Samson, his hands placed on the pillars (revised)

Judges 16:28-29

Then Samson prayed to the Lord, “O Sovereign Lord, remember me, O God, please strengthen me just once more, and let me with one blow get revenge on the Philistines for my two eyes.” Then Samson reached toward the two central pillars on which the temple stood.

An enemy is an enemy. Hatred is hatred.

All my life I have fought these men. Now they stand around me in triumph, their joy and celebration a mockery, against me and my God. I have endured much contempt from the arrogant, much ridicule from the proud. They are your enemies, O God, and mine.

Do I not hate those who hate you? I fought a lion once. It came upon suddenly, roaring in its strength and fury. It had crouched and waited, the lion under cover. Then, spying me, it leaped out to catch me, to drag me off. In myself I was no match for the effortless power present in that beast. Its eyes were death, hating, opposing, seeking my life. There was no room for mercy in that battle, only the forced submission of death, the ripping of life, trampling down and making one sleep the sleep of death. Battle means victory. It is necessary.

It would have had me, if it could. Those claws, those teeth, like spears and arrows, a rippling strength in its shoulders, jumping, attacking. Death came, an enemy. But I was seized too, overcome by an external power (the lion, strengthened in itself, I, strengthened within by another), this overshadowing of the Holy Spirit, what the prophets call it “coming upon me with power,” that which had elevated the tongues of the prophets in their praises, which had guided the hands of the craftsmen into the elegance of the tabernacle instruments, this power elevated me too, guided my hands too, and I took hold of the lion, and with those hands, I killed it. Strength met strength. One prevailed, that which must prevail, even the power of God himself.

It worked upon my natural gifting, the might of my frame, the war-trained skill of my arms, powerful but futile in themselves. But he armed me with strength for battle, his power mine, and thus the long pattern of my one-man army, a lifelong war upon these pagans, these oppressors of my people, these Philistines. They hate and hate and hate, and we, hating in return, fight.

What can be done with hatred? When two parties are opposed, their opposition only ends when one is dead. Safety is death. This is the way of things, no mediation, no peace like Abimelech and Isaac, no end, for we talk not of people here, but of God and gods. The claim we have is an isolating claim, to be one people, one body of men beneath one God inhabiting one land, and around us all others, unaccepted, far off, not belonging to this sacred body, this sacred people, we who possess law and worship and promise.

Yes, promise. What of this promise, long repeated, long claimed? Children of Abraham, we who walk in his footsteps, do we not claim his promise as our own, since we were in his body when he received it? “Through you all nations will be blessed.” The Philistines are a nation like any other, yet we hate them, we fight them, we must by the very decree of God destroy them. But we bless them too. This is mysterious.

What is blessing but an end to this killing? Not just the physical end, its exclusion by some mutual security, or shared suspicion, but the very nature of things that causes killing? What makes us enemies with these men? Why indeed did the Moabites attack us? Why did the Egyptians pursue us? Going back further, why did Joseph’s brothers hate him, until he purchased them back in shadow? Why did Esau threaten Jacob? Why did Ishmael persecute Isaac? Why did Cain slay Abel? His blood was the first blood, the blood that still calls out, the blood that still comes before me into my ears, crying out for vengeance, destruction, justice! Those that belong to God will always be hated.

This is my sword, and I look upon the people of the earth in opposition. When I swung the jawbone, I was the shepherd defending, I was the right hand of the Lord for sake of his people. All men stand opposed, and the line around one half of this opposition is the shelter of his wings. When he raised me up by his Spirit I was this power, his power, I was the Lord thundering from heaven, shaking the desert, twisting the oaks. I was his consuming fire, the burning coals which blazed forth from him, a scorching wind upon his enemies.

Still there is tension in these actions, appointed by God though they may be, and all Israel should consider these things in relation to the words of God, for all I did had as its reference point, its plumbline, the promises. Upon these the life of man is built, for what can I do apart from them? Do you think in my actions I did not see the purposes of God at work? I burned, I moved all too often in the passion of my heart, but in these passions, in these actings the Spirit also moved and worked, leaving me sacramentally and effectively when my strength was taken. But I was the man of God in my violence, securer, protector, defender, fulfilling the very promise that held out peace by my war. This bloody work was a restoration to the time before blood, blood being shed only when man had broken peace, war now needed to restore it.

With this knowledge, I mystified my Philistine enemies, whose eyes could not see, whose ears could not hear, not having this great revelation, they took the world as it was, the violence of it the image which their gods created (a multiplicity for violence requires division). So when I came upon my slain lion, the dead carcass of my enemy, how fitting it was to find honey there! I laughed then at the beauty of it, the humor a joyful response to unexpectedness, but an unexpectedness that when seen enriched, for with it I fed my family. Yes, these things are shadows, understood only by the people of God, and so my riddle stumped the pagans:

Out of eater, something to eat;
Out of the strong, something sweet.

O Lord, my power and I yours! From the broken opposition of the lion came my honey, the sweetness of it, its nourishment! For what is an eater like death, consuming all men in its insatiableness? To men of this earth, nothing comes from death, the eater consumes merely, the torn bones of man an ending. And so those Philistines were helpless to discern the meaning of my riddle, for we alone of men see in death, in the nipping of the heel of Abraham’s seed, the fulfillment of some hope. As God fed our fathers in the desert, so from the eater came something to eat, so will come from the strong one day something sweet. Even when through my duplicitous woman they heard the meaning, they still knew it not, seeing on the surface the scene alone, as if these things had no more meaning than a dead lion, though it was the Spirit himself who acted through me in it.

Strength then is the rule of the earth, and I am strong, my strength the working of the Spirit of God in this world, and though the violence of it (see the dead Philistines in the thousands, glimpse ahead also the coming death when these columns fall) is bitter, terrible, joyless in itself, yet from it will come something sweet. For God himself slaughtered the animals for Adam, looked with favor on those sacrifices of Abel, Melchizedek, many others, himself prescribing death in all our approaches to him, though what can be sweet like the presence of God? No, from death comes something sweet, for with the end of enmity comes reconciliation, that most beautiful of things.

O Holy One, O Maker, O Fire and Terror! This brings me to you also, for I am a faithful one. O Great Protector, here I stand, my eyes gouged out, my back a mass of blood, bruised, spat upon, mocked. I a man of weakness, though strong. We are such a curious mixture, we men, possessing such power, yet riven with weakness. In the boldness of the Spirit all men fled before me, no power could oppose me. But I was a hollow statue, filled with wax, strong but ready to shatter. Betrayal in me, the external picture of my condition like the nation itself, beset by such enemies, strengthened by men like me, the terror of my enemies, killing them until with this cleansing the people were safe. This, too, was in me, for I possess this enmity too, this heart of lust, this giving over of myself, this surrender. It was the co-conspiring of two enemies, behind both the secret power of the third, the great enemy, and so death is needed, in the nation itself but in me as well.

So the promise. Out of the strong, something sweet. From this flood of death, God is working, the omnipresence of it communicating to us not slowness, nor powerlessness, nor capriciousness, nor indeed any satisfaction in it, for death must go against him who is alone the source of life. No, learn here your own wickedness, the enmity of your own heart. This too must be destroyed, torn down like the power of the columns I feel, though I can no longer see. O Spirit, come upon me again! O Sovereign Lord, remember me. O God, please strengthen me once more, that I may revenge myself upon the Philistines for my two eyes!