Wednesday, June 20, 2012

SAMSON - Coming to a theatre near you

We're going through the Bible in 90 days as a church.  It sounds like a daunting challenge because its a heavy chunk of reading everyday, but I am actually enjoying it.  God is literally revealing stuff to me that I've never thought of before, in new perspectives and is making me ask questions of why and how.  Also, a lot of times I'm just saying "wow" to myself as the magnitude of what I'm reading is finally permeating my mind and soul.  The Bible is pretty amazing that way.  [insert delayed "pop-pop" here] 

There have been many times in the past where I've neglected my Bible and put off reading it, because honestly, sometimes I just found it boring, irrelevant, or hard to understand.  Most of the time, my mind would wander and I'd lose concentration of what I'm reading about, similar to how I read my textbooks during university.  I think because I've really dedicated the time (so far I'm on day 20/90 days) to read with understanding and have given myself over to this B90 Challenge, so to speak, that God is honouring my true intentions and is allowing me to "see" and learn things from the Bible that I may have read countless times before and never truly thought about it any more than it being words on a page.  I should write out what I learn or meditate on, but sometimes I'm just speculating and I don't want to be accused of heresy.  The Bible has a lot of stuff in it and it makes me think about a lot of stuff.  This is a good thing. 

Anyways, I read through Judges a few days ago.  That book is badass.  My apologies for using that word (and for not giving you a warning), but I can't think of a better way to describe it right now.  For the record, I still consider "ass" to be derogatory language and a swear word as it always has been when I was growing up.  I don't use it in my everyday speech because it's rather crude.  But I don't think you'd appreciate how I'm trying to connote my feelings for the book if I were to say "Judges is a really kick-buttocks part of the Bible!"  See what I mean?  However, it is literally kick-buttocks.  A lot of people get their buttocks' kicked (and die).  O__O

I won't go into too much detail, but Samson is a very interesting guy.  There are four whole chapters devoted to him which is a very significant portion of the book (21 chapters in all).  Samson would make a great historical epic kind of film because it has everything that makes a profitable/entertaining action movie.  A major, flawed character, violence, sex, revenge, limited humour, epic battle scenes (this is where CGI is an advantage), tremendous human feats of strength, and a tragic, you'll-only-believe-it-when-you-see-it ending.

In my mind, I sort of have a mashed up picture of Chris Hemsworth from Thor and Kevin Sorbo from Hercules, mostly because they're big guys with long hair, except I bet Samson's hair was even longer, wilder, and even more magnificent (ps - I'm going to do a post about my hair in the future...yes, because I'm that vain) and epic battle scenes from Zack Snyder's 300.  But those guys don't do Samson justice.  A lion jumps at Samson and he catches it and rips it in half with his bare hands.  HIS BARE HANDS.  When some baddies in an enemy city are plotting to kill him, he goes into hiding, and then in the middle of the night, rips the humongous gates off of it's posts and carries it away just for kicks.  Can you imagine returning to your village to see a giant hole in the wall where the city gates once stood?  And of course, there is the time where he goes all hulk-smash and kills a thousand men with a donkey's jawbone.  This isn't a comic book superhero.  Samson was an actual person who did these things, whether you believe it or not.  It's especially fascinating the number of the times "the Spirit of the LORD came mightly upon him," and then something crazy went down.  I counted at least four times.

But then, Judges 16:20 happens, "...but he did not know that the Lord had departed from him."

And that is a sad and somewhat scary thought.  Samson took God for granted, more or less spat in God's face with his actions and by his lack of respect and disobedience and so God basically say's, "Fine, if you think I'm bothering you, I'll give you your space," and just goes.  You almost have to wonder why God didn't "leave" Samson sooner, but that just shows how patient and merciful God is, despite what we're really deserving of.  This is also a sobering reminder of how loving God is to me today, despite all the things I do against Him.  If I continually reject God and disrespect Him in my life, He can easily leave me alone just as He did to Samson. 

This is a good place to pause and think about how merciful and mighty God is, and how insignificant and horrid I am.  And yet God loves me!
  
A fascinating verse sticks out, two verses later in verse 22.  It says that Samson's hair is starting to grow back, even though it was just shaved all off.  So what? Hair does that.  This is why we have barbers and hair salons to this day.  No, there is something deeper to this verse.  The supernatural strength of Samson was dependant on the length of his hair.  And here we see that it's growing again.  God isn't completely out of the picture.  He still loves and cares for Samson, despite his sinful nature and wrongdoings against God.  God is at work in Samson's life in the shadows.  Or in his hair follicles. 

And then BANG, an exclamatory and fitting ending to a very unique story.  A rock ballad plays as the end credits roll.

So in summary, what I'm trying to say is that the story about Samson would make a fantastic summer blockbuster movie, IF it stays true to the biblical truths revealed in the Bible.  I could write a lot more, but I actually never intended my post to get this long.  When I was thinking about writing this post, I thought I would write three sentences at the most, and then this happened.  Oh well.  

Mmmmm, Bible! YEAH! You should read it!

EDIT: November 2, 2012 - I found some pictures from The Bible for Students © 1990 Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Wheaton Illinois, with illustrations © 1989 by Blas Gallego, used without permission, please don't sue me!  I'll take them down if you tell me to.







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In other Tim-news, I biked 22.3km in the rain on Saturday and saved myself $4.20 (two 1-zone Faresaver tickets).  But then I also bought myself a hotdog ($1.50) and fries ($2.29) and spent $4.24 (stupid HST) in total at Costco.  Meh, it was worth it.

And my bike light fell off. Time to buy a new one.

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Gas has been about 142¢/litre the past few days and was 140¢/litre tonight.

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