Devotion - Thursday, September 4

Like most of you, I have been horrified by the reports of the beheading of the American journalists.  I ask myself, "How can someone be so cruel?"  Like many of you, I have a desire for justice.  And, perhaps like some of you, I have my ideas as to what that "justice" might look like.

Then I come back to my daily reading of scripture.  As fate or luck or divine intervention would have it, I am reading the portion of the Book of Judges where the story of Gideon is being told (Chapter 7).  Gideon has opportunity to lead the people of Israel against the Midianites.  There is a massive army assembled - 22,000.  God helps Gideon turn away and turn away till only 300 remain.  The other 21,700 are told to "return" to their homes and fields.  "If too many are in your army," God tells Gideon, "they will think they won the battler rather than God."  The 300 go to battle and they win.

The people want to make Gideon their king.  He refuses.  "The LORD will rule over you."  he insists.

Lutheran Pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906-1945) lead the "Confessing Church" in Germany in the Hitler years.  He plotted against Hitler and died in a concentration camp.  The first Sunday after Hitler's take over, he preached in Trinity, Church, Berlin:

Perhaps Gideon's fighters heard the command to return with shuddering and astonishment.  With this same fear and trembling the church perceives the voice of One who commands her to renounce might and honor, to abandon all of her calculations, and to let God alone do his  work.  With head shaking and with anger we see many a good Gideon among us go his way-but can this confound us who see the Cross in the middle of the church, the sign of powerlessness, of dishonor, of defenselessness, of hopelessness, of senselessness and yet the source of godly strength, honor, protection, hope, meaning, glory, life, victory?  Do we see now the line which leads from Gideon to the Cross?  Do we understand that this line says one thing - "faith"?

Gideon is victorious, the church is victorious, because faith alone is victorious.  But Gideon does not overcome, the church does not overcome, we do not overcome, but God shall overcome.

The danger posed by those who take up the sword is real.  It may kill that which is most precious to us - i.e. our confidence and trust in a Messiah who took up the cross (not a sword) in order that we might know the will of God.

I am very upset by what I read of the events of these past weeks.  My fear is that I will allow the actions of others to detract me from the Way, from the Faith which has carried me thus far and which promises to carry me home to the loving arms of my Heavenly Father.