Epiphany 4 – January 28, 2018
ADONAI SHALOM – The LORD Is Peace
Judges 6:17-24
My dear brothers and sisters in Christ Jesus,
How do you go about naming a church? When I was young most of our churches had the names of saints. My home congregation was St. Lucas, and there were many St. Paul’s, St. Mark’s, St. John’s and St. Stephen’s. More recently we have named churches to coincide with the one who is most important: Jesus. So we have Risen Savior, or Immanuel, or Good Shepherd, or Shepherd of the Mountains, or simply Christ church.
Something similar was happening with the name of the LORD – Adonai. When there was a special event or visitation of God, the person built an altar to worship the LORD and give him thanks. An altar was a place to worship, just like a church! After Abraham passed God’s test about sacrificing his son, and found a ram instead, he built that altar and called it Adonai Yireh – the LORD provides. When God gave Israel the victory when Moses kept his hands lifted high, Moses built an altar and named it Adonai Nissi – The LORD is My Banner. And when Gideon realized that it was the LORD who had appeared to him and made some wonderful promises, he built an altar and called it Adonai Shalom – the LORD is Peace.
When God called Gideon to be His champion and lead his people, it meant that there were going to be battles to fight and wars to win. But even before all of that happened, Gideon’s experience with God that day caused him to name his altar: ADONAI SHALOM, THE LORD IS PEACE. This man of God had something else in mind with the peace of God rather than the end of war.
So, what exactly is Peace? It helps to think of its opposite. The opposite of peace is…war? That’s what most people would say. And that’s true if you’re thinking of the worldly concept of peace. Every Christmas, people think of the end of wars when the angels announce: “Peace on earth, good will to men,” but there is no peace. We want a peace between Palestinians and Israelis, but that’s not what the Lord’s peace is all about. Jesus was given the name: Sar Shalom, the Prince of Peace, yet that has nothing to do with him ruling an earthly kingdom of peace. It’s often just the opposite.
According to the way the Bible uses the word, the opposite of ‘peace’ is not ’war’ at all, at least not earthly war. The opposite of true peace are those things which war against the soul.
Things like anxiety and stress, worry and fear. All those things destroy your inner peace with God.
- Harmony With God
So let’s start with the Hebrew word before us. “Shalom” is so common a Hebrew word, that you probably have heard it a number of times before. In modern day Hebrew, it is used as a greeting for hello and goodbye. But it really means peace. You hear it every Sunday in the blessing, the LORD give you peace. And the root meaning behind the word signifies a wholeness or completeness which can be described as harmony.
There’s not a lot of harmony in our world today, that is, harmony and peace for your mind and soul. The rat race and our hectic lifestyle destroys peace. All the uncertainties and fears rob people of peace. The threat of violence and unstable people with guns robs you of peace and security. And what about those people who have become mentally unstable? They have their own demons and fears that cause them to go over the edge. If they had peace on the inside, it would solve their problem too. Above all, peace on the inside, peace for the soul, has been destroyed by sin and guilt. When you have a guilty conscience, there is no peace with God. Instead of harmony and completeness with God, we are broken and shattered.
Music is a wonderful illustration. When you play notes that do not go together they clash in your ears. ( Do so) There’s a discord and no harmony. Music that uses discords is not peaceful at all. You want the discord resolved so it’s pleasant and peaceful. (play major chord)
Sin had made such a discord in our world. It had broken our perfect harmony with God. And that’s why Jesus came, to restore that peace with God. He took the wrong notes of the entire world that clashed with God’s perfect harmony, and cancelled them out with his sufferings and death. Now God has reconciled us to himself, he has made peace with us. That’s the fancy word in our epistle lesson: reconciliation means that God has made peace with us and the whole world! When we have faith in Jesus, we are vibrating in harmony with his perfect nature. We have been tuned up, so to speak, by what the Lord does in our hearts.
But too often, even Christians are knocked out of harmony with God. We lose that peace when we deliberately sin. If you want to live a double life—looking oh, so godly on Sunday, but living like the devil during the rest of the week, God will let you do that. However, you will have no peace living that way. Keep that deliberate discord up and at the end, you can expect God’s judgment. How long is someone going to last in an orchestra if the musician deliberately plays the wrong notes? He soon will be thrown out. And the Lord lets us know we’re out of tune by warning us with other problems. At Gideon’s time, most of God’s people had chosen disobedience and idolatry. As a result, they had strife and enemy nations were succeeding against them and life was hard. As the book of Proverbs says: The way of the transgressor is hard. The Lord used the tough times to let them know they were out of harmony with him. But when they came back to him in repentance the Lord didn’t turn away. He answered their prayer and raised up Gideon. Gideon was not just a leader to get ride of Midianites. He was there to lead people back to the Lord who is peace.
So for us peace means harmony with God, and secondly you have peace when the Lord takes away your fears. ADONAI SHALOM stands for
2. Freedom From Fear
At the beginning of Gideon’s story in the Bible, we see a fearful man. Gideon was threshing wheat in a winepress to keep it from the Midianites. That is not something you normally do. Normally, you squeeze grapes in a winepress. You thresh wheat, out in the open air, so that the breeze can blow away the chaff and the good wheat will fall to the ground. With the walls of a winepress surrounding you, it is not easy to have a breeze to thresh wheat. But that was better than losing your wheat entirely, if the Midianites saw you with it. Gideon, along with the rest of Israel, lived in fear.
That’s when the angel of the Lord appeared to Gideon. You might know from recent sermons that “the angel of the Lord” is how God the Son is described when he appeared to people in Old Testament times. And often, the people he came to didn’t realize right away who this was. He must have looked just like a normal human being, a visiting stranger. So it was with Gideon. When God the Son appeared to Gideon while he was in the winepress, he said The Lord is with you, mighty warrior.
Not knowing this was his Savior, Gideon replied with an objection that he thought was very legitimate: But sir, if the Lord is with us, why has all this happened to us? If God is with us, why all the bad times? If God is with me, why am I threshing wheat in a winepress? Gideon is filled with doubt about his Lord.
The LORD turned to him and said, “Go in the strength you have and save Israel out of Midian’s hand. Am I not sending you? ” Gideon still didn’t get it. But sir, how can I save Israel? To which God replied: I will be with you, and you will strike down the Midianites as if they were one man. With that, Gideon finally began to catch on that this was not just a normal stranger. But he wasn’t sure, he needed some kind of proof. If now I have found favor in your eyes, give me a sign that it is really you talking to me. So he asked the Lord to wait while he prepared an offering. And what Gideon got was a whole goat prepared with broth, and about a half a bushel of wheat, with which he made unleavened bread. That had to take some time! When he finally returned, the Lord instructed him to put it all on a large rock and pour the broth over it. With the tip of the staff that was in his hand, the angel of the LORD touched the meat and the unleavened bread. Fire flared from the rock, consuming the meat and the bread. And the angel of the Lord disappeared.
And Gideon was filled with fear. Alas, (a cry of fear and terror) Sovereign LORD, I have seen the angel of the LORD face to face. But even though the Lord had disappeared from sight, Gideon heard these words: Peace! (Shalom!) Do not be afraid. You are not going to die. Stop being afraid. Be at peace. I didn’t come to kill you, even though you deserve it for your sarcasm and doubt. I came to save you and to help many others. I am the Lord, you have my eternal peace. Adonai Shalom was the name of his altar. There was nothing he need fear when the Lord was with him.
These were the same words that the “Angel of the Lord:” spoke to some fearful disciples on Easter evening. When they were all huddled in the closed room, Jesus appeared and said: Shalom alechem - peace be with you. I am risen and there is nothing you need fear. It was just a few nights before, the night before he died, that Jesus had promised: Peace I leave with you. My peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid. When we have God’s peace, we have freedom from fear.
What are your fears? Think about that for a moment. We fear losing things that are important. Family, job, health. Now realize that when you have God’s care, there is nothing we need fear, not even death. Oh there is grief, but no terror or fear, because we know that we have a heavenly home that Jesus has prepared for us. Who needs to fear moving into the most perfect home of all? All because of ADONAI SHALOM—The Lord is peace. And when you have his peace you have:
3. Release from Anxiety
Gideon was learning the truth of this passage from the New Testament: Cast all your anxiety on him, because he cares for you. 1 Peter 5:7 Oh, Gideon wasn’t completely cured of his worry and doubts. He still asked the Lord to give him more signs that God indeed would give them the victory. But he had a newly gained confidence in the Lord that was completely missing before. He no longer cowered in fear, threshing wheat in a winepress. He was willing to do what God said because he knew the Lord is peace. Adonai Shalom.
So dear friends, when the world seems all stacked up against you, how do we often react? We worry, we fret, we complain, and none of those things solve the problem. There is an inner tension that can even lead to panic attacks, because we see no resolution. Let that go on for a lifetime, and we become bitter and get ulcers and lose all joy in life.
Sometimes it seems that no matter what we do, there is no peace in the family or in your marriage, no peace in the school yard, no peace on the job. But our Jesus says: Shalom—peace. I am in control, I will take care of you and guide you and take care of the problem. Cast all your cares on him because he cares for you! So you can’t solve the troubles and trials of life? The Lord doesn’t tell us to solve them, just to throw them all on him, and let him worry about them! Be at peace!
I’d like to give you a closing illustration from the piano. There is a story about Franz Liszt who was a famous piano player and composer. Besides touring all of Europe and playing concerts, Liszt also taught students in his home. One particular student was staying at his house and Liszt made some demands on him that he didn’t like. The composer went off to bed while the student was still upset. So he walked up to the piano and played a scale. But instead of finishing the scale, he just stopped at the seventh note. And walked away. It was incomplete. And the composer couldn’t stand it – it had to be finished, it had to be complete. He got up out of bed, stomped into the living room, played the last note and went back to bed.
That’s our problem: Life is incomplete, unfinished, we are filled with unsolved tensions. We can’t finish the scale. But remember Adonai Shalom. Jesus is our peace. He said from the cross: It is finished. He completed our salvation. He and he alone makes us complete. And the peace of God which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. (Phil 4:7) Amen.