Jesus, the Lifter of Mankind

In preparing a teaching for a recovery meeting, I was drawn to this particular meeting between God and Gideon in Judges 6:1-24. The backdrop for this story is that Israel is being starved by the Midianites. Israel is being physically and spiritually starved through overwhelming oppression. The writer of Judges describes it well in these verses: 6:1-6. God explains why Israel is in such torment here: 6:7-10.

In the opening scene, we are told Israel has called to God for help, and God has heard him. We find Gideon threshing wheat in the bottom of a winepress in hopes of preparing food without it being stolen by the Midianites.

Judges 6:11-14, NLT: Then the angel of the Lord came and sat beneath the great tree at Ophrah, which belonged to Joash of the clan of Abiezer. Gideon son of Joash was threshing wheat at the bottom of a winepress to hide the grain from the Midianites. The angel of the Lord appeared to him and said, “Mighty hero, the Lord is with you!”

“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.”

Then the Lord turned to him and said, “Go with the strength you have, and rescue Israel from the Midianites. I am sending you!”

Judges 6:15-16, NLT: ^“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!” The Lord said to him, “I will be with you. And you will destroy the Midianites as if you were fighting against one man.”

The cultural-historical context of Gideon’s words is so important. Their society was based on a system of honor and shame. What one person in a family does (or doesn’t do) brings either honor or shame to the whole family. Honor and shame was almost the only thing that mattered. We have difficulty connecting with this societal structure in the United States because our culture is more individualistic, based on competition and achievement. Gideon exposes how he has lived his life in shame by how he describes himself.

Weakness shames the family in this societal structure. Gideon sees himself as the weakest of the weak, or the most shameful of the shameful. This is what shame does! It takes us out at the knees and keeps us physically, emotionally, and spiritually bent down.

Israel consisted of 12 tribes, who were the 12 sons of Jacob. God renames Jacob “Israel” and promises to make a great nation of his sons. The twelve names of Jacob’s sons are Reuben, Simeon, Levi, Judah, Dan, Naphtali, Gad, Asher, Issachar, Zebulun, Joseph, and Benjamin. However, Gideon identifies himself as being from the tribe of Manasseh — which is not one of the twelve. To simplify it, Manasseh should probably be called the 13th tribe, and Manasseh’s brother (Ephraim) should probably be called the 14th tribe.

In Genesis 48, Jacob states in a sort of deathbed blessing that he claims Manasseh and Ephraim as his sons. This should mean there are now 14 tribes of Israel, but we never hear Israel described this way. Manasseh was the firstborn son to Joseph, so Manasseh would have inherited from Joseph the extra portion, the responsibility to take care of the family, and the rights and prestige of being the family patriarch. Instead, Jacob intentionally confers the family patriarch’s rights to Ephraim in Genesis 48:8-20. As this story has been passed down through the generations, the tribe of Manasseh knows they are considered less than Ephraim. They also know they aren’t counted in the twelve tribes. It’s very tricky how these societal structures can shape a people group’s perspective of themselves or others. These familial realities put the tribe of Manasseh as the lowest on the proverbial totem pole. Gideon sees his tribe as weak, and himself as the lowest among them, which adds up to a heavy load of shame.

Going even further back in the story, in Genesis 33, Jacob is on his way to meet his older brother, Esau. Jacob has swindled Esau out of the birthright that should have gone to Esau. We see Jacob bent low, seven times all the way to the ground, on his way to see Esau. Seven times, Jacob was facedown in the dirt. Six times he got back up to throw himself back down to the ground again. But the seventh time Jacob got up…so good…

Genesis 33:4, NLT: Then Esau ran to meet him and embraced him, threw his arms around his neck, and kissed him. And they both wept.

Why does all this matter? It mattered to the original audience this book was written for because it teaches them that their view of themselves doesn’t always align with God’s perspective. It matters for you and me because we can be weighed down to complete immobility by shame, but God sees us as he has made us, through a lens of his purpose for our lives. If we are in Christ, he sees us as holy and blameless because we’ve been forgiven and made clean through the blood of Christ. (For more on this, read Colossians 1-3.)

Winepresses in Gideon’s time were built below ground. They were basically huge holes in the ground, often lined with stone. People stood in them and squished the grapes with their feet. Some winepresses had little troughs attached that the wine flowed through out of the press. And this is the place God chose to speak to Gideon. He sees himself as the weakest of the weak, and he’s lower than even ground level. He’s hiding in a hole in the ground.

From the hole in the ground, God reaches down and tells Gideon the purpose of his life. God lifts Gideon’s spirit to believe something greater than his family’s shame is in the cards. The message God has for Gideon is the same message he has for us today:

God made us and loves us.

Because God loves us, he died for us.

Because he died for us, as we accept this gift, we start this journey of transformation back to who we are created to be — our gifts (skills or talents), our calling (our life purpose).

There was no false bravado in Gideon. No self-justification. Just an honest conversation between Gideon and God. That’s where we are called to be in this life. Just in honest conversation between ourselves and God, with no false bravado or self-justification.

This nature of God as a lifter of mankind is woven into the storylines throughout the Bible. We can be sure this is our God’s character because he lifts people out of their shame over and over and over. Here are just a few examples:

• God lifted the nation of Israel up and out of slavery to Egypt. (See the book of Exodus.)

• God lifted the nation of Israel up out of the controlling hands of the Midianites in Gideon’s lifetime. (See Judges 7.)

• Jesus lifted the paralyzed man up, from first his sins, then from his paralysis. (See Luke 5.)

• Jesus lifted the woman caught in adultery. The men wanted to stone her to death, and they expected Jesus to give them permission to do it. They misunderstood Jesus’ mission. John 3:17 NIV says it this way: For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. One by one, these men dropped their stones and walked away. Jesus lifted her from sure death to renewed life. He lifted her from the shame of getting caught to the freedom of forgiveness. (See John 8.)

• Jesus lifted many through “only believe”. He lifted a little girl who died from illness to life again, after telling her parents, “Don’t be afraid, only believe.” (See Mark 5.) He lifted his good friend Lazarus from death to life after telling Lazarus’ sister, “Did I not tell you that if you believe, you will see the glory of God?”’. (See John 11.)

• Lazarus was lifted from the depths of his burial cave back to life through the words and power of Jesus. And Jesus calls each of us to “just believe” and confess our sins to him; he will be a safe shepherd of our souls. He will forgive us, love us, and lift us up out of our shame.

Lazarus was bound in grave cloths and had been dead for four days. When Jesus raised him, he didn’t leave Lazarus to figure the rest out himself. He sent Lazarus to community to unbind and free him. 

1. First, Lazarus responded to Jesus and walked out.
2. Then, community participated in setting him free.

This is a picture of the recovery journey from hurts, habits, and hang-ups.

1. We confess to a God who sees us in the beautiful purpose he has created us for.
2.  He is faithful and just to forgive our sins and make us clean and free from what holds us down.
3.  He lifts us up and sends us into recovery, where we can work through getting set free from the damage of sin — our sins and other people’s sins that have hurt us.
4.  We help each other in recovery community to find our way up and out of our own holes in the ground. Remember Gideon. God came to him when he was steeped in shame and hiding in a hole in the ground.

Jesus gave us the Parable of the Prodigal Son (see Luke 15), in which the sinful son squandered his dad’s money on parties, drinking, and prostitutes. The son is brought so low by his choices that he finds himself broke and broken, and slopping pigs with better food than he can afford. These consequences cause him to pause and think, “What if? What if I asked my dad to forgive me? Could I come home?” (A loose paraphrase.)

The dad had been watching and waiting for his son to come home. He welcomed his son with open arms. The son confessed his wrongdoing, and the dad lifted his son out of the pigsty mess he made of his life, and all was immediately forgiven.

Confession in conversation with our heavenly Father is the “death-to-life” step.

Going back to Gideon, by the end of his conversation with God, we read in Judges 6:24 this strange, supernatural dichotomy:

1. Gideon was about to go to war to free Israel from their physical and spiritual bondage to sin and man.
2.  Because God was with him, Gideon was at peace.

Judges 6:24a, NLT: And Gideon built an altar to the Lord there and named it Yahweh-Shalom (which means “the Lord is peace”).

This account of Gideon and God means so much to me because I know firsthand the sin of self-justification. It is my story of the hole in the ground I dug for myself and hid in. Then God showed me my miserable condition, and I confessed, and God lifted me up and out. Now he sends me and others into recovery communities to share Gideon’s message:

You may be morally or spiritually bankrupt, but God sees you in your pitiful condition through the lens of who he made you to be and the amazing purpose he planned for your life. Just reach up through honest dialogue between you and your Maker, and he will call you by the name he gives you, and he will lift you up and out of bondage and hiding into life to the fullest. He will give you his peace.