His Name Is Wonderful :: Judges 13:2-24

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It’s a recurring theme for God’s people, particularly in the Book of Judges. 

The Sons of Israel repeatedly forsake the Lord to run after another god ... a new god ... a god of their imagination. The Sons of Israel bow to these gods ... thinking these gods will give them more ... more of what they want when they want how they want. The book of Judges is filled with outrageous and horrifying idolatry.

In response, God burns with anger against the people, and he allows their enemies to overtake them. Then ... in their distress ... the people cry out to the Lord for help. The Lord raises up a judge to rescue them, to deliver them, to free them from the power of their enemies. The land is given rest, and everything goes well for a period of time. But then the judge dies, the people become spiritually complacent and apathetic, and they again forsake the Lord. So the whole process starts all over again.

That’s the situation at the time of our text, the story of the birth of Samson. The times are not good. Israel has wandered away from God ... AGAIN. 

But the story of Samson’s birth gives us the Advent reminder that even though we are wayward children ... children who seek out another idol ... God not only disciplines us but sends someone to rescue us from our enemies ... Our Lord 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 NOT ONLY SENDS THE DELIVERER WHO RESCUES GOD’S WAYWARD CHILDREN ... HE IS THE DELIVERER

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.

I.

Times are not good for the sons of Israel. Once again they’ve done evil in the sight of the Lord, and the Lord has delivered them into the hands of their enemies ... this time, the Philistines for forty years.

We are not unlike the children of Israel. Like the Israelites before us, we too become complacent when things are going very well. Then we too forget the Lord and begin pursuing the things of this world ... our own comfort. We forget the Lord for our own tradition. We forget the Lord for our own desires. We forget the Lord. ... And then trouble and hardship come upon us.

But God never forgets us. Like he did for the sons of Israel, he preserves within us a remnant. He brings us back into remembrance. He works penitence in our hearts so that we might call upon his name in faith. Sometimes, he lets the judgment of the Law come upon us, not only through his Word ... but in our own lives ... 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 blessings of forgiveness and life upon us ... just as Paul says in 1 Corinthians 11[:32]: We are instructed so that we may not be condemned with the world.

And that’s where at least a few penitent Israelites are in our text. 

The Angel of the Lord is not an ordinary created being. The Angel of the Lord is not like Gabriel or Michael or cherubim or seraphim or the multitude of the heavenly host that will sing on the day Jesus was born. Here, the Angel of the Lord is the Second Person of the Trinity. 

The word angel literally means “messenger” or “announcer” or the Word ... You know like in John 1:1, which reads, In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was [the benefit of] God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning, the benefit of God. This is the message of the Messenger of the Lord, the Word of the Father, through whom all things happened (Jn 1:3). 

The Angel of the Lord is the Son of God before he was born among us and became man. The Angel of the Lord is Divine. He is the one all of the created angels sing about! He has come to man to announce the Word of a miraculous birth through which God the Father would deliver his people, just as centuries later the Son of God himself would miraculously be born to bring eternal deliverance to all people. The Angel of the Lord has come to announce he is sending a deliverer for Israel ... Samson. 

II. Now see how he reveals himself also as the one who will deliver us.

First of all, you will notice that ... when the Angel of the Lord came to Manoah’s wife with the Word 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. 

Manoah’s wife and Mary both had good reason to question God’s Word we heard Sarah do last week in Genesis 18. Manoah’s wife \ had been unable to conceive for many years. Mary was a virgin. But Manoah’s wife and Mary both were given to accept the Word of God in faith, as Mary said, Let it be to me according to your Word (Lk 1:38).

The Angel of the Lord then appeared to Manoah himself, just as God also came to Joseph after he learned that Mary was pregnant. God spoke to Joseph in a dream that what was conceived in Mary 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. 

Specifically, Samson was to be raised as a Nazirite. The word 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 Naziritie was that you were separated out as holy to the Lord for devotion to his work. 

Is that not precisely also a description of our Lord Jesus? 

He was “set apart” by the heavenly Father from the very moment of his conception in the womb, dedicated to 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 just as he is holy, in order that he might set us apart for the work he has prepared for us to do.

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 would not eat Manoah’s food. Rather, 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 countenance ... was awesome and beyond human comprehension. His is the name that is above every name ... a name that was not 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 in Isaiah, To us a child is born; to us a son is given ... and his name will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace (Is 9:6). 

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 go up with him into 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. 

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 will surely die, for we have seen God (v 22). They rightly believed that sinful people cannot stand in the presence of a holy God and live. But as we later learn in John 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. 

Brothers and sisters in Christ, Jesus came at Bethlehem so that sinful man might be able to stand before God and live. This is the message of Christmas. Christ, being both God and man, came to bridge the chasm that separates God and man. In Christ, God and sinners are reconciled. In Christ, we see God and live forever.

Let us, then, during this Advent season, look to Christ as our Samson. Let us with penitent hearts hope in him who is to be born to be our eternal Deliver and Savior. Let us receive him in his means of grace ... Word and sacrament ... now and forever proclaiming the Wonderful Good News of God with us ... In Jesus’ name, Amen.

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