one might expect in such a place, surrounded by beasts and dirty shepherds, wrapped in swaddling cloths and lying in the feed bin, because nobody has any room for Him inside the house?

            Foolish.  Weak.  Just what kind of a God do we have here, anyway?  How is a Baby supposed to save us?  If this is how He is with us (Emmanuel), no wonder the Midianites always walk away with the spoils.

            But things are not as they appear.  And there is the LORD with His tree.  In Gideon, the LORD gives us a picture of how He wins the victory over our enemies.  When He sends Gideon out to deliver Israel, our… hero?... raises an army of 32,000 fighting men.  Well, that’s not bad.  We’ll give those Midianites a contest, at least.  But the LORD says, “That’s too many!  See, I intend to keep My Promise.  The Midianites will be defeated.  But if you do it with that many men, you’ll think you did it, and then you won’t believe in Me.  So dismiss everyone who is afraid.”  Just like that, 22,000 abandon the field.  10,000 left.  Against the locust-hoards of Midian.  Now the situation is dire.  But… still too many!  With a test at the water, God whittles it down to 300 men!  300 who lapped the water like dogs.  Now the situation is hopeless.  Humanly speaking.  But that’s the point.  That’s right where God wants us.  Because now He will come down and win the victory.  And that’s what happens.  Gideon’s army advances on the camp of Midian with trumpets and torches hidden in jars.  They smash the jars and blow the trumpets and before they can raise a weapon of their own, the LORD sets the Midianite camp in such panic and confusion, that each Midianite turns his weapon on his comrade.  The enemies of God’s people defeat themselves.  The LORD wins the victory with an army of nobodies who do nothing. 

            The LORD with His tree.  The Baby grew up to be rejected by His own, His people, whom He came to save.  Our flesh and blood God, mocked, spat upon, tortured, scourged.  An innocent Man condemned to death.  Crucified between two criminals.  A band of nobody disciples scattered in hopelessness. 

            But they should have known.  This hopeless moment is THE great moment of salvation, when the LORD turns His enemies’ weapons on themselves.  He harnesses death and damnation… to deliver the death blow… to death and damnation.  And Satan, and the demons, and our sin and misery.  For in suffering death and damnation, in submitting Himself to the hoards of evil, He suffers the just penalty for our sins, and pays our debt in full.  He faces down our enemies as one Man.  And He defeats them.  For after all, what happens on the Third Day?  The grave is empty.  The stone has been rolled away.  Jesus Christ is risen from the dead.  There He stands… victorious!

            It is a great surprise.  A mighty mystery.  No one saw this coming.  No one can say that weak and sinful man won this victory.  The LORD did it.  His angel.  On His tree.  And now?

            From the vast army of humanity, the LORD gathers His 300, which is to say, His little Church of redeemed sinners, the weak, the whining, the moaning, and complaining… absolved and renewed by Him.  That is our role in this.  We are the 300.  Nobodies from Nowheresville.  Chosen at the water.  We are given lamps under jars; that is, the Light of Christ, the Spirit, and our Lord’s resurrection Life are in us.  But for now this treasure is hidden in jars of clay, to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us (2 Cor. 4:7).  And trumpets, to proclaim God’s victory.  That is, the preaching, your daily confession of Christ in the world, lives of love and sacrifice in Jesus’ Name.  But we know it isn’t us who win the victory.  It is our new and greater Gideon, Jesus Christ, who does all that.

            All cloaked in the weakness of flesh and blood, and the holy cross.  The LORD Himself wins the victory.  We just enjoy the spoils, now in a hidden way, in the foolishness of God that is wiser than men, in the weakness of God that is stronger than men, the things that are from the things that are not, Words and water, bread and wine, repentant lives of faith, always looking forward to that Day when the angelic trumpets sound, and the jars are smashed, and what is hidden is revealed.

            So we pray, “Come, Lord Jesus.  Advent to us.”  And He does, right here and now.  He comes to this little congregation, the Messiah and Lord of all.  To be with us now in flesh and blood.  To give us His victory.  Under His tree.  At His Altar.  Go then, beloved, in this might of yours.  Jesus is with you, to defeat your enemies as one Man.  In the Name of the Father, and of the Son X, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen. 

             

 

 



[1] The theme and a number of the elements in this sermon are taken from Aaron A. Koch, Symbols of Salvation: Foretelling Christ’s Birth (St. Louis: Concordia, 2021).


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