Two Chavezes and a Savior

In case you missed it, Google set off a little tempest this week. Apparently they do a little doodle thing on their front page from time to time, and this time they chose to celebrate Easter by honoring Cesar Chavez. Um, OK, whatever. I'm not sure why anyone's all that upset that an anti-Christian organization like Google failed to feign respect for Jesus. If they're going to foment rebellion against the Creator 364 days a year, might as well be indifferent on day 365. It's incredibly sad that the leadership at Google is so intent on rebellion, but I'm not going to be upset that they didn't fake caring for one day.

But it is worth pondering what they chose to honor instead of the Lord of Lords. Google is pretty solidly lefty, so it's no surprise they celebrated one of the left's icons. Now, I'm not an expert on Chavez - for years I thought people talking about him meant boxer Julio Cesar Chavez - but some research yields the following about this great savior:
1) Like any good leftist, he believed and taught the solution to any problem was organized effort, whether as a union or (ultimately) the all-powerful omnibenevolent State. No matter what the issue, just rally enough people behind it, and you can overcome it. Well, except for...
2) He's dead.

What really got my attention, though, were the tweets and headlines about "Google honors Chavez on Easter". My first thought was not Cesar, but recently-deceased Venezuelan dictator Hugo. For those who have already forgotten, Hugo Chavez was about as rich and powerful a man as the world has ever seen. Within his own nation, nobody could ever tell him "No!", and he was a major player internationally as well. And as he was dying, his desperate last words were:

I don't want to die. Please don't let me die.

Thanks, Google, for unintentionally bringing that contrast to mind on Easter. In the face of death, the all-powerful sovereign Chavez was reduced to desperate begging. All his power and wealth and authority were worthless when death came calling, as it will for all men. But Jesus, enduring a death he did not deserve, faced it triumphantly - It is finished! - and on the third day walked out of the grave, never to face death again.

Both Chavezes died, and all who hope in them, or other 'saviors' like them, have no hope in the face of death. Those of us who hope in Christ are free from slavery through fear of death.

Death is swallowed up in victory. O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting? The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ!

Samson and Biologos

I recently was reading through the story of Samson again, and one incident in particular stood out this time. I've always found this vignette a little puzzling:

Samson went to Gaza, and there he saw a prostitute, and he went in to her. The Gazites were told, "Samson has come here." And they surrounded the place and set an ambush for him all night at the gate of the city. They kept quiet all night, saying, "Let us wait till the light of the morning; then we will kill him." But Samson lay till midnight, and at midnight he arose and took hold of the doors of the gate of the city and the two posts, and pulled them up, bar and all, and put them on his shoulders and carried them to the top of the hill that is in front of Hebron. (Judges 16:1-3)

What exactly is the point of this story? To illustrate Samson's great strength? Check that - supernatural strength. The gates of a walled city of that era would have weighed many tons. To rip them out of the wall and carry them miles away and up a hill - I don't know that any modern construction equipment could even do that! So if the author wanted to describe God's empowering of Samson, and tearing a lion apart by hand or single-handedly killing 1000 Philistines with a jawbone didn't get the point across, this would certainly hammer it home.

But there's much more than that going on here. More than just bragging about his God-given strength, this passage is a lament over how pointlessly he squandered it. Samson's God-ordained, angelically-announced mission in life was to kill Philistines, and as this an many other incidents from his life show, God had thoroughly equipped him for the task. He was given physical strength like nothing the world has seen before or since, and he should have been using it to fight for God's people and against God's enemies. Instead, we see over and over again throughout Samson's life that he wanted to be buddies with the Philistines, wanted to marry one even. Instead of fighting them, he was constantly trying to win their approval.

Consider the absurdity of this situation. Samson went to Gaza, one of the chief Philistine cities. To fight? No, to shack up with a Philistine prostitute. When the Philistines figure out he's there, they send a bunch of soldiers to set an ambush for him. When Samson wakes up, what does he do? Go out and kill them? No, he uses his supernatural strength to do tricks for them! As he rips the gates out of the city wall, it's hard not to picture him acting like a 5th grader trying to impress the cool high school kids. "Hey guys, look at what I can do! Please like me!" Instead of using his divine gift to fight God's enemies, he uses it to try to win their approval.

And for some reason, it seems awfully similar to what they're doing at Biologos.