DAILY BYTEI grew up on a non-too healthy diet of 80’s B grade action movies. You know the type I mean ... they were filled with muscle-bound men, co-dependant women and weak plots. The names of these action heroes still just roll off my lips … Seagal, van Damme, Norris, Stallone and of course the king of all action heroes, the main man of main men, the Terminator ... Arnold Schwarzenegger ... now better known as the Governator.
I bring this up because recently I re-read the story of Samson and it brought up powerful feelings of nostalgia for me. Judges 13-16 tells the rather sad tale of this young Judge (leader) of Israel. The plot reads just like one of those 80’s action flicks as it is filled with violence, sex, revenge and at the centre of it all is this larger than life figure who possesses tremendous physical strength and who can take on whole armies single-handedly!
At one point, Samson even rips out his enemy’s city gates from the ground and carries them to the top of a hill 38 miles away! Presumably, he just felt that he needed a bit of a work-out. Clearly, Samson was the kind of guy who could not only kick sand into your face at the beach, but could kick whole beaches into your face!
Yet, a more careful reading of Samson’s story reveals something else to us. Something that may surprise us; especially if the last we remember of Samson is our Sunday school stories. Because if we read this story very carefully, if we look at the way certain ideas are repeated, or at why names with certain meanings are used, then we will see that Samson has actually been portrayed more as an anti-hero than anything else. By this I mean we are meant to learn more from his mistakes then we do from his victories.
Of course Samson is listed in Hebrews 11 as a ‘hero of the faith’ but he is a figure draped in tragedy, and we are meant to learn from this tragedy. So while in an initial reading we may be mesmerised by Samson’s strength and charisma, he was the man women loved and other men wanted to be like, a second, more careful reading, teaches us that Samson is actually one big paradox. He was a man who was so very strong, but was really very weak.
Samson was a man possessing so much physical power that the world was at his feet, yet his core, his inner world, was fragile, leading him to make silly choice after silly choice. He had rippling biceps but a puny soul. And so eventually, Samson’s world collapsed like a pack of cards because he had no inner strength to support him.
The strongest man to ever live … was actually one of the weakest.
Spend some time thinking about this paradox. Can you think of any modern examples of this? What about your own inner life? Do you present a ‘strong outer image’ to the world, and yet really struggle with something within? Spend some time praying about this.
PRAY AS YOU GO
Lord, we pray that you would help us to learn from the story of Samson this week. Help us to understand his paradox, and in so doing learn for ourselves what strength truly is. Through this week, we pray that you would give us insight into our own inner struggles. Amen.
FOCUS READING
Read the whole story of Samson (Judges 13-16) to help prepare you for the rest of this week’s devotions.
