13 August 2010
Psalm 102; Judges 14:20-15:20; Acts 7:17-29; John 4:43-54

This scene certainly seems mythic in proportions with the large number of foxes captured and used by Samson to destroy the crops, and therefore the economy of the Philistine city, and the number of men single-handedly felled by him. His father-in-law, apparently assuming that the marriage was annulled due to his daughter’s treachery regarding the riddle and Samson’s departure without consummating the marriage, gave her to his best man. It was anger for this act that prompted Samson to destroy their crops. The Philistines blamed, appropriately, the father and his wife, exactly what she had hoped to avoid in betraying Samson’s secret to these men in the first place! Samson’s vengeance against them caused them to come up and encamp against a town of Judah, threatening that place. The men of that town then come to Samson to blame him for their misfortune and rather than forming an army together against their enemies they seek to deliver him to them as appeasement. Samson’s bonds are broken and he routs them while the men of Judah seem to stand idly by and yet in the end they recognize their champion and he becomes judge.

Jesus spends two days among the Samaritans and must have enjoyed their hospitality during that time which would have made Him unclean in the eyes of the Jews and yet when He arrives at Galilee He is received well. They likely assumed that He came there from Jerusalem by the route that would have taken him around Samaria, which any good Jewish person would have taken. We were told the Samaritans believed, and at an extraordinary level, proclaiming that He was the Savior of the world. Here we see the Galileans, His fellow Jews, welcoming Him for what they had seen at the festival. The encounter and healing we see here is the son of a “royal official” which likely makes the man a Gentile. Jesus says that his faith is based in seeing signs but the man has already come with faith, he begged Him to come and heal his son. Jesus speaks the word that the son is healed and the man goes in faith that what was spoken will be and is astonished to discover that indeed the son has been healed at the time Jesus spoke the words and he and his household come to faith in Jesus. He has passed through three stages of faith in this one experience. He believed Jesus could possibly heal so he went to Jesus, He believed at some level that Jesus could heal with word only and began to walk in that faith. He then saw the fulfillment of the word and then believed it to be a result of Jesus’ words, not some happy chance occurrence.

Long ago you laid the foundation of the earth,
and the heavens are the work of your hands.
They will perish, but you endure;
they will all wear out like a garment.
You change them like clothing, and they pass away;
but you are the same, and your years have no end.
The children of your servants shall live secure;
their offspring shall be established in your presence.