1.
Grace, mercy, and peace to you from
God our Heavenly Father and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen. The
message from God’s Word in our Advent Midweek Series, “Nothing is Impossible
with God,” is taken from Judges 13:1-24, and is entitled, “His Name is
Wonderful,” dear brothers and
sisters in Christ.
2.
Judges 13:2-3, 17-18 says, “There
was a certain man of Zorah, of the tribe of the Danites, whose name was Manoah.
And his wife was barren and had no children. And the angel of the Lord appeared
to the woman and said to her, “Behold, you are barren and have not borne
children, but you shall conceive and bear a son.” . . .And Manoah
said to the angel of the Lord, “What is your name, so that, when your words
come true, we may honor you?” And the angel of the Lord said to him, “Why do
you ask my name, seeing it is wonderful?” (Judg 13:2–3, 17–18)
3.
It’s a recurring theme for God’s Old
Testament people, particularly in the Book of Judges. The Israelites forsake
the Lord to run after other gods that they think will give them more of what
they want. God’s anger is roused against them, and he allows their enemies to
overtake them. Then in their distress, they cry out to the Lord for help. The
Lord raises up a judge, a deliverer, to rescue them and free them from the
power of their enemies. The land has rest, and everything goes well for a
period of time, but then the judge dies, the people become spiritually
complacent, and they again forsake the Lord. So, the whole process starts all
over again.
4.
That’s the situation at the time of
our text, the story of the birth of Samson. Times aren’t good; Israel has
wandered . . . again. But the story of Samson’s birth gives us the
Advent reminder that even though we are wayward children, God not only
disciplines us but sends someone to rescue us from our enemies and bring us
back into his fatherly embrace. He accomplishes this through the Angel of
the Lord. In fact, it turns out that, The Angel of the Lord Both Sends
and Then Is the Deliverer Who Rescues God’s Wayward Children. So let’s give our attention for a few moments
to this Angel of the Lord and how the events here in Judges 13 point us
to the ultimate event of his own coming . . . at Christmas!
5.
Times aren’t good for the children
of Israel. Once again, they’ve done evil in the sight of the Lord, and the Lord
has delivered them into the hands of the Philistines for 40 years. We can see ourselves in the children of
Israel, can’t we? Very often it’s when everything is going well that we become
complacent in our faith and we forget about the Lord and forsake him for the
things of this world. In the pursuit of our own desires, the Lord then often
allows us to fall into trouble or allows hardship to come upon us, that we
might be brought to see what we’ve done. He works repentance in our hearts that
we might call upon his name in faith.
6.
So, we see that even the bad things
in our lives God works for our good. He lets the judgment of the Law come upon
us sometimes, not only through his Word, but even in events, in order that we
might be brought to see our need for the Gospel and for Christ the Savior. He
works repentance in us with his left hand so that with his right hand he might
pour out his eternal blessings of forgiveness and life upon us. It’s written in
Proverbs 3: “My son, do not despise the Lord’s discipline or be weary of his
reproof, for the Lord reproves him whom he loves, as a father the son in whom
he delights” (Prov 3:11–12).
7.
And that’s where Israel, at least a
few penitent Israelites, are in our text. The Angel of the Lord comes to
Manoah and his wife. Manoah’s wife up to this point had been barren and unable
to have children. But, the Angel of the Lord now declares to her, “You
shall conceive and bear a son . . . he shall begin to save Israel
from the hand of the Philistines” (v 5). The Angel of the Lord
announces that through divine intervention, her womb will be opened and she
will give birth to a son who will become the judge and the champion of God’s
people.
8.
This Angel of the Lord isn’t
an ordinary created being, not an angel that God created on one of those first
six days, like the angel Gabriel or the angel Michael or that multitude of the
heavenly host that will sing on Jesus’ birthday. This is an eternal and divine
Being. Angel literally means “messenger”; we might even
translate it as “Word,” as in Jn 1:1, “In the beginning was the Word,
and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” This is the Messenger of
the Lord, the Word of the Father, the Second Person of the Holy Trinity, equal
with the Father and the Holy Spirit. The Angel of the Lord is Jesus, the
Son of God, before he was born among us and became man. This is the one all
those created angels will sing about! Here the Son of God has comes down to man
to announce a miraculous birth through which God the Father would deliver his
people, just as centuries later the Son of God himself would be miraculously
born to bring eternal deliverance to his people. So the Angel of the Lord will send a
deliverer for Israel, Samson. But see how he reveals himself also as the one
who will himself deliver us.
9.
First of all, you will notice that
when the Angel of the Lord came to Manoah’s wife with the message that
she would have a son, she believed the Word of the Lord, even as Mary believed
when God told her that she would give birth to the Messiah. Both of those women
had good reason to question God’s message. One had been unable to conceive for
years and years. The other was a virgin. And yet they both were given to accept
the message in faith, as Mary said, “Let it be to me according to your Word”
(Lk 1:38).
10.
The Angel of the Lord then
appeared to Manoah himself, just as God also came to Joseph after he found out
that Mary was pregnant. God spoke to Joseph in a dream that what was conceived
in her was of the Holy Spirit. So also, the Son of God comes to Manoah to
declare to him the truth of what his wife had said and how their son should be
raised.
11.
Specifically, Samson was to be
raised as a Nazirite. Nazirite means “set apart” or “dedicated”
to the Lord. Being a Nazirite involved never drinking wine and never
cutting one’s hair. But the larger point of being a Nazirite was that
you were separated out as holy to the Lord for devotion to his work. Isn’t that
precisely also a description of our Lord Jesus? He was set apart by the
heavenly Father from the very moment of his conception, dedicated for the work
of redeeming his people from their sin and delivering them from the power of
the devil. The Word of the Lord came to Mary: “the child to be born will be
called holy—the Son of God” (Lk 1:35). Jesus, true God and true man, was
and is indeed holy, without sin, set apart, in order that he might make us holy.
12.
Manoah asked the Angel of the
Lord to stay so that he might prepare a goat for him to eat. For Manoah
didn’t yet fully grasp in whose presence he was standing. The Angel of the
Lord said that he wouldn’t eat Manoah’s food. Instead, he directed him to
offer a burnt offering to the Lord. Then Manoah asked him, “What is your
name, so that, when your words come true, we may honor you?” (v 17). And
the Son of God answers, “Why do you ask my name, seeing it is wonderful?”
(v 18). His name, you see, like his face, was awesome and beyond human comprehension.
His is the name that is above every name, a name that wasn’t yet to be revealed
but would later be made known as Jesus, the one who saves his people from their
sins. His name is indeed Wonderful, as it is written, “To us a child is
born, to us a son is given . . . and his name shall be called
Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace” (Is
9:6).
13.
Manoah did offer a sacrifice to the
Lord. And then the one whose name is Wonderful did a wondrous thing. He
ascended in the flame of the sacrifice on the altar out of their sight! This
reveals to us the purpose of Christ’s coming and his birth. He descends to
earth as one of us in order to offer himself up in sacrifice. He comes down to
bring deliverance and salvation to his people so that through his sacrifice we
might arise with him to new and everlasting life. Remember that Samson,
the child of Manoah and his wife, would win his greatest victory over the
Philistines in his death. He who had been captured would cause the building to
collapse on himself and all the Philistines who were gathered there. So also,
Christ won the ultimate victory over our enemies in his death. By his
sacrifice, he conquered sin and Satan and the grave.
14.
When the Angel of the Lord
ascended in the flame, Manoah and his wife finally recognized who had been in
their presence. Manoah said, “We shall surely die, for we have seen God”
(v 22). They rightly believed that sinful people can’t stand in the presence of
a holy God and live. But it is written in Jn 3:17, “God did not send his Son
into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved
through him.” Jesus came at Bethlehem so that sinful man might be able to
stand before God and live. That is the message of Christmas. Christ, being both
God and man, came to be the bridge to bring God and man back together. In him,
God and sinners are reconciled. In Jesus, we see God and live forever. Let us, then, during this Advent season, look
to Jesus as our Samson. Let us with repentant hearts hope in him who is born to
be our eternal Deliverer and Savior. Amen.
Now the peace of God that passes all understanding guard your hearts
and minds in Christ Jesus until life everlasting. Amen.
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