Burning Bush Or Bramble Bush: A Sermon For Christ The King Sunday

Burning Bush or Bramble Bush: A Sermon for Christ the King Sunday

Judges 9:1-21

Today is Christ the King Sunday on the Church Calendar. It is the last Sunday of the Christian year. In it we remember the promised eternal reign of our Lord Jesus Christ. This is the hope that the redeemed have longed for. Next week is the beginning of Advent, a season in which we prepare for the Day of Christ the King. We don’t wait for a baby in a manger. This has happened long ago. It isn’t a time in which we prepare to receive the Christ child anew. We do remember that Christ was born of the Virgin Mary in Bethlehem two thousand years ago. This is the Incarnation where the Divine Son of God became flesh. We remember that Christ came at Christmas. We should remember this. But Advent is a season in which we remember that Christ is coming back for us to rule and reign with Him for ever.

It might seem strange that we read this text from the Old Testament Book of Judges this morning. It is one of the gloomiest books in the entire Bible. It begins well enough with the words that Israel served the LORD all the days of Joshua and the elders that outlived Joshua (Judges 2:7). But soon, the book shows the repeated failures of Israel to serve Yahweh. At first they did not obey Him completely, and soon they would worship Baal and other gods. God would then send nations to chastise them and put them into cruel bondage. Then they would repent and the LORD would send a judge to deliver them. They would be restored and serve the LORD for a season. Then they would forget the LORD again. The cycle repeats itself miserably in Judges. The book ends with the miserable verse: “In that day, there was no king in Israel. Everyone did that which was right in their own eyes.” (Judges 21:24)

In this morning’s text, we come to the beginning of yet another apostacy. God had used Gideon (Jerubbaal) to save Israel from the Midianites who had held them in cruel bondage. The Angel of the LORD had appeared to Gideon who was threshing wheat in secret lest the Midianites come up and steal it. The LORD then addresses Gideon as a “mighty man of valor.” There is much humor here, but God calls His saints not for who they are but rather for who they will become. Gideon had memory of the mighty acts which the LORD had done for Israel in the distant past. This was the LORD who had called Moses from the burning bush and had delivered Israel from Egyptian bondage. He had led them through Moses and then Joshua into Canaan. But Gideon did not know why the LORD had forsaken them. But even Gideon’s father had erected a statue of Baal and a grove on his property. This had to go, and Gideon courageously tore it down. When they wanted to kill Gideon, his father defended him. “Let Baal contend with him.” This is what Jerubbaal means.

God used a scaled down army of 300 under Gideon to overcome the multitude of Midian. These men were not even equipped with weapons of war, just clay pots and pitchers. The victory and glory belonged to Yahweh. Gideon understood this. When he was told that Israel wanted him and his sons to rule after him, a hereditary monarchy, he rightly responded that it was Yahweh who was truly Israel’s king. It was the God of the burning bush who was to rule over His people.

We need to add a little more information before revisiting this morning’s text. Gideon was a reluctant leader from the beginning. God uses people such as these. We should always be suspicious of leaders who say that they were born to rule as these tend to become despots. But Gideon was a truly humble man. When asked to obey, he was bold and decisive. But there seemed to be the same reluctance among his many children. The Bible records seventy sons, not including Abimelech who was the son of a concubine. This could only have happened if he had had many wives. When we read Deuteronomy, we are warned that the leader of the people should not multiply wives to himself. Although the context is different here, out of seventy sons, there was not one found who wanted to take up the rigors of leadership. They were happy just to have wealth and enjoy the good life. We also see reluctance when one of Gideon’s sons refused to execute the two princes of Midian.

We also read that the town of Succoth refused to feed Gideon’s army on the way to battle and insulted him. Gideon said that when he returned, he would educate the elders with the briars and thorns, which he did. The thorns and briars were part of God’s curse on Adam and Eve for their disobedience. They would make life hard for humanity. We must remember this here. Adam went from the throne of earth to the thorns. In the book of Judges, God sent a prophet to say to Israel that because they had failed to fully obey God, the nations left behind would serve as a scourge to them.