Changing Barrenness into Fertility; Changing Bondage into Freedom

In the first reading  of today’s liturgy, Judges 13: 2-7, we meet “a certain man from Zorah, of the clan of the Danites, whose name was Manoah.”  Manoah  is visited by an angel and told that, though he and his wife are barren and have no children, “yet you will conceive and bear a son.” This son, Samson, consecrated in the womb and a servant of the Lord until his death, was the last judge of the Israelites.  He ruled the Israelites through twenty years of conflict with the Philistines. The Israelites lost several battles with their enemies, fellow human beings  who  engaged in fierce wars to secure material things, properties, fertile lands, livestock and beautiful women , after whom men lusted and sought to possess as  cherished sexual objects. Judges 14-16 show us the emptiness and pain of a lust-filled life.  

It is not Samson, however, who saves the Israelites or us. Being loosed from Satan’s snares, being freed from sin in all its forms, both in the O.T. and in the N.T., up to this very day,  will only happen for us through  the intervention of  God Incarnate,  whose birth as a human person we are about to celebrate.

  Though God certainly was/is concerned about human beings reducing life itself to the acquisition of material riches above all else, worshiping false gods as the Israelites did in foreign lands,  sinking as low as using women and children as sex objects and  slaves, God is equaling  concerned about us losing eternal life to the jealousy of Satan, who sets snares to deprive us of eternal life.   So God sent His only begotten Son to save us from the one we should fear above all else: Satan himself and his fallen angels, who will do whatever it takes to keep us from becoming  citizens of heaven.

The Israelites fell into traps that the Philistines set up for them, worshiping many false gods. The world of today also offers false gods.

Am I looking to the one true God for salvation? Do I call upon God  for help  or am I using a god substitutes to save me from that which makes my life miserable right now?