1.
Grace, mercy, and peace to you from
God our Heavenly Father, and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. The message from God’s Word this 3rd
Sunday in Lent is taken from Judges 2:6-23 & 21:25 (READ TEXT), it’s
entitled, “Light in the Dark Age,” dear
brothers and sisters in Christ.
2.
Some places in this world are really
undesirable. The best most people can say about them is that they are good
places to be from. Then, too, certain times in history might be considered good
to be from, such as periods marked by economic calamity or war. A study of
history tells us how bad these periods were. A lot of folks living through
those terrible times also knew how dark their days were, and they kept hoping
all along to get out of the mess as soon as possible. Our text comes from this sort of era, a 300 year
or so “dark age” in the history of
Israel called the period of the judges. In many ways the tone of those times is
summed up by the last verse in the book of Judges, which says: “In those days there was no king in Israel.
Everyone did what was right in his own eyes” (Judges 21:25).
3.
Jesus Christ is the Light of the
world (John 8:12). He came to bring life and immortality to light through the
Gospel (2 Timothy 1:10). The One who saves us also brought light and salvation
into that very dark period of the judges. On this Third Sunday in Lent, as we
say, “My eyes are ever toward the LORD”
(Psalm 25:15), we rejoice that he brings light and salvation into our dark
times and places too.
4.
How did the period of the Judges get
to be so bad? In the last sermon we examined the end of the Book of Joshua, and
noted the people professing their devotion to the Lord who had brought them and
their fathers out of Egypt. They also expressed their determination not to
follow the gods of the people of the land in which they were starting to dwell.
This generation that Joshua led into the Promised Land stood out as extraordinarily
faithful. These people had been born during Israel’s 40 years of wandering in
the wilderness. They paid close attention to God’s judgment and forgiveness in
one incident after another. Our text from the Bible’s next book, Judges, tells
what happened when Joshua and then that faithful generation died, and a new
generation came onto the scene.
5.
Members of this new generation were
different. They were impatient in their hope for things that were completely
out of the question. Their egos were also fragile. They wanted desperately to
be liked. Whatever their ages, spiritually they amounted to a bunch of
adolescents. They acted like adolescents too.
When some of the last pockets of Canaanite opposition proved difficult
to root out, various Israelite tribes of the new generation simply stopped
trying. In some places they decided to enslave the Canaanites rather than
killing them. This procedure seemed more humane to the Canaanites. Someone
might have even said it was more loving that way. Thinking like this spreads
fast: “Hey, the tribe down the road isn’t
driving out the Canaanites there. Why do we have to drive them out here?” After
a while, it became easy to say, “Well,
the last leader of our tribe never said we had to drive the Canaanites out. Why
should we start doing so now?”
6.
The new generation of Israelites was
attempting to improve on God’s Word, which is always dangerous. God’s people
should always remember that true good works are what the Lord commands, not
what we invent. The 16th century reformers had to remind people that
true love is what God says it is, not what we would like. They pointed out that
it’s wrong for us to forsake the responsibilities into which the Lord has
placed us to go, say, into a monastery and take up a set of responsibilities
that he hasn’t commanded. Because the
new generation of Israelites wouldn’t listen to his Word, the Lord ceased
driving out the nations before them. He wouldn’t fight on their side. In fact,
he was going to fight on the side of their enemies. God was going to leave
these people around the land to test Israel. He has left many things in our
environment that test us too. We don’t have precisely the tests Israel faced,
but tests to challenge God’s people abound in our day too.
7.
For example, when churchgoers are
surveyed, it’s amazing how many of them say that all religions are really
praying to the same God, only using different names. If we want to be liked by
people around us, it can prove tempting to join in this way of thinking, even
though it’s quite the opposite of what God’s Word says. Or consider the high percentage of
churchgoers who tell surveys that they think every person has the right to
determine his own destiny. They might be thinking mainly about rights under the
law in this country. When this kind of thinking spills over into our relationship
with God, though, it sets us up with misguided wishes. These can make us quite
impatient with the lot in life that he has seen fit to give us. Likewise, in
surveys lots of churchgoers say that everyone has a right not only to freedom
but even to prosperity. Misguided wishes on top of impatience and wanting
ever-so-much to be liked—all of these remain very much with us today. They were
the signs of spiritual adolescence in which the Israelites of our text were arrested.
8.
“Arrested”
seems a good word to use here. For the Lord caught them in their sin, and they
couldn’t avoid him. Neither can we. We’re caught, literally, in our sins. We can’t
make our own destinies what we want them to be, and we certainly can’t make God
what we want him to be. How arrogant of us even to try!
9.
But, the Lord sends light into dark
ages. At the time of our text, he raised up a series of “judges” to help and save his people. In fact, these judges might be
called “saviors” (with a small s).
Due to the rebellion and sin of the spiritual adolescents in Israel, there were
periods of suffering for God’s people to endure. In these sufferings they cried
out to the Lord in supplication. He
sent them a judge, a “savior,” and at
least for a time they had “salvation,”
that is, peace and rest from their enemies. The Book of Judges records this
repeated pattern in Israel: sin, suffering,
supplication, savior, salvation. The book tells of twelve judges, giving the story of six judges in greater detail while gliding rather lightly over the
other six.
10.
Through these judges, the Lord was
taking care of his people. For Israel was the people through whom he would
bring the promised Deliverer into the world. Despite their rebellions, he wasn’t
going to let them be wiped out. Nor would he allow the flame of faith to be
snuffed out among them. He was having patience with them, for Christ’s sake.
11.
But, this wasn’t the only connection
between the judges and the coming Christ. The various Old Testament era judges
did their “saving” work in light of
the promised Savior. Israel didn’t deserve this mercy from the Lord any more
than we do. He gave it to Israel of old for the same reason he has always had
grace and mercy for sinners—the same reason he has grace and mercy for us
sinners today—and that reason is Christ.
12.
Significant as the similarity
between the judges and Christ can be, there are striking differences too. Christ
himself is THE Savior, better than any of the Old Testament judges. Unlike
those judges, some of whom became notorious for various sins, Jesus remained
absolutely perfect in his obedience to God. He said his food was to do the will
of the Father who sent him (John 4:34). His obedience was in our place. Jesus faced the enemies of the Lord and of
his people, but unlike most of the judges he faced these enemies without an
army. He took the attack of all these enemies on himself, and he triumphed over
them all. He death was in our place, and his rising to life again restores us
to life. The “salvation” provided by the judges in ancient Israel was of limited
scope and it lasted only a short time. But the salvation given by Jesus lasts
forever. It’s a never-ending salvation, based on a once-and-for all act of
deliverance, a deliverance that never needs to be repeated, by the Man who is
God from all eternity.
13.
The entire Old Testament shows that
the Lord is the One who must do the saving if his people are truly going to be
saved. After all, his people show time and again that they simply can’t manage
it. Yet throughout the pages of the Old Testament, God shows that he wants to
save through human beings. Thus, the whole Old Testament cries out for the time
when God himself would become incarnate and do the saving work.
14.
Our lives cry out for this Savior
too. They cry out for hope in dark times. For as long as we are sinners in a
sin-filled world, we can fall into the antics of the spiritual adolescent. The
pattern of the Book of Judges—sin,
suffering, supplication, savior, salvation—repeats itself in our lives when
in repentance we return to our baptism and to our Lord. Yet this pattern doesn’t become a set of
doldrums. Christ’s resurrection gives us hope, and with that hope it provides a
basis for patience in any trials we face right now. “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,” wrote St.
Peter. “According to his great mercy, he
has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of
Jesus Christ from the dead. . . . In this you rejoice, though now for a little
while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials . . . [for you
are] obtaining the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls” (1
Peter 1:3, 6, 9).
15.
Like the spiritual adolescents in
the text, too, our thoughts can turn wayward. But Christ assures us that our
desires for various things match up as puny by comparison with what he has to
give. His love toward us exceeds even our wildest expectations. St. Paul prayed
that Christians “may have strength to
comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and
depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be
filled with all the fullness of God” (Ephesians 3:18– 19). Therefore, it doesn’t matter what anyone else
thinks. Christ speaks comfort to people like us who want to be liked. For he
gives us himself in Word and sacrament. When we have him, our heavenly King and
Savior, who or what else would we want on earth? (See Psalm 73:25).
16.
So, “speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who
is the head, into Christ” (Ephesians 4:15). His Word remains a lamp for our
feet and a light for our path (Psalm 119:105).
With our “capital S” Savior,
there’s no living “under the
circumstances.” In Christ, we live above our circumstances. The One who
brought light and salvation into that very dark period of the judges also
enlightens and saves us. Amen. Now the peace of God that passes all
understanding guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus until life
everlasting. Amen.
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