“Who” Is A Better Question Than “Why” – Gideon’s Call (Judges 6:1-24)
Series: Stories of God’s People April 23, 2006
“Bree,” said Aravis, who was not very interesting in the cut of his tail, “I’ve been wanting to ask you something for a long time. Why do you keep swearing By the Lion and By the Lion’s Mane? I thought you hated lions.”
“So I do,” answered Bree. “But when I speak of the Lion of course I mean Aslan, the great deliverer of Narnia who drove away the Witch and the Winter. All Narnians swear by him.”
“But is he a lion?”
“No, no, of course not,” said Bree in a rather shocked voice.
“All the stories about him in Tashbaan say he is,” replied Aravis. “And if he isn’t a lion why do you call him a lion?”
“Well, you’d hardly understand that at your age,” said Bree. “And I was only a little foal when I left so I don’t quite understand it myself.”
(Bree was standing with his back to the green wall while he said this, and the other two were facing him. He was talking in rather a superior tone with his eyes half shut; that was why he didn’t see the changed expression in the faces of Hwin and Aravis. They had good reason to have open mouths and staring eyes; because while Bree spoke they saw an enormous lion leap up from outside and balance itself on top of the green wall; only it was a brighter yellow and it was bigger and more beautiful and more alarming than any lion they had ever seen. And at once it jumped down inside the wall and began approaching Bree from behind. It made no noise at all. And Hwin and Aravis couldn’t make any noise themselves, no more than if they were frozen.)
“No doubt,” continued Bree, “when they speak of him as a Lion they only mean he’s as strong as a lion or (to our enemies, of course) as fierce as a lion. Or something of that kind. Even a little girl like you, Aravis, must see that it would be quite absurd to suppose he is a real lion. Indeed it would be disrespectful. If he was a lion he’d have to be a Beast just like the rest of us. Why!” (and here Bree began to laugh) “If he was a lion he’d have four paws, and a tail, and Whiskers! . . . Aie, ooh, hoo-hoo! Help!”
For just as he said the word Whiskers, one of Aslan’s had actually tickled his ear. Bree shot away like an arrow to the other side of the enclosure and there turned; the wall was too high for him to jump and he could fly no farther. Aravis and Hwin both started back. There was about a second of intense silence.
Then Hwin, though shaking all over, gave a strange little neigh and trotted across to the Lion.
“Please,” she said, “you’re so beautiful. You may eat me if you like. I’d sooner be eaten by you than fed by anyone else.”
“Dearest daughter,” said Aslan, planting a lion’s kiss on her twitching, velvet nose, “I knew you would not be long in coming to me. Joy shall be yours.”
Then he lifted his head and spoke in a louder voice.
“Now, Bree,” he said, “you poor, proud, frightened Horse, draw near. Nearer still, my son. Do not dare not to dare. Touch me. Smell me. Here are my paws, here is my tail, these are my whiskers. I am a true Beast.”
“Aslan,” said Bree in a shaken voice, “I’m afraid I must be rather a fool.”
“Happy the Horse who knows that while he is still young. Or the Human either. Draw near, Aravis my daughter. See! My paws are velveted. You will not be torn this time.”
“This time, sir?” said Aravis.
“It was I who wounded you,” said Aslan. “I am the only lion you met in all your journeyings. Do you know why I tore you?”
“No, sir.”
“The scratches on your back, tear for tear, throb for throb, blood for blood, were equal to the stripes laid on the back of your stepmother’s slave because of the drugged sleep you cast upon her. You needed to know what it felt like.”
“Yes, sir. Please—“
“Ask on, my dear,” said Aslan.
“Will any more harm come to her by what I did?”
“Child,” said the Lion, “I am telling you your story, not hers. No one is told any story but their own.” Then he shook his head and spoke in a lighter voice. “Be merry, little ones,” he said. “We shall meet soon again.”
(from C.S. Lewis, The Horse and His Boy, chapter 14).
What is Your Story?
“No one is told any story but their own.” What is your story? Last Sunday morning we heard two people share their stories, of God’s saving and healing presence in their lives. Both told of hurts, and of how God had been with them and had walked beside them, and how God is saving them. Wonderful stories, incredible stories of God’s goodness. What is your story? I ask, because I hope many of you will share your story with us over the next number of weeks, as we begin a new series called “Stories of God’s People.” I’ll lead us through a look at stories of God’s people from Scripture, and alongside those stories I hope we can tell our own. Some might be like Bree – knowing glimpses of who God is from a time long ago, and then meeting Him again. Some might be like Hwin, responding quickly to a new introduction. Some might be like Aravis, coming from places of hurt and abuse and woundedness and then meeting God and with His help looking back and seeing how God was with you through all those things.
Stories build our faith, and we need to tell them. As a church, we have chosen to be “A family of God, multiplying disciples of Jesus, and joyfully choosing to put relationships of love ahead of every other consideration.” Telling our stories will grow us together as a family, it will make more disciples of Jesus, and as we tell our stories we will understand and grow in love and in an ability to put our relationships of love first.
Gideon’s Story: (Judges 6:1-24 NLT)
Let me tell you the first part of Gideon’s story:
1Again the Israelites did what was evil in the LORD’s sight. So the LORD handed them over to the Midianites for seven years. 2The Midianites were so cruel that the Israelites fled to the mountains, where they made hiding places for themselves in caves and dens. 3Whenever the Israelites planted their crops, marauders from Midian, Amalek, and the people of the east would attack Israel, 4camping in the land and destroying crops as far away as Gaza. They left the Israelites with nothing to eat, taking all the sheep, oxen, and donkeys. 5These enemy hordes, coming with their cattle and tents as thick as locusts, arrived on droves of camels too numerous to count. And they stayed until the land was stripped bare. 6So Israel was reduced to starvation by the Midianites. Then the Israelites cried out to the LORD for help.
7When they cried out to the LORD because of Midian, 8the LORD sent a prophet to the Israelites. He said, "This is what the LORD, the God of Israel, says: I brought you up out of slavery in Egypt 9and rescued you from the Egyptians and from all who oppressed you. I drove out your enemies and gave you their land. 10I told you, `I am the LORD your God. You must not worship the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you now live.’ But you have not listened to me."
11Then the angel of the LORD came and sat beneath the oak tree at Ophrah, which belonged to Joash of the clan of Abiezer. Gideon son of Joash had been threshing wheat at the bottom of a winepress to hide the grain from the Midianites. 12The angel of the LORD appeared to him and said, "Mighty hero, the LORD is with you!"
13"Sir," Gideon replied, "if the LORD is with us, why has all this happened to us? And where are all the miracles our ancestors told us about? Didn’t they say, `The LORD brought us up out of Egypt’? But now the LORD has abandoned us and handed us over to the Midianites."
14Then the LORD turned to him and said, "Go with the strength you have and rescue Israel from the Midianites. I am sending you!"
15"But Lord," Gideon replied, "how can I rescue Israel? My clan is the weakest in the whole tribe of Manasseh, and I am the least in my entire family!"
16The LORD said to him, "I will be with you. And you will destroy the Midianites as if you were fighting against one man."
17Gideon replied, "If you are truly going to help me, show me a sign to prove that it is really the LORD speaking to me. 18Don’t go away until I come back and bring my offering to you."
The LORD answered, "I will stay here until you return."
19Gideon hurried home. He cooked a young goat, and with half a bushel[a] of flour he baked some bread without yeast. Then, carrying the meat in a basket and the broth in a pot, he brought them out and presented them to the angel, who was under the oak tree.
20The angel of God said to him, "Place the meat and the unleavened bread on this rock, and pour the broth over it." And Gideon did as he was told. 21Then the angel of the LORD touched the meat and bread with the staff in his hand, and fire flamed up from the rock and consumed all he had brought. And the angel of the LORD disappeared.
22When Gideon realized that it was the angel of the LORD, he cried out, "Sovereign LORD, I have seen the angel of the LORD face to face!"
23"It is all right," the LORD replied. "Do not be afraid. You will not die." 24And Gideon built an altar to the LORD there and named it "The LORD Is Peace."[b] The altar remains in Ophrah in the land of the clan of Abiezer to this day.
Gideon and Jesus:
Gideon, Aravis, and us have something in common. Bad things happen. Life is challenging, it is difficult, and sometimes along the way we get hurt. And most of the time, through the pain and challenge there is a question that keeps coming up – “why?” Aslan answered it before Aravis got the question out. We ask the same question as we look at our lives and the lives of those we love. Gideon comes right out and asks it bravely – and we see that he has the answer before the question is even raised.
After studying this story, I’ve come to the conclusion that Gideon is talking to Jesus – that this “angel of the Lord” is, in fact, Jesus. Two main reasons – the first has to do with the names used for this person – if you read closely you will see that while sometimes he is called “the angel of the LORD” (a better translation than “angel” would be “messenger”), other times he is just called “the LORD” in all capitals – which is how our English Bibles translate the name “Yahweh”. The second reason is that this person accepts Gideon’s offering of worship (which is something angels never do), and since he accepts the worship I believe that this is a visit of Jesus to earth in His heavenly form, prior to Him becoming human. Not everyone would agree with that, but that is what I think.
When Jesus appears to Gideon, He greets him by saying, “Mighty hero, the LORD is with you!” Quite the greeting, to a young guy hiding at the bottom of a winepress, secretly threshing grain for fear of his enemies, who describes himself by saying “My clan is the weakest in the whole tribe of Manasseh, and I am the least in my entire family!”
Gideon’s response is the same as ours, when we are honest: “if the LORD is with us, why has all this happened to us? And where are all the miracles our ancestors told us about? Didn’t they say, ‘The LORD brought us up out of Egypt’? But now the LORD has abandoned us and handed us over to the Midianites.”
There is some honesty. “why??” “where are all the miracles…” – these stories may be true, but they come from a distant time, long since passed. Now, the circumstances sure make it look like “the LORD has abandoned us.”
Sometimes, we feel the same way – especially when the only stories we tell are the “sensational” ones – when they are the stories of the miracles and the instant displays of God’s power and the mighty deliverances. Those stories are great, and encouraging, and testify to the mighty power of God – but they are not the only stories that need telling. We need the stories of the honest doubters, like Thomas whose story I told last week, who ask hard questions in search of true answers. We need the stories of people who are hurting, somewhat confused, and just starting to meet Jesus – not entirely sure of what is next, but willing to travel the journey. We need stories of the ongoing faithfulness of God’s people, through all the seasons of life, during the dry desert times as well as during the times of refreshing. We need stories of obedience even when the cost has been high, we need stories of how we have sinned, and then been forgiven. We need all these stories, because in them we see glimmers of our own story, of how precious it is to God, and of how God is still faithful, is still good, and above all, God will be with us. That is what we need to hear most, in all the stories we tell, in all the seasons of life, in all the circumstances that we find ourselves in – that God is with us.
That is the answer Gideon got before he even asked the question: “Mighty hero, the LORD is with you!” That is the response he gets after he asks that big “why” question, and after he expresses his observation that God has abandoned them: “14Then the LORD turned to him and said, "Go with the strength you have and rescue Israel from the Midianites. I am sending you!” That is the same answer he gets after he protests: “15"But Lord," Gideon replied, "how can I rescue Israel? My clan is the weakest… 16The LORD said to him, "I will be with you. And you will destroy the Midianites as if you were fighting against one man."”
It is the same answer Aravis got from Aslan: ““I am the only lion you met in all your journeyings.” I’ve been with you all along, it was always me.
And, it is the same answer we get when we, in all honesty, seek God at whatever point in our journeys – “I will not leave you as orphans…”; “I am with you always, even to the end of the age.”
Not “Why”, but “Who”:
You see, “why” is not the best question. Seldom are there answers to the “why”, though as we walk through life we may come to see how God was doing good even through difficulty. The better question is “who” – who will not abandon us in the midst of pain? Jesus. Who will not break us when we are bruised? Jesus. Who is the only one who really, deeply, truly understands how we are feeling? Jesus. Who does not condemn, but forgives us for the part we have played in the mess? Jesus. Who gives us faith, renews our hope, and fill us with love even for those who persecute us? Jesus. Only Jesus.
Conclusion:
On Thursday afternoon I went to the hospital to visit Audrey Taylor. The bad news from the doctors hadn’t sunk in yet, but she said to me, “I’m not asking ‘why me?’ Like my friend Huddy said, ‘why not me?’” And we talked about how Jesus is going to walk beside her through every step of this next part of her journey, never leaving, never forsaking – just like He has already walked through every part of her journey – one step, one moment, one day at a time.
I prayed for Audrey the same prayer I’d like to close with this morning:
“Lord, you are our shepherd, we shall not want. You make us lie down in green pastures and you lead us beside quiet waters and you restore our soul. We thank you for those good times. Even though we walk through the valley of death we will fear no evil – BECAUSE YOU ARE WITH US. Your rod and staff comfort us. You prepare a table before us in the presence of our enemies, you anoint our heads with oil, our cup overflows. Surely, goodness and love will follow us all the days of our lives, and then we shall dwell in the house of the Lord, forever. Amen.
