On Christmas Eve we always hear a beautiful reading from the prophet Isaiah: The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light! A prophet is someone who comes so close to God that they know what’s real and true and important. Sometimes God gives them words to speak to God’s people.
The prophet Isaiah lived a long time before Jesus, but the joy and hope in this reading fit the way Christians feel about Christmas, when we share the holy story of God being born as a human baby, to live among human beings and share our lives and tell us how much God loves us.
There’s a part of that Isaiah reading that’s a little strange, though: when it talks about the boots of the tramping warriors, and the bloody clothes, and about breaking people free from their oppressors, “as on the day of Midian.” It sounds like it’s talking about a war, or a battle. But what is the day of Midian?
The story of the battle of Midian comes from the book of Judges, from the early part of the Bible, a long time before Jesus and even a long time before Isaiah. The people who were becoming God’s people were living in towns and villages and farms, raising their crops and their sheep and their children. They wanted peace and enough to eat, like anybody else. But another nation who lived nearby – the nation of Midian – decided they wanted that land. They started to attack the the farms and towns and villages, stealing the animals and burning the fields, and killing people too.
Slowly these people, the Midianites, started to take over and camp out on the land. God’s people had to struggle and fight and run and hide. People didn’t have any food. They had to abandon their villages, and go live in caves in the mountains. It was really terrible! The people cried out to God for help. Save us, God; we’re hungry, cold, and afraid, and our enemies are too strong for us!
One day a young man named Gideon is preparing some wheat from his father’s farm; he’s kind of hiding so the Midianites don’t spot him. Suddenly, an angel appears! The angel says, Gideon! God is with you!
And Gideon says, I don’t know about that! If God is with us, why are things so terrible right now for my family and my people?…
The angel tells Gideon that God has chosen Gideon to drive out the Midianites and free his people. But Gideon is not so sure. He’s not a mighty warrior or a powerful leader. He’s just some guy. He’s probably not even fully a grownup yet – maybe he’s eighteen or twenty, still working for his dad. So he think it’s pretty strange that God has chosen HIM to lead an army. He tests the angel to make sure they really speak for God.
But eventually Gideon is convinced – and then he convinces other people to join him! The word goes out that God has called a leader to throw out the Midianites, and people start to gather to Gideon. Now, these aren’t soldiers – they’re just ordinary people. They bring whatever they can as weapons: maybe a kitchen knife, or a shovel, or the bow and arrow they use to hunt. And they bring jugs of water, because that’s always a good idea, and they bring a torch for traveling at night, and they bring some musical instruments, because you never know when you might want to have a little jam session.
Gideon looks around and he sees that now he has 32,000 people ready to fight. Does that sound like a lot? …
But that angel is still hanging around, and the angel says, Gideon, you have too many fighters. Your army is too big.
Gideon says, what do you mean?? We are still outnumbered! The Midianites have 40,000 trained soldiers with real weapons!
The angel says: God says there are too many. If you go to fight Midian with this many people, you might think it’s your own strength that has saved you, instead of God. Tell your fighters: If you’re afraid of the battle, go home.
Gideon doesn’t like that very much. But he does what the angel told him. He says: If you’re scared of fighting the Midianites, go home to your family! And twenty-two thousand of his fighters go home. How many does that leave?…
Now Gideon looks at his ten thousand fighters and starts to think about how they’ll attack the Midianite army… but then the angel taps him on the shoulder and says, You still have too many.
What noise do you think Gideon makes when he hears that?…
This time the angel says: See that pond over there? Send your fighters down to the pond to get a drink. Now, it’s not a good idea to drink water straight out of a pond or a river, but that’s how things were back then. If you were going to get a drink from a pond, how would you do it? Show me with your body?…
The angel tells Gideon: Watch how your fighters drink. All the ones who do THIS, who cup water in their hands – send them home. And all the ones who get down on their hands and knees and lap up the water like a dog – KEEP those ones.
Out of ten thousand fighters, THREE HUNDRED of them lap up the water like a dog. That’s about three times as many people as there are in this room right now. It’s not very many!
But the angel says: Good. Now you have the right sized army! Go drive out the Midianites, in the name of God!
I like what happens next because the angel doesn’t tell Gideon how to do it. It’s like God has given Gideon a puzzle to solve: How can I drive out an army of forty thousand, with an army of three hundred? Gideon looks at what his fighters have. They have various tools and weapons, and they have water jugs, and torches, and musical instruments – especially some trumpets.
And he says: Here’s what we’re going to do. We’ll wait till it’s nighttime, and use the darkness. We’ll drink all our water so the jugs are empty. We’ll put the jugs over the torches to hide the light, while we sneak up to the Midianites’ camp. Then all at once, on my signal, we’ll BREAK the jugs, and BLOW our trumpets, so that suddenly there’s a lot of light and noise. And then… we’ll see what happens.
So that’s what they do. They sneak up close to the enemy camp. Then Gideon gives the signal. They shout, For God and for Gideon! They break the jugs so their torches shine out in the dark. They blow their trumpets loud and long.
And the Midianite soldiers wake up in a panic! They don’t know what’s happening. They think they’re being attacked. They start fighting with each other in the dark; they don’t know who’s an enemy and who’s a friend. They’re shouting in terror and running away. Soon other fighters come to help Gideon’s tiny army, and they drive the Midianites all the way back to their own land. And for forty years, nobody else attacked God’s people, and they were able to live in peace.
I don’t know why the prophet Isaiah mentions the battle of Midian, in the reading we hear tonight. It was about five hundred years ago, for Isaiah. And there are lots of stories of battles and surprising victories that Isaiah could have mentioned. But he mentions this one. He reminds his people about the time when they went up against a powerful enemy with almost nothing, and somehow – with God’s help – got free.
Versions of this story happen over and over and over again in the Old Testament, the part of the Bible from before the time of Jesus. There’s a person, or a group, or a person who’s part of a group, who’s on the downside of things – vulnerable or unimportant, pushed to the edges, too old or too young or too sick or too poor or too weird, younger sons and women and people with dodgy reputations and people from somewhere else, folks living in wartime or under oppressive rule.
And with God’s help, somebody unexpected is able to survive and grab hold of a little hope and possibility, not only for themselves but for other people like them. Sometimes they even manage to change things, for a while.
It’s the story of Joseph, of Moses, of David, of Jeremiah and Tobias. It’s the story of Tamar, and Hagar, and Judith, and Ruth and Esther. So many versions of this story, over and over and over again: surviving, and seizing hope, against the odds.
And when we arrive at the New Testament, at the Christmas story, the Christian story, it’s another version of that story. Jesus lived in a nation weak enough to be part of somebody else’s empire. A hostile and fearful local government, and armed occupation by the Roman Empire, were constant threats to ordinary folks. Jesus’ family was poor, and maybe had to move around some to find work. It seems like they didn’t have much family support; maybe people didn’t like it that Mary got pregnant under strange circumstances.
But this is the family and the world that God chooses to come into, as a newborn baby. Who’s seen a newborn baby? Does it seem like they can help or save anybody, including themselves?…
Wouldn’t it have all been much simpler if God had just decided to be born as the oldest son of the emperor? Or to skip the whole baby part and just show up as a mighty warrior-king?
But this is what God does: God comes to earth as a human baby, poor and ordinary. God makes our lives, our world, holy, by living a life so much like ours. In the story of Jesus’ birth, God tells us, again, to look for grace and hope and possibility among people who are unimportant and powerless and pushed to the edges.
The story that God is telling the world, the story God keeps telling in the world, is a story about people who aren’t rich and powerful and famous and influential. It’s a story about how those people really matter. They matter to God and they matter to the world. And God’s going to keep telling that story in the world, and through the world, until we build a world where everybody matters.
Now, people like to give presents at Christmas, and I always like to give a little present to the kids (and anyone else, while supplies last) at this service. When I decided to tell you about Gideon tonight, I had this BRILLIANT idea to give everybody little plastic trumpets! I did not ask myself what would happen if I gave everybody a little plastic trumpet in the middle of church. So I’m not going give everybody a little plastic trumpet in the middle of church. I’m going give everybody a little plastic trumpet at the end of church. Parents: I’m so sorry.
But this trumpet isn’t just to make noise and make everybody sorry that they came to church on Christmas. This trumpet is to remind us that that music and noise and joy and even obnoxiousness can be a kind of power. We can be noisy to celebrate good things, and noisy to protest bad things. We can be noisy to let each other know we’re not alone, and we can be noisy to get attention when something is wrong. And like the day of Midian, sometimes enough noise and light can change the situation.
So let’s keep telling God’s story about the strength and belovedness of ordinary people. Let’s shine some light, play some music, make some noise, and help people get free. Amen.
Come learn theater skills and prepare a play (based on a Bible story) to share! Kids ages 5 – 13 are welcome to attend, including kids from other churches and kids with no church background.
