A Tale of Two Saviors

"And the angel of the LORD appeared unto the woman, and said unto her, Behold now…thou shalt conceive, and bear a son."

And so begins the wondrous and oft told story of Israel’s deliverer. A story with more plot twists, apparent defeats and unlikely victories than many a fictitious tale.

God’s deliverer came to His people at the height of a prolonged season of religious decline, and protracted political oppression by a powerful pagan nation. Although he was but a single man, born of a woman, the Bible records that “the Spirit of the Lord came upon him” and in that anointing was bestowed a great power to save.

This promised one, this savior, was both a conundrum to his own people and a bane to his enemies. Sometimes he spoke plainly, and other times in obscure riddles. Sometimes he behaved meekly, even submissively, and other times by overt demonstrations of supernatural power, manifested himself to be the Lord’s savior.

But the more victories he won over his enemies, the more bitterly they seethed, and the more actively they conspired to humiliate him before the people. Having failed multiple times to take him openly by force, they bribed a trusted companion of his with pieces of silver, to betray and deliver him over to their injurious intrigues, and despicable designs. And so it was done.

After his capture, but before his death, the scriptures record that he was forsaken by God, and this was clearly evidenced in his unprecedented powerlessness at the hands of his enemies. And so they led him roughly, one last time to a place where he could be mocked and made sport of in the sight of all. And there he cried out for God to remember him; and there he stretched out his arms……… placing his hands upon the pillars which upheld the roof of the Philistine banquet hall, and filled with the Spirit one last time, spent his life to deal a crushing blow to the heads of that malicious brood of the serpent’s seed assembled there.

Samson was, of course, only a dim and imperfect shadow of the ultimate judge and deliverer of Israel, the Lord Jesus Christ. Yet through him, by faith, we see Christ quite clearly, and are moved to exclaim, “How great a Savior, and how mighty his salvation!”