“But Lord,”
Gideon asked, “how can I save Israel? My clan is the weakest in Manasseh, and I
am the least in my family.”
Judges 6:15
For many Asians Christians, the
story of Gideon’s call from God hits home with our own personal experiences.
If you come from a background of
idol worship: your family frequents temples, they offer joss-sticks to your
ancestors during the festive seasons; if this has been the pattern of life in
your family for generations and generations; and then, one day you come to know
Jesus, you come to understand that his death on the cross was for your sins,
that God raised him from the dead for your justification; and you respond to
Jesus in faith, repentance and love. He is your Lord. Your life is now lived in
worship of his glory alone. Yet, for you, as someone coming from a background
of idol worship, turning to Christ, must also mean turning away from idols to
serve the true and living God (1 Thessalonians 1:9). This can be an immensely
scary thing to do.
In the story of Gideon, we meet a
young man who is afraid. He is afraid of the Midianites, whose troops were
oppressing the Israelite people, attacking their homes and destroying their
crops. He is afraid of God, thinking that he is going to die from the encounter
with the angel of the LORD. But also, he is afraid of his own family, who do
not worship God, who instead, had given themselves to the worship of Baal.
So before God sends him out on
his mission to take on the enemy, he first sends Gideon back home to deal with
the idols in his backyard. “Tear down your father’s altar to Baal and cut down
the Asherah pole beside it,” God tells Gideon. Gideon did as he was
instructed... but. “But because he was afraid of his family and the men of the
town, he did it at night rather than the daytime.” Gideon was afraid, and he
had good reason to be. His own father was an idol worshipper and possibly even,
a priest in service of Baal, the idol. The next morning, the entire village is
in uproar over Gideon’s act of vandalism. They march up to his house and demand
of Gideon’s father, Joash, “Bring out your son. He must die, because he has
broken down Baal’s altar.”
But Joash doesn’t give up his
son. Instead he starts mocking Baal. “If Baal really is a god, he can defend
himself when someone breaks down his altar.” Does Gideon’s father become a
Christian overnight? I can’t really say for certain, but this much is clear:
(1) He sticks up for his son - facing up to the hostile crowd to protect
Gideon; and (2) He recognises his own foolishness in worshipping an idol, and
turns away from it.
On the one hand, idols have no
power. They are not gods, just things that we put in place of God. They are
only as powerful as we allow them to be. In this sense, money can be just as
powerful an idol as the statues in the Taoist temple - both have a tremendous
hold over their worshippers; over those who give their lives in service to
these idols.
On the other hand, God is serious
about our worship. And for Christians, who understand that the sole basis of
our worship is the sacrificial offering of Jesus’ own blood and body on the
cross, who we offer our lives in worship to is a serious thing in God’s eyes.
Jesus warns us that we cannot serve two masters. Either we will hate one and
love the other, or be devoted to one and hate the other (Matthew 6:24). The
first thing God does with Gideon is accept his worship. The very next thing he
does is send Gideon to tear down his father’s idols.
That’s scary. We don’t want to
offend our parents. We might even be afraid of offending God. But if you look
closely at Gideon, it wasn’t so much his fear of God or even the fear of his
parents that was at the root of his constant indecision and cowardliness. Why
do I say this? Well, because again and again, we find God reassuring Gideon and
speaking to him so graciously. Again and again, God is so patient with Gideon,
even though this kid keeps insisting on testing God again and again. And as for
his fear of his father, why, Joash sticks up for him in the end. He seems like
a pretty stand-up guy!
Why was Gideon so afraid? Because
he was the least. He was fearful of his own inadequacy. He felt small and he
felt so insignificant. What does he say to God again? “How can I save Israel?
My clan is the least! I am the least!” But again and again, God’s response to
Gideon is, “I will be with you.” God doesn’t give Gideon super-powers. He
doesn’t give him supernatural courage. No, what God gives Gideon is an
assurance. “I will be with you.” God gives Gideon the promise of his presence.
“We will do this thing together.” Such that the strength of God’s promise and
the power of God’s presence is seen precisely in the weakness and inadequacy of
this young man.
Maybe, like Gideon, you are the
least in your family. Maybe, like Gideon, you don’t feel in any way up to the
task. And maybe, just maybe, like Gideon, God looks at you and me and goes,
“That’s the guy I’m looking for!” “That girl is perfect!” In God’s wisdom he
chooses the weak. In God’s mercy, he pours out his love on the least. Why? So that
when others see us in our weakness, in our poverty, in our inadequacy, what
they will see all the more clearly is his glory, his power and his grace
through his Son, Jesus.
But we have
this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from
God and not from us. We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed;
perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but
not destroyed. We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that
the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body.
2
Corinthians 4:7-10
No comments:
Post a Comment