Samson Claus

Incarnate Vaccum

Last week the kids and I setup our Christmas tree. I love the smell of a real tree… but guess what the room looked like after I was done? Pine needles everywhere.

So Dylan was supposed to vacuum and I have been working, teaching him how. Here’s how you go in a careful pattern so you get everywhere. Here’s how you move stuff out of the way. All the things.

He is doing it by himself and I go check his work. It’s like he didn’t vaccuum at all. Stuff on the floor everywhere. “Dude, look at that, and that area. You didn’t miss a spot, you missed the floor. Do it again!” He was upset and “Dad, I did that!” and I was like “clearly not”.

So he did it again.

I inspect. It still looks terrible. I grab the vacuum to show him how it’s done.

Turns out the vacuum was broken. Jammed. I had to take it apart and pull out some socks and some legos and then a wad of dog-hair that had built up behind those. Gross.

It wasn’t Dylan’s fault… he had done what he knew how to do. It required skills and strength, knowledge beyond what he had. If he had started to take apart the vacuum I would have been more upset. (Mostly impressed, maybe… but not happy).

If you want something done right, do it yourself.

Today we turn to that classic Christmas figure: Samson. Samson Claus?

Classic Christmas story: for unto us a Savior is born. And you shall call his name Samson.

This could be his motto: if you want something done right, do it yourself. He is a one man army against the Philistines, waging war against Israel’s oppressors.... and doing it himself (though super-powered by the Holy Spirit).

Samson the Savior

But now he has been betrayed by Delilah and his haircut. The Philistines shaved his head, gouged out his eyes.

Judges 16:21 ESV

And the Philistines seized him and gouged out his eyes and brought him down to Gaza and bound him with bronze shackles. And he ground at the mill in the prison.

But then this beautiful note of hope:

Judges 16:22 ESV

But the hair of his head began to grow again after it had been shaved.

We don’t know how long Samson was a prisoner. Maybe it was many years. Time for his hair to grow back long once again. Maybe it was only days and Samson’s was just showing stubble. But the Philistines are quite pleased over their victory over Samson, and I imagine they celebrate as soon as they can pull together an epic enough party.

Judges 16:23–27 ESV

Now the lords of the Philistines gathered to offer a great sacrifice to Dagon their god and to rejoice, and they said, “Our god has given Samson our enemy into our hand.” And when the people saw him, they praised their god. For they said, “Our god has given our enemy into our hand, the ravager of our country, who has killed many of us.” And when their hearts were merry, they said, “Call Samson, that he may entertain us.” So they called Samson out of the prison, and he entertained them. They made him stand between the pillars. And Samson said to the young man who held him by the hand, “Let me feel the pillars on which the house rests, that I may lean against them.” Now the house was full of men and women. All the lords of the Philistines were there, and on the roof there were about 3,000 men and women, who looked on while Samson entertained.

Do… you have any weight bearing pillars nearby for no reason? Hard to picture exactly how this building worked if all those people are on “the roof”. Perhaps a balcony/viewing area around the outside and Samson in a central courtyard down below them?

In another ruin in this area, a temple is built with two cedar pillars, three meters apart, that bear the weight of the roof. This is substantial and sturdy construction, a huge and majestic building if it is holding so many people. And probably the elites of the Philistines, there with the five Philistine lords who orchestrated Delilah’s betrayal.

Judges 16:28 ESV

Then Samson called to the Lord and said, “O Lord God, please remember me and please strengthen me only this once, O God, that I may be avenged on the Philistines for my two eyes.”

This is pure Samson.

Even now, Samson is driven by ego and revenge. Not “O God, that I may deliver your people… or do your will… or even defeat Your enemies...”

It’s “God, help me take revenge for my eyes!”

And God doesn’t speak in any kind of words. But Samson’s next actions are answer enough.

Judges 16:29–30 ESV

And Samson grasped the two middle pillars on which the house rested, and he leaned his weight against them, his right hand on the one and his left hand on the other. And Samson said, “Let me die with the Philistines.” Then he bowed with all his strength, and the house fell upon the lords and upon all the people who were in it. So the dead whom he killed at his death were more than those whom he had killed during his life.

Perhaps his greatest strength of feet. An outward press, right hand to left hand, disrupting or maybe even breaking the thick supporting pillars.

Samson did entertain them… he brought the house down!

And there is this final epitaph:

He killed more in his death than in his life

Judges 16:31 ESV

Then his brothers and all his family came down and took him and brought him up and buried him between Zorah and Eshtaol in the tomb of Manoah his father. He had judged Israel twenty years.

What is the legacy of Samson? What is his epitaph?

He killed more in his death than in his life.

Question: is that a good thing? Is that a triumphant note?… or the saddest eulogy you have ever heard?

Samson - he killed some Philistines.

And his death was slightly more useful than his whole life. That’s rough.

What more can we say? He freed Israel? He didn’t. He saved Israel? Nope.

But what affect did Samson ultimately have? Did he deliver Israel from the hand of the Philistines? Nope, he just killed a bunch of them. The Philistines had ruled over parts of Israel since shortly after the time of Joshua a hundred years earlier, and would still be two hundred years later in the days of David and Solomon.

… and after they are finally defeated by Solomon, new enemies arose. Because the problem was and is inside humanity.

Samson and Jesus

Several times we have note the parallels between Samson and Jesus.

A miraculous child, announced by an angel.

A child prophesied to “save his people.”

Filled with and empowered by the Spirit of God.

A leader, a judge in the Kingdom of God.

Turned over by his own people to the enemy.

Sacrificial death that destroyed the enemy.

He is a shadow. But what a messy messiah Samson is.

Samson is a type that looks forward to Jesus. But more than anything he shows us the failings of a human savior.

The text shows us Samson’s failings again and again. His motivations are lust and revenge. His actions cause a bit of trouble for the enemy… but nothing like ultimate victory.

Samson is setup to be this epic hero and Savior… and seems to squander his potential and power. He doesn’t save Israel, even in the way some of the other judges do.

But all the heros and judges we have seen, none of them save Israel in a lasting way, do they?

None of the prophets do either. None of the kings do. Much of the journey through the Old Testament is disappointment and expectation. The hope that God will save us through this person, in this way… and there is a taste of victory and freedom there… but it’s always partial...

… and the hero is always flawed...

and the peace and the tribe or the Kingdom ultimately falls apart.

If you want something done right...

If something isn’t working… try something else.

If you want something done right, do it yourself.

It wasn’t enough that the Messiah have power… it had to be a different kind of power.

If you want something done right… you have to do it yourself.

It wasn’t really Samson’s fault, or any of the Judges personal failing.

It was beyond any human to save humanity. God had to enter himself. And God signals that something is radically different here. Not only is Jesus born, a child of prophecy, announced by angels (like Samson). Something is altogether new and different.

Not just born of a barren woman. Born of a virgin.

Luke tells the story this way:

Luke 1:26–35 ESV

In the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent from God to a city of Galilee named Nazareth, to a virgin betrothed to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David. And the virgin’s name was Mary. And he came to her and said, “Greetings, O favored one, the Lord is with you!” But she was greatly troubled at the saying, and tried to discern what sort of greeting this might be. And the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. And the Lord God will give to him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.” And Mary said to the angel, “How will this be, since I am a virgin?” And the angel answered her, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be called holy—the Son of God.

Among special births, Jesus is most-special. You know something amazing is going to happen here, that Jesus is going to be someone special.

God specializes in bringing life out of nothing. And again and again, this birth out of barrenness is a sign that the child is a gift from God, it required supernatural intervention, the child is a miracle. In this case, it is not just the blessing of a child but salvation itself.

Salvation must ultimately come from God. Our salvation is supernatural. From the start.

“The virgin birth points to the helplessness of humans to initiate even the first step in the process.”

It wasn’t just a question of waiting. It wasn’t playing the statistics, that eventually someone with the right genes would be born to be a Savior. It was only by direct, divine, miraculous intervention.

From the moment He took on flesh, a baby in the womb even before he was a baby in the manger, from the moment He took on flesh, He took on our mortality. He took on our failings. He took on our temptations. He took on the shadow of death, the shadow of the cross, all of it.

He took on you. He had something to say to you so important he couldn’t send anyone else to say it. He says “I am Jesus, Yeshua, Yahweh in the very process of saving you.”

I am “Immanuel, God with you and always with you, and always for you.”

He took on you. He had something to do for you so important he couldn’t send any angel to do it.

He took on your humanity. He took on your life. So that He could take on your sin. So that He could take on your death. So that He could wrap you up in His pure, righteous life that you might be saved

God came himself

And, one of my all-time favorite verses and certainly my favorite Christmas text:

John 1:14 ESV

And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.

God came to save us himself

Christmas is simple this: we celebrate the Word become flesh and blood, God himself moving into the neighborhood. God himself taking up the mantle of judge, as well as priest and king and prophet. God himself leading us, but most of all, God himself saving us.

You want something done right? Do it yourself. God did.

We couldn’t do it. We could not save ourselves. But Jesus could and did.

Immanuel: God is with us. Sing glory and hallelujah.

Jesus. Yeshua. Yahweh saves us. Sing glory and hallelujah.

Thank you God. Merry Christmas.

John 1:14 The Message

The Word became flesh and blood, and moved into the neighborhood. We saw the glory with our own eyes, the one-of-a-kind glory, like Father, like Son, Generous inside and out, true from start to finish.