Peace on the Threshing Floor

When we first meet Gideon, he is hiding. Israel had been crushed by Midian for seven years. Raiders would sweep in at harvest and strip the land bare. So Gideon was threshing wheat down in a winepress, a pit in the ground, where nobody could see the chaff blowing in the wind. That is not where you thresh wheat. That is where you hide wheat. Then the angel of the LORD sat down under a nearby oak and called him a mighty man of valor.

Gideon's response, earlier in the chapter, is honest to the point of bluntness. If the LORD is with us, why has all this happened? Where are the miracles our fathers told us about? I love that the Bible keeps conversations like that in it. God can handle your honest questions. He did not strike Gideon down. He told him to go in the strength he had, and He promised, “Surely I will be with you.”

Gideon still wanted to be sure. So he asked for a sign, went home, and prepared an offering. A young goat. Unleavened bread from an ephah of flour. That was a lot of food in a time when Midian was taking everything. He brought it out to the oak. The angel told him to lay it on a rock and pour out the broth. Then the angel touched it with the tip of his staff, and fire flared out of the rock and consumed it all. And the angel vanished.

That is when it hit Gideon. He had been talking face to face with the angel of the LORD. “Oh no, Lord GOD!” he cried. He thought he was a dead man. In the Old Testament, people knew that sinful humans do not casually stand in the presence of a holy God. Gideon's fear was not silly. It was the right response to a sudden awareness of who God is and who he was.

And then the LORD spoke the word Gideon needed most. “Peace be with you. Do not be afraid, for you will not die.” The Hebrew word is shalom. It means far more than quiet. It means welfare, wholeness, things put right. The holy God, who could have consumed Gideon like that offering, spoke peace over him instead. So Gideon built an altar and called it The LORD Is Peace.

Notice the order. Gideon did not get peace because the Midianites were gone. They were still out there. The battle was still ahead. The very next thing God told him to do was tear down his own father's altar to Baal. Gideon got peace before the circumstances changed, because peace was not first a circumstance. It was a Person. The LORD Himself is peace.

This is exactly what the gospel offers. Our biggest problem is not the Midianites in our life. It is that we are sinners standing before a holy God. And the good news is that God has made peace through Jesus. “Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.” Isaiah called Him the Prince of Peace. On the night before He died, Jesus told His friends, “Peace I leave with you; My peace I give to you.” The fire of judgment that should have fallen on us fell on Him instead. That is why God can say to you, Do not be afraid.

Maybe you are threshing in a winepress this morning. Hiding. Keeping your head down. Afraid of what is coming over the hill. You do not need the hill to be empty before you can have peace. You need the One who is peace. Build your altar right where you are. In the car. At the kitchen table. In the break room. Call Him what Gideon called Him. Then get up and go in the strength you have, because He goes with you.