Daily Lesson for August 11, 2016

Today's Daily Lesson comes from Judged chapter 14 verses 5 through 14b:

5 Then Samson went down with his father and mother to Timnah, and they came to the vineyards of Timnah. And behold, a young lion came toward him roaring. 6 Then the Spirit of the Lord rushed upon him, and although he had nothing in his hand, he tore the lion in pieces as one tears a young goat. But he did not tell his father or his mother what he had done. 7 Then he went down and talked with the woman, and she was right in Samson's eyes.
8 After some days he returned to take her. And he turned aside to see the carcass of the lion, and behold, there was a swarm of bees in the body of the lion, and honey. 9 He scraped it out into his hands and went on, eating as he went. And he came to his father and mother and gave some to them, and they ate. But he did not tell them that he had scraped the honey from the carcass of the lion.
10 His father went down to the woman, and Samson prepared a feast there, for so the young men used to do. 11 As soon as the people saw him, they brought thirty companions to be with him. 12 And Samson said to them, “Let me now put a riddle to you. If you can tell me what it is, within the seven days of the feast, and find it out, then I will give you thirty linen garments and thirty changes of clothes, 13 but if you cannot tell me what it is, then you shall give me thirty linen garments and thirty changes of clothes.” And they said to him, “Put your riddle, that we may hear it.” 14 And he said to them,
“Out of the eater came something to eat.
Out of the strong came something sweet.”

Now here is just a very weird story.  Samson kills a lion with his bare hands, and then laps up honey from its carcass, all the while chasing after a woman his parents do not approve of.  It is a weird story. It is also a deeply mythological story -- meaning it is a story (in Greek "mythos") that tells something deep and true about our humanity.

Here is something deep and true: the world's sweetest honey can only be found in the carcass of a slayed lion.  In other words, it is only through struggle and fight and grappling with lions in life (including the lion of our family of origin) that we ever to find any sense of deep satisfaction, purpose, or real growth in life. Like Samson's life, sometimes our own lives are ugly and even shameful. Yet, there is honey in the carcass of the lion. In other words, there is the sweetness of God's grace after all the hideousness of the struggle.

There is a letter from John Newton, the slave ship captain turned clergyman who penned they hymn, "Amazing Grace", written in his old age to a young minister just coming up.  It is a deeply powerful word about the sometimes ugly struggle of being human and the surprise of God's amazing grace through it all.  Here is an excerpt:

"The doctrinal parts of our ministry are to some degree familiar to us. But that which gives a savour, fullness, energy, and variety to our ministrations is the result of many painful conflicts and exercises which we must pass through in our private walk, combined with the proofs we receive of as we along, of the LORD's compassion and mercies under all the perverseness we are conscious of in ourselves. It is only in this school of experience that we can acquire the tongue of the learned, and know how to speak a word in season to those who are weary.  Thus, by His wise arrangement: 'Out of the eater cometh meat.'"

Out of the lion of life comes the honey; and in the struggle we find God's grace.