Happy Easter my friends. As I have been preparing for this holiday, I have been thinking a lot about my Lenten sacrifices and how I have been doing with them. At the same time I was also thinking a bit about new years resolutions.
These may not seem very related but they are when considering they are both things that are decided upon and put into action over an extended period of time with the ever present question of how you are doing at them. Now this is a bit reductive of what Lenten sacrifices and resolutions are, but this is the aspect of each that had been standing out to me as of late.
Lately I have been reflecting on each and asking myself that question. How have I been doing? Now Id love to say that I have 100% been perfect in both the Lenten sacrifices and resolutions but this is simply not true. I, like many of you, have fallen short. Not just short of my Lenten goal or new years resolution but in so many aspects of life. I continually fall short of who I want to be, who people think I am, and who God is shaping me to be. It is this thought of being a fallen wretch that has been resting heavy on my mind lately.
Add to this that I have been reading the left behind books, which are about people left behind during the rapture (a doctrine we do not really share in but entertaining books nonetheless). These books have been adding to the ever present thought of how fallen I am. (if the rapture happened would I be left behind?)
This all came to a bit of a head this past week while I was reading the scriptures on two separate occasions and in two separate sections. The first was in Judges and the second is the end of the Gospel of John. That is enough back story and preamble I think, lets get into it.
Judges
In this book there is a guy you probably know. Samson the Nazarite. You know his story, he fought the lion, he killed with the jaw bone, he fell for Delilah, he Fell (capital F) because of Delilah and his dumb decisions, he was chained up, the Lord came back to him and he killed 3000 baddies and himself.
He is easily one of the coolest action heroes in the old testament. But, and it’s a big but, he is not a good guy. I don’t know if you have ever read the account of if you just know the story from childhood but Samson is a wretched man. When he kills the lion, he eats honey from the carcass making himself unclean and then gives it to his parents making them unclean. He lies, steals, and cheats. He commits whoredoms and buys prostitutes, he abandons his wife and lusts after the women of his enemies. Repeatedly he murders and defiles himself. In short, he regularly breaks more than half of the big ten and loads of the other commandments. He is not someone to idealize, but he is someone we can learn from.
Notably though out his life of sinful nature he strives to keep one commandment, don’t cut your hair. Now when I read through his chapters in Judges, I cant help but put my self in his shoes. I don’t know how he felt about most of his life choices but I know I would be wracked with guilt. I wonder if he every sat alone at night, overcome with the horrors of what he had done and ashamed of the way he must surely seem before his God, but clinging to is hair and the covenant it represented. I wont cross this line, I fall in every other way regardless of how hard I try, how much I strive but this far and no further, I will not break this thread that binds me to God. Until he did.
Suffering long under the torments of Delilah, in a sinful situation he put in self in, he succumbed. He crossed that line he would not. “If my head is shaved, then my strength will leave me, and I shall become weak and be like any other man” cut this tread of hair that binds me to God and I will fall to the depths.
What horror must have filled his soul when in the morning he found him self shaved. That line he likely swore he would never cross, had been traversed.
While I read this I thought of how I was in similar straits. How wretched I am, to continue to cascade down in to the abyss seemed to by my lot. How oft I have set goals like resolutions or Lenten sacrifices only to see them dashed to pieces by my awful state. How often did I draw a line, how oft have I made utterance saying this far and no further only to wake in the proverbial morning to find the line over stepped and the distance traveled, my head shaved and wrists changed. Doomed to be blinded and bound as Samson. Sentenced to grind at the mill of the prison. Oh, the wretched kinship I felt with Samson, having been the means of my own destruction and the one to have pointed to the razor myself.
It was in this state of horrid reflection that I read the 22nd verse of Judges 16 “But the hair of his head began to grow again after it had been shaved” The thread that bound Samson to our God, the very one he willfully cut (though by the and of Delilah, it was nevertheless his actions that brought the razor upon his head) began to grow again. There is hope in that verse.
It is the same hope that makes and anchor to the souls of men. That the connection to God that by my own hand is severed can be restored. All may not be lost. But how is it so?
John
In john 18-19 we have a similar situation unfurl. The Man that was hoped to be Messiah and deliverer of Israel had been betrayed by one of his closest, and now was put on trial in the depths of one of the darkest nights in the history of the world. We often question the unfaithfulness of the disciple’s not knowing Jesus was going to be resurrected, but this is not fair to them. We have live in a world that has know of the resurrection for nearly 2000 years. We know the end from the beginning, They do not, and scripture is clear they did not understand when Jesus for told of these events. The Lord had not been resurrected at their time, no one had, ever.
That night the Lord was betrayed and his disciples fled. They began to cut away at the thread binding them to God. And with each passing verse we see the tread getting cut more. Betrayed and arrested, carted off to a secret trial in the dark of night, denied by his most avid follower, questioned and accused, arraigned before the romans, the night grew darker. What could the disciples think? Had this Man who they were so sure was the Christ not have been? Surely this would not happen if He was who they thought.
The break of day on what we call Good Friday brought no joy to Him and His. The refreshing renewal of sunrise held no peace on this day, though new light shown it did not illuminate the dark proceedings of the night before. In like manner the disciples woke to their proverbial heads being shaved.
Jesus was paraded before the people and the choice was given them to save him or another. And as they called out Barabbas the thread was finally cut through. Jesus, the Man they thought was Messiah, was brutally beaten and nailed to a cross. Hanging there between sinners and before vile disgraces of people who mocked Him, hung all the disciples hopes.
“It is Finished” and the world darkened and began to tremble in response. The hope of the disciples died. In fashion with Samson they were shaved, blinded, and bound. The Sabbath of Passover dawned but did not bring any rest to their souls. It was all lost. Everything they had spent years working for, all of their hopes, their Messiah, lay buried in a tomb. Though the sun likely shown on that spring day the world had never been darker for those who followed Him.
But as the hair on the head of Samson grew again, the resurrection morning was sure to come. Mary of Magdala stood before an empty tomb not comprehending what had happened. Early enough that it was still dark, she stood weeping. “Why are you weeping” someone asked her, not comprehending she asked where the body of her Lord had been taken. And then in what must have felt like a burst of light hope returned to her world as Jesus called her by name. He was Risen! The darkness of the last 3 days shattered and the bright and glorious light of the Son returned to the world.
“I am ascending to my Father and to your Father, To my God and to your God” The thread restored, the hair grew again. In fact, I would go so far as to say because of that Sunday morning Samson’s hair growing back could have a meaning. On that morning severed threads could be restored. Life paths can change. Death is conquered. Man is free. Christ has won the Victory!
When you fall short in any way, when you breach the lines, you would not cross, when you are blinded and bald and bound; Know you this: that the hair will grow again and that the tomb is empty. Your severed thread can be restored, you need not be left behind. When you stare into the empty tomb after days of darkness you will surely hear the word “Do not be afraid… He is not here, for He is risen, as he said” the dark day will end, the hair will regrow, we will find the tomb empty. And because of Him, we can ascend to our Father and to our God.
Because of Him.
As always Im praying for thee, please pray for me.