Samson and the Malakh YHWH [Wed in Lent 2]

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READINGS FROM HOLY SCRIPTURE:

• Judges 13:1-24

• St. John 18:1-8

  

Grace to you and peace. (1 Thess 1)
 
Jesus speaks to you on this day from His book of Judges heard, saying:
“And when the flame went up toward heaven from the altar, the angel of the Lord went up in the flame of the altar. Now Manoah and his wife were watching, and they fell on their faces to the ground.”
 
Last week, we saw the Malakh YHWH (Angel of the Lord) interact with Gideon the same way the angel interacted with Zachariah in Luke 1 and the same way Jesus interacted with His disciples on the Road to Emmaus, being revealed in the breaking of bread (Luke 24).
 
We concluded that this Angel of the Lord was something more than an angel and something more than a man, almost Jesus Himself, since He taught that the Old Testament was all about Him.
 
This evening, we ponder the Malakh YHWH and Samson, and take our understanding of God’s Word a step further in the word “pre-incarnate”. Pre-incarnate simply means “before He was made man”. It doesn’t mean, “before He existed” as in Jesus was just another created being like us and the angels. It means that we believe the Gospel according to St. John 1 when he says that Jesus was around in the beginning with God and He was God and He was working.
 
Colossians 1 also gets us to believe in the Pre-Incarnate Christ saysing, “…He is before all things, and in him all things hold together” (v.17). 
And Hebrews 1: “Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, ² but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world” and “of the Son he says, ‘Your throne, O God, is forever and ever’” (v. 1-2, 8).
 
Even Ezekiel gave us plenty of warning of the activity of Jesus before His birth saying, “In the sixth year, in the sixth month, on the fifth day of the month, as I sat in my house, with the elders of Judah sitting before me, the hand of the Lord God fell upon me there. Then I looked, and behold, a form that had the appearance of a man...He put out the form of a hand and took me by a lock of my head, and the Spirit lifted me up between earth and heaven and brought me in visions of God to Jerusalem” (8:1-3).
 
And with that “lock of the head”, we are brought directly to Samson, who is famous for his hair. Maybe Samson had long hair just so God could yank on it, thinking of how his life ended.
 
In any case, Judges 13 sets the same scene as Abraham hearing about the birth of Isaac, Zachariah hearing of the birth of John the Baptist, and St. Mary hearing about the birth of Jesus. All were announced by angels and Samson’s parents get the Malakh YHWH treatment. 
 
Much the same as Gideon, there is a Divine Service offered here, in Judges 13. But, before that the announcement of a son. The son who was to be born of a woman who had never had children before and who was to be called a Nazarene (hear: Nazareth). Spoken by the Angel Who accepts offerings offered to God and ascends towards heaven. 
 
It would be sufficient for this evening to finish here as long as you are seeing all these similarities. Because time would fail us if we were “to tell of Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, of David and Samuel and the prophets” who all had a role in interacting with and communing with God.
 
And it is sufficient to see that communion is taking place even before Christ institutes His Supper. Why? 1, because it means God really doesn’t change, 2, that the God of the OT and the God of the NT are the same, 3, that Jesus is doing nothing new or novel, and 4, that everyone being included was always part of the plan. 
 
This is the case with our Malakh YHWH. The Father sent no angel to our race of higher or of lower state. He sent His only-begotten Son, Who was always doing the work. In the work, activity, and words of the Malakh YHWH we hear and see this truth. And even though the OT writers were afraid of making a man or angel out of God, as Samson’s parents were, later revelation by Jesus makes it so that God is made man.
 
Such that when we get to the handing over and arrest of Jesus, in St. John 18, we hear Him speak the same words from Judges 13. Samson’s parents are searching for a son and the Malakh YHWH declares that they will have a son and he will be a Nazarene.
 
When the thugs from the Temple come in Gethsemane, Jesus asks them who they are looking for. And true to form, they have nothing to answer Him with except God’s Word. That is “We seek the Nazarene”.