Random Thoughts

I have just read something which left me a trifle disturbed. Each day, I am in receipt of a page from Grace Gems. Ordinarily, the theology of these posts is beyond reproach. Today, Independence Day, 2007, while the nation reels under the hand of a despotic, lying murderer, who abducts and tortures private citizens to under the dubious guise of "national security" to assuage his hubris, I read on Grace Gems, that Samson's strength lay in his hair. They were quoting from an older authority, of course. That does not excuse the error of the quote.
There are a few mistaken perceptions which many believers draw from Scripture, erroneous as they are!
This one about Samson is just one of them. Anyone who has read Scripture with an eye to learning what the Most High has to teach us, will remember first, that Samson's strength lay NOT in his hair...it lay in his fidelity to his vow, the vow of the Nazarite. When Samson succumbed to his lust for Delilah, the Philistine woman, then it is that he lost his strength.
Yes, she sheared off his hair (and under the vow of the Nazarite, one does not cut one's hair nor drink the juice of the grape - wine?) for the duration of the vow. The hair is the outward symbol of the inward grace of the vow, the being set aside for God's particular purpose.
Seen in a liturgical light: Samson's hair is not unlike the water of Baptism, the sacramental elements (the Bread and Wine) of Communion, the consecrated oils of ordination and anointing. These are outward symbols of inward and abiding grace!
The Ancient of Days is NEVER so superficial as to reside HIS grace in the thing itself. HE resides HIS grace in HIMSELF, but uses the symbol as a reminder of the Promise. It is the rainbow after a storm, by which we know HE will never again purge Creation of evil by flood! A simple, enduring symbol of a Promise.