Monday, March 23

Scripture: Then he found a fresh jawbone of a donkey, reached down and took it, and with it he killed a thousand men. (Judges 15:15).

Observation: This time, it is the Philistines who are oppressing the Israelites on the western border of the nation, close to the Mediterranean Sea. Israel’s champion against the Philistines is Samson. Samson is depicted as a Herculean strongman of unmatched muscles and unstoppable rage. Unlike the other judges, Samson doesn’t call up militias to drive out Israel’s enemies. Samson fights alone, an army of one. Samson is not driven by a sense of duty, responsibility to his people, or a calling from God. He’s driven by anger. Samson does not act out of moral obligation to protect the Israelites. Instead, Samson’s motives are entirely selfish. When he is wronged, he works himself into a rage, and because he is physically mightier than anyone else around him, a giant among men, his rage manifests as raw power unchecked by morals. By this point in the Samson legend, Samson has already killed thirty of the Philistines, not in battle but in a fit of jealousy because Samson suspected they had slept with his wife; then Samson captured hundreds of foxes (yes, foxes), tied flaming torches to their tails, and set the foxes loose among the dry wheat of the Philistines’ fields, thus burning their crops, because his Philistine father-in-law gave Samson’s wife in marriage to another man; and in Judges 15:15, we see Samson using a donkey’s jawbone as a lethal weapon and slaughtering a thousand Philistine men because the Philistines themselves put Samson’s father-in-law and Samson’s new wife to death. Samson fights alone and wins alone and shows allegiance to himself alone, and in the absence of a moral compass, he deploys his strength against anyone he wants.

Application: Long after Samson will come Jesus. Jesus will say, “Blessed are the meek.” Meekness is not the same thing as weakness. Meekness is self-regulated strength. We wouldn’t call a strong person who uses their strength to crush the weak and the vulnerable “strong.” We’d call that person cruel, not strong. But what would we call a strong person who, while having the power to crush anyone they’d like, checks his or her power, regulates the self, and uses their strength to build up people rather than tear them down? We might call that person wise, loving, or brave. Jesus calls them “meek.” It is the person who possess real power and real heart to regulate the self and care for others that is truly strong, and this is the definition of meekness. The Samson’s of the world are not meek, so they are not truly strong. Yes, they throw their weight around, and for good reason; they are the biggest bullies on the block. But they lack the ability to regulate themselves, so they don’t know how to curb their destructive tendencies, divert their energies to more productive purposes, and use their God-given prowess to make the world a better place. Samson is not a hero. Samson is a case study in how not to be strong. If you’re going to be strong, then your heart for righteousness must be equally as strong at least. If you’re going to have a life that Jesus calls blessed, then by all means be as strong as you can, just as long as the strongest muscle is your heart.

Prayer:

My heart breaks for those who found themselves on the wrong end of a brokenhearted person’s woundedness, those who now wear the wounds of another’s wound-turned-wrath: for the survivors of domestic violence and spouse abuse and child abuse and abandonment; the boys and men for whom the masculine figures in their lives failed to model how to translate the fury that comes with being wronged into the ferocity that comes with being driven (because that is the ballgame); the oppressed and the bullied and the collateral damage of unnecessary conflict and the children caught in the middle of bitter disputes between otherwise caring adults; the victims of social media gossip and mudslinging, for the digital wounds that became tangible wounds; the bitter and the cynical among us (me too) when we speak and act and daydream out of the pain of our open wounds rather than the safe field of our scabbed-over scars. Make us instruments of your peace, Righteous One, and show us how to be truly strong in the way of Your Son, the strongest of all, who said, “Blessed are the meek.” Onward we go: Amen.