Clark Kent. Loser or leader? If you ask Lois Lane, she would tell you that Clark Kent is a loser. To her Kent is that bumbling and timid co-worker at the Daily Planet newspaper - a worrier too wimpy for her taste. Superman on the other hand, well now that man of steel was Lois Lane’s idea of a warrior. Of course as everyone knows, Clark Kent is Superman. The loser is in fact a leader. The worrier a warrior.
Had the Superman comics been around in the days of Gideon, some 3,150 years ago, that Hebrew could have identified with both Clark Kent and Superman. Gideon never flew around Israel in tights but he did win some spectacular victories over the enemy of God’s people. God even called him “Mighty Warrior.” But there was a definite Clark Kent side to Gideon as he could also be a mighty worrier. As we begin a four-part sermon series on Gideon today we’re going to learn about Gideon’s gig, or how a loser became a leader.
The time period in which Gideon lived was not a peaceful one. A nomadic people called the Midianites made a regular habit of raiding Israel. There were so many of them that when they invaded on their camels they looked like grasshoppers covering the land. There was nothing the Israelites could do but take to the hills where they hung out in caves and little forts until the marauders left. This went on for seven years before the Israelites cried out to the Lord for help.
Why did it take seven years for the Israelites to call for help? Why does it take seven wrong turns before a guy will ask for directions? Pride. That’s why when God heard the Israelite’s cry for help he didn’t at first send a savior but a sermon (John Lawrenz). A prophet came to the people and proclaimed: “This is what the LORD, the God of Israel, says: I brought you up out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery. 9 I snatched you from the power of Egypt and from the hand of all your oppressors. I drove them from before you and gave you their land. 10 I said to you, ‘I am the LORD your God; do not worship the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you live.’ But you have not listened to me” (Judges 6:8b-10).
Although later Gideon would blame God for the hardships, the Israelites were the ones at fault. They had turned their backs on the God who had not only saved them from slavery in Egypt but who had also given them the wonderful land they were living in. Instead of thanking and worshipping him, however, the Hebrews adored the lousy idols the former tenants had left behind. And they continued to do this even after the Midianites started their invasions!
It’s hard to understand what the Israelites were thinking. But then again angels must find it equally hard to understand what we are thinking when we blame God for things like the rough patches in our marriage. Plainly it’s our sins of selfishness that contribute to the difficulties and yet we have the gall to suggest that it’s God’s fault for letting us marry the “wrong” person and now we are suffering for it. Or we blame God for how bored we are with life and use that to excuse how we spend our free time in sinful pursuits. Even when life gets difficult as a result of our sins we don’t turn to God for help – help which he offers in his Word. Instead we try to fix things on our own. How well did that work for the Israelites of Gideon’s day? They ended up spending considerable time in dark, dank caves thinking this was the only way they could find safety from the Midianites. How could they have forgotten that God was their stronghold? How can we forget this?
But forget it the Israelites did so God sent a sermon instead of a savior. “Typical,” you think. God’s no different than a nagging, I-told-you-so parent. But God “told them so” because the Israelites needed to be confronted with their sins and led to repentance. Only then would they appreciate what he was about to do for them. And what did God do? He sent the Angel of the Lord, a title often used for the Son of God in the Old Testament. The Angel of the Lord went to north-central Israel not far from Nazareth where he plunked himself under an oak tree to watch a man named Gideon separate wheat kernels from their husks. What was interesting about this scene is that Gideon was not threshing the wheat out in the open with the help of oxen as was the common and most efficient practice. Instead he was threshing the grain in a big box of a winepress. You see Gideon didn’t want a passing Midianite scout to spot his wheat and take it from him. That sounds like the work of a worrier rather than a warrior doesn’t it? And yet the Angel of the Lord said to Gideon: “The LORD is with you, mighty warrior” (Judges 6:12b). Ah, that was too much for Gideon. “But sir, if the LORD is with us,” Gideon blurted, “why has all this happened to us? Where are all his wonders that our fathers told us about when they said, ‘Did not the LORD bring us up out of Egypt?’ But now the LORD has abandoned us and put us into the hand of Midian” (Judges 6:13).
Either Gideon hadn’t heard the sermon the prophet had preached or he didn’t believe it. As far as Gideon was concerned, Israel’s troubles were God’s fault. How would you have responded to such insolence? The Angel of the Lord did not put Gideon in his place but responded with a word of grace. He said: “Go in the strength you have and save Israel out of Midian’s hand. Am I not sending you?” (Judges 6:14b) There was no rebuke. No sermon this time. Just a divine commissioning: “Go! I am sending you.”
But had the Angel of the Lord forgotten that he was talking to a man threshing grain in a winepress – a man not unlike a scaredy-cat who hides his lunch money from the playground bully? Gideon certainly thought the Angel of the Lord had the wrong man. He squeaked, “But Lord, how can I save Israel? My clan is the weakest in Manasseh, and I am the least in my family” (Judges 6:15). Does this exchange remind you of another similar conversation in the Bible? Do you remember how, a few hundred years earlier, Moses too thought God had the wrong guy? But God made it clear to Moses and Gideon, and now to us, that it’s not what you know but who you know that counts. God said to Gideon: “I will be with you, and you will strike down all the Midianites together [lit. as one man]” (Judges 6:16).
What an amazing comfort for the seminary graduate who is headed to a foreign country. It’s great comfort to me in the work here for I am not the strong man I would like to be. Nevertheless I can conduct my ministry with confidence because I did not come here of my own accord. God called me here. And God will equip me for the work. But this truth applies to you too. You will be more warrior than worrier when you remember that it is God who called you to be a parent. It’s God who placed you in that new school. It’s God who gave you that job, as hum-drum as it may seem. And so God will equip you for every challenge.
But how was Gideon to be certain of this? If only he could have a sign that this stranger was really divine… And so Gideon asked the stranger to remain while he cooked up a banquet for him. The Angel of the Lord agreed and waited while Gideon kneaded enough flour for 20 loaves of bread, slaughtered a goat, prepared the meat, and boiled up some soup. This was not fast-food and yet the Angel of the Lord waited patiently. What a response of grace! It wasn’t like the Lord needed that offering was it? So why wait around? God reminds me of a father who, on his way out the door for work, pauses when his daughter says, “Just wait, Dad. I want to make you a little card.” Instead of saying, “I’ll pick it up when I come home, Honey.” He puts his brief case down and waits as if he has all the time in the world for his daughter. How many fathers would actually do something like that? Your heavenly Father does. Because of his omnipresence and because of his pervading love for people, he has all the time in the world for each one of us!
When Gideon finished his preparations, the Angel of the Lord told him to put the food on a rock where he touched it with his staff and fire instantly consumed everything. In that moment the Angel of the Lord also disappeared. Hot stuff, eh? Gideon didn’t think so. “Ah, Sovereign LORD!” the worrier wailed, “I have seen the angel of the LORD face to face!” (Judges 6:22) Gideon thought he was going to die. You would think the same too should God appear before you with white-hot eyes that penetrate your mind and see every unkind thought you’ve ever entertained as easily as you can read a text message.
A classmate who should accidently receive one of your unfriendly texts about him probably wouldn’t be kind to you anymore. But listen to what God said to Gideon: “Peace! Do not be afraid. You are not going to die” (Judges 6:23). Peace! Gideon was so struck by that answer that he built an altar right there and named it, “The Lord Is Peace.” Gideon had asked for a sign and he got it – a sign of peace. Do you wish you could receive such a sign from God too? You already have. Look at the cross. On this altar God sacrificed his Son to pay for our sins. The cross which meant agony, death, and hell for Jesus means, peace, joy, and heaven for us. You don’t need a dazzling display of glory to convince you of God’s love. In fact such a display would only frighten us as it did the disciples when they saw Jesus’ transfigured before them. But here at the cross we are assured that everything is right between God and us. The cross is also God’s solemn seal that his promises can be trusted.
So what happened to Gideon? Did the worrier become the warrior? You’ll have to come back next week to find out. But you don’t have to wait until then to know that there is no reason for us to be worriers. We’ve been reminded that we have a God who listens to our cries for help. How does he answer them? Through the promises in the Bible. But God sends us more than a sermon; he sent a Savior in the person of Jesus. Jesus, the Angel of the Lord who says to you, “Be at peace. I died for you and now I live for you.” Yes, be at peace, Mighty Warriors, the Lord is indeed with you. Amen.
