The Shepherds—Hope and Wonder - Luke 2:1-20

It's the first Sunday of Advent, the time of waiting to celebrate Jesus' birth. This advent we're going to come close to the manger and the people most closely connected to the Christmas story, starting with the shepherds. It's not always a pretty story. Ann Voskamp puts it this way. "And this Gospel? It doesn’t come wrapped in twinkling lights and satin bows; it comes straight into our pitchest black. The Gospel of Christ, it’s a messy, bloody thing and this is how God was born, bloody and bruised, and that’s how God chose to die, bloody and beaten. And our God, he knows the comings and goings of our blackest bloody battles, and this is exactly where He meets us. The Gospel is good news in the eye of the worst news." 

 

As the shepherds go about their work, watching over the sheep in the fields just outside of Bethlehem, they're visited by angels during the night. While some watch the sheep, and others rest or watch out for thieves or wild animals, an angel of the Lord suddenly shows up in the night sky with a message, "Don't be afraid. I bring you good news that will cause great joy for all the people. Today in the town of David a Saviour has been born to you; he is Messiah, the Lord." This is some pretty amazing news and it comes straight from heaven. God is making sure the good news gets out. But God reveals this good news first to shepherds.

 

Shepherds are an unusual choice. Dr. Jeremias, a biblical scholar, says shepherds were “despised in everyday life.” They were considered second-class and untrustworthy. The Mishnah, Judaism’s written record of the oral law refers to shepherds as “incompetent”; another place says "no one should ever feel obligated to rescue a shepherd who has fallen into a pit." Dr. Jeremias writes, “To buy wool, milk, or a kid from a shepherd was forbidden on the assumption that it would be stolen property.” Shepherds were officially labeled as “sinners,” and despised. There’s a striking irony that a handful of shepherds are the first proclaim the Messiah’s birth. Jesus draws the outcast and those on the fringes of society to himself even at his birth.

 

Yet shepherds weren’t always despised. King David, an early king in Israel, was a shepherd and good kings were called shepherds because they protected and provided for their people. David tells King Saul when the giant Goliath is threatening God's people, “Your servant has been keeping his father’s sheep. When a lion or a bear came and carried off a sheep from the flock, I went after it, struck it and rescued the sheep from its mouth. When it turned on me, I seized it by its hair, struck it and killed it. Your servant has killed both the lion and the bear; this uncircumcised Philistine will be like one of them, because he has defied the armies of the living God."

 

I often wondered why God told the shepherds first, but then I met a shepherd in Nicaragua. This young man worked hard protecting his sheep from wild animals and thieves, staying out on the fields with his sheep at night with a big flashlight and an even bigger stick. He knew all his sheep by name, even though they all looked the same to me, and the sheep knew him and recognized his voice as a safe voice. This young man made sure his sheep had enough food to eat, taking them to fields in the mountains where there was healthy green grass to eat and water to drink. He protected his sheep. I believe God told the shepherds first because they can understand why Jesus came and what he was here to do, to take care of his people and provide for them; protecting them from danger and saving the sheep when they get into trouble. As Phillip Keller writes, “In the Christian’s life there is no substitute for the keen awareness that my Shepherd is nearby. There is nothing like Christ’s presence to dispel the fear, the panic, the terror of the unknown.”

 

I love how the shepherds are the first to welcome Jesus here. I’ve wondered if this is why Jesus calls himself the "Good Shepherd," an echo to Zechariah's prophecy that a good shepherd’s coming who will protect and save his sheep. The angel's news is that the Good Shepherd is here, the promised Messiah. God sends the Good Shepherd to watch over, protect, and rescue his sheep from danger. David gives us one of the best pictures of who Jesus is as the Good Shepherd. In Psalm 23 David writes, "The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. He makes me to lie down in green pastures; He leads me beside the still waters. He restores my soul; He leads me in the paths of righteousness For His name’s sake. Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil; For You are with me; Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me. You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies; You anoint my head with oil; My cup runs over. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me All the days of my life; And I will dwell in the house of the Lord Forever."

 

The good shepherd takes us to places that nourish and refresh us, especially when life gets rough and hard. He leads us beside still waters where we can drink safely and leads us in paths that bring shalom. When we walk through times of loss, when we walk through the shadow of death, the good shepherd is with us, guiding us and protecting our hearts and minds by filling them with his love, comfort, and hope. When people hurt us, our shepherd blesses us with ability to forgive and not grow bitter, as we know our shepherd understands and gives us the strength to get those times.

 

Jesus is the good shepherd who leaves the 99 sheep who are safe in order to go out into the wilderness to find the one lost sheep. Jesus leaves home to come to earth to seek his lost sheep. He knows each of us by name and when we stop and listen, we recognize his voice when he calls us. Our hearts are tuned to his voice. If you're here this morning and not quite sure why you're here, my guess is that the good shepherd’s calling your name and deep inside you're recognizing his voice at a heart level even as you came here this morning through family, a friend, or online.

 

As sheep, we have a tendency to wander; but our shepherd keeps coming after us to bring us back again to where we belong, with Jesus and the rest of his flock. Jesus also becomes the sacrificial lamb who dies in order to save us, washing us clean from the sin and dirt in us, making us right again with the father.

 

Now back to the shepherds who have been visited by the angels, they leave their sheep in safety in order to find the good shepherd. Their hearts were waiting to hear the invitation to go find Jesus. I love the response of the shepherds. They don't sit around questioning if what they've heard is true or not; they don't put off responding to the good news they've heard, they hurry off, leaving everything behind for a bit, and find Mary and Joseph and the baby lying in the manger.

 

If you're here this morning and aren't really sure what to do about Jesus, if you're not sure if you can even believe that God would actually become a human baby, I invite you to ask yourself why this story seems to touch so many people, why would so many people trust in this story? There’s something about the love of a God who would leave a place where everything is good and there’s no suffering and misery to come to a place where he’ll experience suffering and misery his whole life and then die on a cross because he loves you that much.

 

Jesus is our shepherd. We’re not called to stay sheep; we’re called to move from being sheep to being shepherds under Jesus. Your sheep may be a friend, a neighbour, a family member, or someone at work or school who needs to meet the Good Shepherd. We’re called to lead them beside quiet waters so they can learn about the living water, we’re called to lead them to lush pastures where they can feed on the bread of life, we’re called to protect and provide from them by leading them to Jesus.

 

The shepherds are so filled with wonder by what they’ve seen, they go out into the town and tell everyone they see about this child they've met; that he’s the saviour, the Messiah, the Lord, the hope of the world. What a great response! The shepherds head back to their regular lives, but differently; they go back glorifying and praising God for everything they've heard and seen, filled with hope. We join the shepherds in celebrating this Christmas; God becoming human to be our good shepherd, coming to find us and carry us home. What wonderful news to share with our friends and neighbours as we wait for Jesus’ return!  

 

Gideon—The 300: Judges 7

                              

Last week Gideon needed to learn to see himself through God’s eyes, to place his identity in the Lord instead of how he and others saw him. Gideon needed to root his identity, just as we need to do, in God rather than the identities we choose for ourselves. Now Gideon is going to learn to trust deeply in their powerful faithful Lord to deliver them so that the Lord gets the glory instead of Gideon.

Gideon calls Israel to battle Midian. Jerub Baal, enemy of Baal, is now the mighty warrior the Lord called to battle Baal’s warriors. 32,000 men respond to Gideon’s call, but the Lord tells Gideon that there are way too many fighters and to tell those men who are afraid of the upcoming battle that they can leave Mount Gilead. 22,000 of the men decide to leave.

Gideon now has 10,000 men to go up against Midian’s army of 135,000 men, as we learn in the next chapter, and the Lord tells Gideon that he still has way too many men. The Lord whittles Gideon’s army down to 300 men by having them drink from a stream and those who lap the water like dogs get to stay while the others can leave. 300 against 135,000, that’s crazy odds, that’s looking for a heroic death, not a victory. This is not the movie The 300 based on a fictional retelling of the Battle of Thermopylae during the Greco-Persian War, which the Greeks lost anyway.

The Lord tells Gideon, “With the three hundred men that lapped I will save you and give the Midianites into your hands. Let all the others go home.” This takes a deep faith and trust in the Lord. Now we understand why the Lord focuses so hard on getting Gideon to understand who he is through God’s eyes; so he will trust in his identity as mighty warrior because his identity is rooted in the Lord, and that the Lord will use him to defeat Midian, even with these crazy odds. Gideon allows everyone but the 300 to leave, and for this act of faith, Gideon is given a place among the heroes of faith in Hebrews 11, “And what more shall I say? I do not have time to tell about Gideon, Barak, Samson and Jephthah, about David and Samuel and the prophets, who through faith conquered kingdoms, administered justice, and gained what was promised; who shut the mouths of lions, quenched the fury of the flames, and escaped the edge of the sword; whose weakness was turned to strength; and who became powerful in battle and routed foreign armies.”

Now Gideon is with his men on Mount Gilead, overlooking the Midian encampment that lies like a swarm of hungry locusts ravaging the land. Now instead of Gideon asking the Lord for a sign, the Lord comes and offers Gideon a sign to strengthen Gideon’s faith and calm his fear, “Get up, go down against the camp, because I am going to give it into your hands. If you are afraid to attack, go down to the camp with your servant Purah and listen to what they are saying. Afterward, you will be encouraged to attack the camp.” Gideon and Purah go down to the Midianite camp.

The Lord often gives us a sense of peace before he calls us to stand up for him, giving us the strength and courage to be a witness for him when we know that it might things a lot harder for us. Jesus reassures us through the Holy Spirit that he never abandons us, that he’s with us as we walk his path of faithfulness to the Father. The Holy Spirit keeps pointing us to Jesus, to reinforcing in us our identity in Jesus as the foundation of hope and strength we need as we journey through life.

As Gideon heads down with his servant Purah, they quietly come across 2 men talking about a dream one of them had. “I had a dream,” he was saying. “A round loaf of barley bread came tumbling into the Midianite camp. It struck the tent with such force that the tent overturned and collapsed.” His friend responded, “This can be nothing other than the sword of Gideon son of Joash, the Israelite. God has given the Midianites and the whole camp into his hands.” Gideon hears this and his first reaction is to bow down and worship the Lord even before he actually goes into battle, showing faith and gratitude in the Lord and his faithfulness to his so often unfaithful people. A question struck me as I reflected on Gideon’s reaction to hearing the Midian soldier’s interpretation of his dream, ‘how often do we praise Jesus before he does something for us, before we receive the things we are asking for,’ whether it’s healing, guidance, or whatever? It can be really hard to praise God for healing when healing never comes; does our praise usually depend on what God does rather then on who he is?

The dream of a barley loaf, more biscuit than loaf, a very ordinary loaf overturns and collapses a tent. Israel, small and insignificant against such a powerful enemy; Israel living in caves and hiding and scavenging simply to survive, is seen by this anonymous Midian soldier in his dream from the Lord to have the ability to overturn and collapse the power of Midian and Midian’s god Baal because God has given them into Israel’s hands! Gideon knows without a doubt that the Lord is with his people, as he always has.

Charles Spurgeon sees Gideon’s story as a story of God’s providence being worked out. An un-named Midianite soldier has a specific dream at a specific time and tells it to his fellow solder just as Gideon is creeping up and can over hear him, even naming Gideon by name, and declaring Gideon’s victory over his own army, even though it’s only a dream! The writers of the Bible don’t know anything about coincidence as they see the world and history through the lenses of faith and trust in the Lord. Often, we only recognize how Jesus and the Holy Spirit have been working in and through our lives when we stop and reflect back on our lives. The challenge is to get close enough to God that we recognize the hand of the Spirit in our lives as the Spirit is working right now. This is why the church has developed things like the spiritual disciplines to help us grow deeper in our faith, closer to Jesus. This is why you were given a personal faith plan earlier this fall; it’s meant to help you identify areas and ways to grow in your faith, to help you explore where the Spirit is at work right now in your lives.

Now in an echo of the battle of Jericho, Gideon calls his 300 men together, develops a battle plan to surround the Midianite camp, giving the men empty jars with torches inside, along with a trumpet. He tells them, “Watch me. Follow my lead. When I get to the edge of the camp, do exactly as I do. When I and all who are with me blow our trumpets, then from all around the camp blow yours and shout, ‘For the Lord and for Gideon.’” Everything goes according to plan, and even better than Gideon and his 300 men could ever imagine. At Gideon’s signal, they all break their jars, creating patches of flickering light in the darkness, blowing their trumpets, giving the impression that companies of warriors are attacking in the darkness, sowing chaos and confusion among the Midianite soldiers. The Lord sows panic in the hearts and minds of the Midianites so that they pick up their swords and weapons and begin battling each other. In their fear and panic, the men of Baal begin to run and Gideon and his men watch as the Midianite army destroys itself; a God battle at its best as the Lord shows his power over Baal.

Joni Eareckson Tada writes about the need for a powerful Jesus, “Admit it: When your heart is being wrung out like a sponge, when you feel Morton’s salt is being poured into your wounded soul, you don’t want a thin, pale, emotional Jesus who relates only to lambs and birds and babies. You want a warrior Jesus. you want his rigorous and robust gospel to command your sensibilities to stand to attention…When you’re in a dark place, when lions surround you, when you need strong help to rescue you from impossibility, you don’t want “sweet.” You don’t want faded pastels and honeyed softness. You want mighty. You want the strong arm and unshakeable grip of God who will not let you go—no matter what.”

The men previously dismissed by Gideon now re-enter the story as they respond to Gideon’s call to drive Midian out of Israel. They capture two of the Midianite leaders; killing them and taking their heads. The Lord has stepped in and delivered his people again, remaining faithful to his covenant with them, but doing it in such a way that there can be no mistaking that it was the Lord who saved them, that he is the power God; Baal’s unable to stop God. This points us straight to Jesus being our deliverer and his saving us from the chains of our sin and Satan’s grip on us. Just like there’s nothing we can do to save ourselves from our sins, in the same way, it’s all God, all Jesus, all grace and faithfulness to us where we find salvation, forgiveness, grace, and new life. Accept Jesus as your saviour, confess you cannot do life on your own, and Jesus will give you his Spirit to strengthen you and guide you through the good and hard times of life.

 

 

Gideon—the Lord is With Him: Judges 6

                                

The pattern continues, Israel turns back to God each time God raises up a deliverer to save them from their enemies who God is allowing to oppress his people because they love other gods more than they love their own God, but as soon as their deliverer dies, the Israelites turn back to the gods of the nations, worshipping them beside God. God then allows those nations to oppress his people so that when they experience the failure of the other gods to give them what they want, they’ll turn back to the only God who has committed to being their God and who chose them to be his people. 

Augustine said that sin is ultimately a lack of love, either for God or for your neighbor. He wrote that “The essence of sin is disordered love.” Disordered love is about loving less-important things more, and the most important things less than we ought to, and this backwards arrangement of loves leads to unhappiness and chaos in our lives. Think about what James says in his letter to the church, “What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you? Is it not this, that your passions are at war within you? You desire and do not have, so you murder. You covet and cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel. You do not have, because you do not ask. You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions.” James is telling them that they love the wrong things more and Jesus and God too little; this is sin, this is chasing after other gods, just like the Israelites in the days of the Judges.

Now God does something a little different. After Midian cruelly oppresses the Israelites for 7 years, God first sends a prophet to Israel who tells them, “This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: I brought you up out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery. I rescued you from the hand of the Egyptians. And I delivered you from the hand of all your oppressors; I drove them out before you and gave you their land. 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.” What a devastating accusation against God’s people!

God reminds them of who they are; they’re his people, their identity lies in God, not in their ethnicity or the other gods they keep chasing. This is a reminder to us that our identity is not found in things or people, it’s not found in ideologies or political parties, in our own bodies and sense of self, but in having been created in the image of God, given life by him, and called by Jesus to follow him and be his disciples. Our identity is found in belonging to Jesus and being part of his body.

After sending his prophet to remind Israel of who they are and how they’ve broken covenant with God, God then shows he refuses to break his covenant with them by calling Gideon to go and save Israel out of Midian’s hand. The Lord comes to Gideon with these words, “The Lord is with you, mighty warrior.” God tells Gideon who he is, that his identity is as a man God is with, a mighty warrior. The Lord’s presence makes Gideon a mighty warrior, but Gideon’s response is fascinating, he goes straight into blame mode, “Pardon me, my lord, but if the Lord is with us, why has all this happened to us? where are all his wonders that our ancestors told us about when they said, ‘Did not the Lord bring us up out of Egypt?’ But now the Lord has abandoned us and given us into the hand of Midian.” Gideon’s grumpy, but his words show that he’s heard the words of the prophet. Instead of being repentant about following other idols, he blames God for abandoning them.

Gideon doesn’t even consider that it’s Israel who abandoned God, trading their identity as God’s children for something false. Gideon makes me wonder how often I’m so blind to my own sin that I can’t even recognize it and blame the hurt on God instead of recognizing my own sin? This is part of the reason so many followers of Jesus fail to recognize just how deep their need for a saviour and deliverer is; we’re too comfortable with our disordered loves and don’t even see it.

The Lord doesn’t even bother answering Gideon. The Lord commands Gideon to go in the strength he has, challenging the objections Gideon’s getting ready to offer about coming from a weak clan and being least in his family. Gideon fails to see himself through God’s eyes and words, instead embracing his own image of himself, an image that gives him permission to hold back, to not engage in what and who God is calling him to do and be. Gideon shows a lack of trust in God’s power and presence; something many people still wrestle with today when things are difficult and Jesus and the Spirit feels far away. They doubt themselves as they see only their limitations instead of who Jesus makes them.

We don’t take Paul seriously when he says in 1 Corinthians 1:26–31, “Brothers and sisters, think of what you were when you were called. Not many of you were wise by human standards; not many were influential; not many were of noble birth. But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. God chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things—and the things that are not—to nullify the things that are, so that no one may boast before him. It is because of him that you are in Christ Jesus, who has become for us wisdom from God—that is, our righteousness, holiness and redemption. Therefore, as it is written: “Let the one who boasts boast in the Lord.” When Jesus is with us, there’s no need to doubt even if things don’t work out the way we expect or want them to because we’re chosen by Jesus to be his.

The Lord answers Gideon with words of reassurance, “I will be with you.” The Lord is still faithful to his covenant promise to be Israel’s God. Gideon’s still unsure and asks for a sign that the Lord is truly with him. Gideon chooses a good sign, he seeks the Lord’s acceptance of his offering, asking for the Lord to wait while he gathers together his offering. Gideon gathers his offering and brings it to the Lord and the Lord accepts it. Finally, it sinks into Gideon, “I have seen the angel of the Lord face to face!” The Lord offers him a blessing and word of reassurance, “Peace! Do not be afraid. You are not going to die.” Gideon builds an altar and calls it The Lord is Peace, the Lord is health, hope, fullness, and having a relationship with his people, all the images that rest in the Hebrew word “shalom.”

Now the Lord demands another offering on proper altar dedicated to God after Gideon tears down his father’ altar to Baal and the Asherah pole beside it, using the wood of the Asherah pole to give the Lord a burnt offering. Gideon obeys; doing it at night with the help of 10 servants to make it safer for himself so that his family and the townspeople don’t know about it until after it’s done. Imagine their surprise when they all wake up and Baal’s altar is torn down and a new altar is in its place! They quickly discover that Gideon’s behind it and demand his death. People hate it when you mess with their gods!

I love Gideon’s father’s response, “Are you going to plead Baal’s cause? Are you trying to save him? Whoever fights for him shall be put to death by morning! If Baal really is a god, he can defend himself when someone breaks down his altar.” He recognizes a God battle when he sees one and recognizes that if Baal cannot defend himself against Gideon, then he probably isn’t able to do a whole lot for anyone else. God’s Spirit comes on Gideon and he calls the men from Israel to fight the Midianites, but Gideon seeks reassurance from the Lord one more time to make sure that God is more than simply a force of nature, that he has true power. He sets out fleeces twice, both times asking that the fleece is kept different from the elements and affects of nature and God provides the reassurance Gideon is seeking; Lord hears his people and is with Gideon. Gideon finally accepts his identity as a mighty warrior for God.

What kind of God battles are going on in our culture, in your own personal lives right now? What altars do you need to tear down to find your identity and strength in Jesus? Do you truly believe that any of the things you love more than Jesus can do more for you than Jesus has done in washing your sin away on the cross, offering you a new life, giving you the ability to leave your old life with all its brokenness and hurt behind while being enfolded by a family of Jesus followers who are here to encourage you and build you up? When you embrace your identity in Jesus, the Holy Spirit fills you with strength and hope as you journey through life, giving you what you need, no matter who you were before, because your foundation is now on Jesus instead of the weak gods of this world!

Deborah—The Prophetess and Judge - Judges 4

                   

Ehud-the left-handed judge dies, Shamgur shows up and has a great battle against the Philistines, striking down 600 of them with only an ox-goad. Yet, the Israelites turn away from the Lord again, worshiping other gods, so the Lord gives them into the hands of Jabin, a king of Canaan, one of the peoples the Israelites were supposed to drive out of the land when God lead them into the Promised Land, but they had never finished the job, getting comfortable living with them instead. Jabin has a mighty general, Sisera with 900 iron chariots under his command, making him one of the most powerful military forces in the world at that time. Jabin and Sisera cruelly oppress Israel. We learn from the next chapter that it was common for them to plunder the Israelites and grab their women and daughters for their men.

Israel’s oppressed for 20 years; the years of oppression are growing longer; Israel doesn’t learn faithfulness well. The Israelites cry out to the Lord for help and the Lord stays faithful to his covenant with them, even though they keep failing God. God does something different this time around; rather than raising up a warrior to deliver his people, God goes to Deborah, a prophetess and judge in the hill country of Ephraim, northeast of Jerusalem in the very heart of Israel. She’s a trusted person in Israel; people come to her to decide their disputes. Deborah sends for Barak and makes him the Lord’s general, chosen by the Lord to go up against the mighty pagan general Sisera. Barak’s told to set up on the high ground on Mount Tabor while the Lord leads Sisera to the river plain of the Kishon River.

The river plain is an ideal place for Sisera’s chariots, with lots of room to maneuver and crush the Israelites. Sisera has no clue that he’s actually up against Israel’s God, not just Barak or Deborah. The Lord has plans for Sisera’s defeat and tells Barak that he’ll give Israel’s general the victory. Barak hesitates though, telling Deborah that he will only go if she comes with him and the troops. This isn’t a sign of cowardice; it shows that Barak sees the world through the eyes of military leaders of the nations around him. It’s so easy to do, seeing the world through the eyes of the society we live in rather than do the hard work of learning to see the world and ourselves through the eyes of Jesus.

Barak wants God’s representative with him when he goes into battle as an assurance of God’s presence, and an inspiration to the men as they go up against the powerful general Sisera. Barak’s thinking that if something goes wrong, Deborah can invoke God’s name and call his power into the battle.

Deborah agrees to come with Barak, but lets him know that because he’s hedging his bets with the Lord by asking her to come with him, that the honour of defeating Sisera will now go to a woman. At this point in the story, we’re expecting that woman to be Deborah. As the story of God’s deliverance of his people unfolds, we notice again that God’s not using people we would normally turn to, to save his people. Deborah and Barak and 10,000 fighting men head out to Mount Tabor, God’s chosen battlefield, but the writer of Judges suddenly sticks in a weird detail about a man named Heber the Kenite who sets up his tent in the region where the battle between Barak and Sisera is going to happen. This is a heads up for us the reader to remember, this detail is going to matter.

Deborah tells Barak, “Go! This is the day the Lord has given Sisera into your hands. Has not the Lord gone ahead of you?” The battle’s engaged! Barak attacks from the heights of Mount Tabor, God messes with Sisera’s army and Israel routs the Canaanite army. Sisera abandons the protection of his powerful chariot and runs away on foot while Barak takes off after him. As Sisera’s running for his life, he comes across the tent of Jael, wife of Heber the Kenite, and we now learn that Heber is in alliance with Jabin, so this is a safe place for Sisera to hide.

Jael goes out to meet Sisera, and being such a powerful and feared general, Jael knows who this battle-weary soldier is. She invites him into her tent. This is a key point, as Sisera believes he’s now in a place of safety. Jael covers him with a blanket and gives him milk to drink after he mentions that he’s thirsty. Jael is following all the customs and expectations of hospitality at that time. As a person needing help and sanctuary, and especially since her husband is an ally of Sisera and Jabin, Jael’s responsibility is to protect and defend the general. Sisera trusts Jael.

Now the story takes an unexpected twist. Sisera commands Jael to “Stand in the doorway of the tent. If someone comes by and asks you ‘Is anyone there?’ say ‘No.’” Sisera now goes into a deep sleep due to the exhaustion and stress of the battle and running for his life; combined with the warm milk, sending him into an exhausted slumber. As Jael waits by the doorway of her tent, she keeps an eye on Sisera and once she’s convinced that he's truly asleep, she takes a tent peg and a hammer, kneels by Sisera’s head, and then pounds the tent peg into his temple, pinning him to the ground and killing him. This is the deepest of betrayals, this is murder, and it shames Sisera who dies at the hand of a woman while asleep. The great general is killed by a woman with a tent peg and hammer, there’s no honour here. Sisera was so confident in his power, in his chariots fitted with iron, with the might of his armies and his reputation, and the Lord uses a woman to strike him down.

Chapter 5 is Deborah’s song of victory, giving God all the glory and honour of the victory. Where God is hardly mentioned in chapter 4, in chapter 5 God gets the victory, glory, and honour; the God of Israel is the God who rules the stars and all of nature, as Sisera discovers when God sends rain and floods to thwart the power of his chariots, making them useless and giving God’s people the victory. Israel has chosen new gods, but they only bring slavery and oppression until the God of Israel, the God of Sinai, reveals his power and his enemies perish before him. Deborah sings about receiving God’s blessings through following him, listening to his voice, and putting ourselves at his service. Jael, a foreigner and woman, is praised and blessed as the defeater of Sisera in spite of how she kills Sisera. We don’t know if Jael is a follower of God. While she’s blessed for killing Israel’s threat, does this condone her actions as Sisera was not her enemy? However, God uses her actions to deliver his people from his cruelty and oppression.

But Deborah’s song also curses those in Israel who stay at home rather than listen to the call to stand up against the enemies of the Lord. This is a reminder that we’re all called to engage false ways of thinking and believing as they pull people away from Jesus. The Lord wins and uses the unexpected to deliver his people. The Lord wins, and the honour of the victory goes to a foreign woman, Jael, rather than Barak, Israel’s general, or even to Deborah, the Lord’s prophetess, just as Deborah had told Barak. The Lord gives Israel victory over Jabin, destroying him.

Deborah reveals to us who God is; he’s God over all creation, there are no enemies that can defeat him. God wins. When we walk away from the Lord to follow other gods, we’re reminded that God is a God of justice and punishes our unfaithfulness. We’re called to return to following Jesus only, to obedience and loving God above everything else in our lives. But God is also a God of mercy as we see when God sends Jesus to draw us back to him and to deliver us from our sin by taking it on himself, as Paul tells the Athenians, “For he has set a day when he will judge the world with justice by the man he has appointed. He has given proof of this to everyone by raising him from the dead.” It’s because of God’s mercy and the extremely heavy cost to Jesus on the cross in our place, that we turn to God asking, “Who do you want us to be as your children, how do you want us to live.” God remains faithful to his people and the covenants and promises he’s given to send a saviour to defeat those gods and deliver us from their power over us.

We experience God’s grace in Jesus, where we’re offered new life and the presence of the Holy Spirit to give us the strength to stand up against the other gods that try to tempt us away from Jesus. New life looks like walking in Jesus’ way, a path where the Holy Spirit shapes us to become who God has created us to be; witnesses to the world, bringing the good news of Jesus.

 

Ehud—The Left-handed Judge: Judges 3:12-30

   

Judges has huge God moments where God shows us that he stays true to his promise to never break covenant with his people; a key theme of Judges. God does allow his people to experience the consequences of their unfaithfulness and choices; allowing the nations and gods they keep choosing over him to dominate and enslave them. Jesus often does the same with us today; allowing the consequences of our choices to play out when we choose to listen to other voices, often leading to hurt, brokenness, and slavery to what had promised us pleasure. Yet Jesus stays true to his promises and covenant to us, never abandoning us and working through the Holy Spirit to keep drawing us back to him for healing and hope.

Israel’s first judge Othniel is a powerful warrior, defeating Cushan the Wicked. Israel has peace for 40 years until Othniel dies and Israel begins a new love affair with the nations around them and their pagan gods, worshipping them alongside God. God allows King Eglon of Moab to have power over Israel. The Israelites are oppressed for 18 years and then cry out to the Lord for help.

The Lord raises up a deliver for them, a left-handed man from the tribe of Benjamin named Ehud. In the story of Ehud, there are a number of puns, some crude humour, and even mockery in this story, beginning with the Lord choosing a left-handed man from a tribe of Benjamin: Benjamin means “Son of my Right Hand.” The right-hand side was considered the side of power and privilege. Later in Judges, we discover that left-handedness is quite common among the people of Benjamin. It makes me wonder why left-handedness becomes seen as something wrong or at least undesired. In Matthew, when Jesus talks about the separation of the sheep and the goats, the goats, those who have not accepted Jesus are placed to the left, while the sheep are placed on the right, the side of power. My brother is left-handed and in the Christian school they forced him to learn to write with his right hand. At the start of this story of deliverance we ask, why focus so heavily on Ehud left-handedness?

Ehud is sent to take Israel’s tribute to King Eglon of Moab, a humiliating task. Ehud is resourceful, making a double-edged sword, about 1 1/2 feet long, and straps it to his right thigh to sneak it past the guards who would have checked out his right thigh less closely since most people are right-handed and would have strapped a sword or dagger to their left thigh. The Lord uses Ehud left-handedness to allow him sneak a sword into the king’s throne room!

To the Israelites, this story is a comedic story of deliverance. God often mocks those who serve idols, listen to Isaiah 44, “The blacksmith takes a tool and works with it in the coals; he shapes an idol with hammers, he forges it with the might of his arm. He gets hungry and loses his strength; he drinks no water and grows faint. The carpenter measures with a line and makes an outline with a marker; he roughs it out with chisels and marks it with compasses. He shapes it in human form, human form in all its glory, that it may dwell in a shrine. He cut down cedars, or perhaps took a cypress or oak. He let it grow among the trees of the forest, or planted a pine, and the rain made it grow. It is used as fuel for burning; some of it he takes and warms himself, he kindles a fire and bakes bread. But he also fashions a god and worships it; he makes an idol and bows down to it. Half of the wood he burns in the fire; over it he prepares his meal; he roasts his meat and eats his fill. He also warms himself and says, “Ah! I am warm; I see the fire.” From the rest he makes a god, his idol; he bows down to it and worships. He prays to it and says, “Save me! You are my god!” They know nothing, they understand nothing; their eyes are plastered over so they cannot see, and their minds closed so they cannot understand. No one stops to think, no one has the knowledge or understanding to say, “Half of it I used for fuel; I even baked bread over its coals, I roasted meat and I ate. Shall I make a detestable thing from what is left? Shall I bow down to a block of wood?” Such a person feeds on ashes; a deluded heart misleads him; he cannot save himself, or say, “Is not this thing in my right hand a lie?”

The writer of Judges makes sure to tell his listeners that Eglon’s a very fat man; a huge obese king sitting on a throne in all his royal finery, like Jabba the Hut. But Eglon is a very vain king, something very common among powerful rulers. Ehud arrives with his men, offers the tribute from Israel, leaves with his men, but then sends his men away while Ehud makes his way back to the king, saying that he has a secret for the king’s ears alone, so Eglon allows Ehud to come back in, after-all his guards have already checked him for weapons.

Eglon sends his attendants way and Ehud comes close, “Your Majesty, I have a secret message from God for you.” Eglon leans forward to get up and while he’s in this helpless position, hands on the arms of the throne, pushing his massive body up, Ehud draws his sword from his right thigh and stabs the very fat king right through the belly. Eglon is so fat that the handle of Ehud’s sword is swallowed up by the king’s belly. A horrible stink fills the throne room, as the king’s bowels are unleashed, and he fills his royal robes with a smelly mess. As the stink fills the room, Ehud escapes through the porch, locking the doors behind him.

While the Israelites listening to this story of Ehud and Eglon roar with laughter, they laugh even harder when they hear that the guards come to the door of the king’s throne room, too embarrassed to knock because it smells like the king is going to the bathroom. Every child listening to the Jewish elder telling this story of God’s deliverance is now laughing so hard the tears are flowing from their eyes! Eglon’s gods can’t save him from a single Jew! How often do today’s false gods seduce us to worship them alongside God? Whose voices are tickling our ears, what’s going on in our hearts that causes us to listen to them?

Meanwhile, back at the palace, after a really long embarrassing wait, the servants finally get brave enough to unlock the door where they find King Eglon lying on the floor in his own mess, dead. Ehud escapes and calls the men of Israel to fight against their oppressors. They take possession of the fords of the Jordan so that Moabites cannot get reinforcements from home, like what the Ukraine was doing when they destroyed that Russian bridge going onto the Crimea, making it more difficult for the Russians to move troops and equipment into the battle area. The Lord gives Ehud and his men victory, “At that time they struck down about ten thousand Moabites, all vigorous and strong; not one escaped.” Moab now becomes subject to Israel, a complete reversal of Moab’s oppression of Israel. For the Israelites, this is an amazing story of deliverance through an unlikely deliverer with much laughter directed towards Israel’s enemies and gods.

The Lord uses an unexpected person to save Israel, a left-handed man from a right-handed tribe. We should not be surprised that the people we tend to look up to the most, are often not the ones God uses to accomplish his plans. When the Lord chooses young David over his older brothers to become the next king of Israel, we’re told that the Lord looks at the heart rather than the looks or popularity of the person he chooses to accomplish his plans.

God always stays true to his covenant promises to us, yet he will often surprise us in who he works through. This is part of the reason so few people recognized Jesus when he comes, even though the prophet Isaiah had told them years earlier that when the Judge comes, “He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him. He was despised and rejected by mankind, a man of suffering, and familiar with pain. Like one from whom people hide their faces he was despised, and we held him in low esteem.” Ehud goes up against Eglon on his own, only rallying his men behind him after Eglon is dead. Jesus goes up against Satan on his own, defeating him, not with a sword, but through a completely unexpected sacrifice on the cross so we can have freedom and life.

It looks like Jesus is totally defeated; it’s only when we come to an empty grave that we discover that the Lord uses the unexpected to defeat Satan and keep his covenant to send the world a saviour. We all need saving, we’re often more like the Israelites than we want to admit, chasing after all the little gods around us, all the shiny glittery promises our culture promises us if we only accept their truths over Jesus’ truths and call on our lives. We’re often attracted to the big, bright, and glitter over the simplicity of loving God more than anything else and loving our neighbours with sacrificial love.

Paul talks to the church in Corinth in 1 Corinthians 1:26–29, “Brothers and sisters, think of what you were when you were called. Not many of you were wise by human standards; not many were influential; not many were of noble birth. But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. God chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things—and the things that are not—to nullify the things that are, so that no one may boast before him.” Jesus continues to use unexpected people and ways to build his kingdom, calling us to follow him and trust in him alone. If this is hard for you, ask God to give you the wisdom, the faith, and the strength you need to trust more deeply in him.