We see a large, hulking man breathing angrily and yet somehow airing a quiet confidence that sent out a cocky invitation that grimly asked "who's next?" You can almost see his smile peeking out from his clenched teeth and the satisfaction from the bloodlust is swirling in his eyes. The camera pans back and we see him holding a donkey's jawbone and I immediately knew who he was.
He was Samson and on the screen he looks like everything I've ever known him to be.
The message my pastor delivered was fantastic and if you'd like to listen to it in its entirety, click here. It spoke to my heart and I know it will speak to yours. Do yourself a favor and listen, but know that it doesn't have much to do with the rest of this rant.
As I was sitting and listening to him tell the story of Samson, something began to stir within me. Something wasn't right. Questions started surfacing and my intellect began to reel. It couldn't be. Or could it? I had to look into it more, because what I was thinking just wasn't possible. How could I have never seen it before?
The questions pressed me to personally re-read the passages on Samson found in Judges this morning just to confirm my suspicions and it did just that; we have no idea what Samson looked like! We don't really have a physical description of Samson found anywhere in Judges that I could find. In fact, the pictures we've made of him and all the ones I've seen growing up have come from our own interpretations of what having strength looks like and we have just projected that image onto him. Therefore, every picture shows a really ripped beast of a man who looks like he could break you in half with his pinky. How could we do such a thing? It's just not fair. I was going to be Samson this year for Halloween too! But now I didn't know how to dress up. I hope I can sell the fake muscles back on eBay. Bummer!As I began to look into the scriptures more, I came to determine that the actual likelihood is that Samson didn't look like that at all. He was probably just a regular looking Jewish guy. That's it. Nothing special to look at. I began to think this because of Delilah's continuous requests to know where his strength came from. To me, that's an odd question if we picture Samson as being SAMSON: THE BARBARIAN. If he looked like that, it would be obvious where his strength came from - his everlovin' huge pythons would tell the story. Right? Why would Delilah ask his source of strength? You can see it.
Let's look at it this way. If you were to see a huge body builder, guy or girl, as it were, lift 500 lbs. in a dead-lift, would you question the source of their strength? No. You may wonder how long it took them to build up to that weight, how many steroids they took to get that much muscle, or whether this is really a girl because she's awful man-ish looking. Now, what if you were to see a scrawny little guy lift that same weight with ease? Would you be in wonder? I mean real awe-struck wonder that made you stop and stare and try to make sense of it all. You would think it to be some kind of joke until you tried to lift the weights yourself. After finding that empirical proof that what you just saw happened, what do you do with that information? And how do you process it? You can't make sense of it. You just have to be in wonder of it all.To me, Samson is the scrawny guy because all of his adversaries took him for granted and they wondered at his great strength. They paid his woman to find out the source of his strength and when they learned its true source, they robbed him of it.
When I think of Samson in this light, I begin to see the glory of God even greater than before because it was more the power of God coming upon Samson than it was the bulging biceps he was blessed with. He used an ordinary, simple vessel of a man who made a vow to be consecrated to God. It wasn't that Samson was perfect, in fact, we know quite the opposite. He was promiscuous and greedy, but God used him anyway.
That's encouraging to now envision him this way. Mainly because Samson now sounds just like me when I think about it. I'm ordinary in the physical department. Not overly handsome I don't think. I wasn't born with magic powers. I'm not perfect. I come complete with character flaws and baggage. And yet, God can, does, and will use me to accomplish His purposes in this world. God does this all the time, everywhere, with all kinds of ordinary people doing extra-ordinary things. So I guess if you're ordinary, then it's a good possibility you can be used by God. Because in your ordinariness, God gets to shine when we do great things! And that is what it's really all about; giving God glory. I'm gonna slow this Hallelujah train down and shift gears back to the story now that we know what Samson is and what he isn't.
Samson's story is tragic, but also full of grace and ultimately God's judgement. It is a story full of lessons about commitments, temptations, and the slippery slope of sin. My favorite quote from the sermon this week was this: "Sin will take you where you don't want to go and keep you longer than you want to stay." I posted this on Facebook and Twitter and my friend Jen Farley completed the trifecta by adding "... and it will cost you more than you want to pay." Plain. Simple. Truth. I like it.
My whole perspective has changed and I'll be spending the next few days reading more about SAMSON'S (or is it samson's) life and really taking in the sermon I heard on Sunday. I have to re-imagine him now. Remove all the images I've had all along and really look again. My mind is wandering through the Bible right now as I type... Are there other characters we've done the same with in our minds? It's time to rethink my thinking about what I think about these people. And it's also time for bed because this ordinary guy is out of steam.
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