Judges 6: Gideon’s Call
James Tissot: The Angel Puts Fire on the Altar of Gideon
Friday, June 28, 2024
We have spent several days with this Old Testament Book in which we watch the Israelites enter into a cycle: neglect of their covenant with God, the worship of idols, repentance, a petition to God for help, God’s generous response, silence as God waits for the people to respond. God always sends a hero to save the faithful – and this particular hero is Gideon.
We find the following when we read commentary.
- God asks Joshua, in the book preceding Judges, to lead the people into the Promised Land and he does.
- God asks the people to wipe out those who worship pagan idols but they do not; and this sows the seed of future problems.
- Prior to God’s intercession in the life of the faithful, the people are forced to run away from invading armies and literally “head for the hills” when these invaders arrived with chariots.
- Once the people share a loving relationship with God, they have a rock of refuge, a bulwark of safety.
- When the people neglect their relationship with God, the cycle of idol worship begins anew.
- God always has a hero in mind.
- God’s silence is the space we are given to respond to God’s deep and abiding love.
God calls Gideon while he is in the middle of his work, and Gideon, like many of those called, has many questions. He wants to understand why and how should go about the work God has in mind. God answers, as God always does, “I will be with you, do not worry.” Gideon praises and worships God when he realizes what is happening, that he will be an instrument of redemption in the people’s cycle of sin and repentance.
Like Gideon, we are likewise fearful in our response to God. We know what we are asked to do; yet frequently we are too frightened to step out of our comfort zone. In the end, however, no find that no other course of action is worth taking.
The story of Gideon also demonstrates for us that silence can be entirely appropriate when it is patient, loving, merciful, and just. A silence that waits, that whispers to the beloved, that calls the beloved back to the covenant, is a silence that heals.
So like Gideon, let us sit beneath our terebinth and call on God. For God will surely answer.
Image from: http://www.jesuswalk.com/gideon/gideon-artwork.htm
Adapted from a Noontime written on January 31, 2007.
The Noontimes 