Rule in the Midst of your Enemies

 Image: Samson’s Riddle, Gustave Doré

In memory of my Grandmother.

Sermon text: Psalm 110:1-2

1The Lord said unto my Lord, Sit thou at my right hand, until I make thine enemies thy footstool.

2 The Lord shall send the rod of thy strength out of Zion: rule thou in the midst of thine enemies.

I am sure many here are familiar with the ancient creation story found in Genesis. God created a world and saw that it was very good. God also created mankind and told him to rule over the fish of the sea, the birds of the air, and the beasts of the land. God told man to take dominion or rule over all the earth and subdue it. Then God plants a garden in the east and puts the man whom he formed within it. The garden was beautiful, full of trees to eat from, rivers with gold, and everything conducive for life. It was paradise. From this place, mankind fell and would be banished. The first of mankind’s many exiles.

But why did God allow man to fall? Sometimes we imagine the tree of the knowledge of good and evil as a kind of trap. Maybe it was a setup. Some Jewish sages suggest that outside of the garden lies another lower world, a world filled with pain and toil, sickness and sin, darkness and even evil. The man who was made in the image of God could never really achieve the glory and responsibility he was destined for in paradise, so God allowed him to enter a world that would meet him with resistance. The ground would bear thorns and briers, and we would cultivate it with sweat and toil. Women would bear children in pain, and that which tempted us in paradise would now become our constant enemy. Man would grow in a garden filled with weeds.

Life would be hard. Everything would work against us. Perhaps if we didn’t have a distant memory of a better place like Eden, we would give up on a better life, and God put us there first so we wouldn’t lose hope in this, our world of exile.

We failed to rule in paradise, but to be truly made in God’s image is to rule over the chaos.

My nanny’s life was hard. This world met her with resistance. She had little education as a child, her husband left her alone to raise 4 children, she lost siblings, and bore the grief of losing a daughter. She took responsibility and raised a great-grandchild as her very own in her old age while she battled cancer, sickness, and enemies. In all this, she never became a victim of her enemies but lived a life of rulership in their very midst. For every trouble, she found the strength of Samson. Because in this troubled world, we are never alone. We have a rod of strength. Nanny’s rod of strength was Christ, and Him crucified. With this rod, she ruled in the midst of her enemies. The destruction of our enemies is God’s business, but we shall rule them whilst surrounded by them, with this rod of strength.

 With this rod, there is no surrendering in the midst of your enemies, no retreat in the midst of your enemies, not even just surviving in the midst of your enemies, but “rule thou in the midst of your enemies!”

Christ and Him crucified is our rod of strength! The thorn of our curse he wore as a crown of life, the tree of our death became the tree of our life, the spear that pierced his side became the staff of strength that guides his tribe, turning the waters of humanity’s rebellion into rivers filled with gold. Though Jerusalem betrayed Jesus like Delilah betrayed Samson, Christ still gave himself into her hands and from the adulteress the last Adam formed his spotless bride, a new Jerusalem, the mother of us all. This is Zion’s redeemer, the rod of strength, Christ and him crucified.

‘Out of the eater, something to eat, out of the bitter, comes something sweet.’

Like the lion that tried to kill Samson, death may be hard to look upon or deal with. But if we retrace our steps and look within its mess, we may find sweetness and honey there.

As Samson gave himself into the hands of his betrayers, so Christ gave himself into the hands of his enemies, that he might lift the gates of death upon his back; this was his cross. As Samson stood between the pillars of his enemies so Christ was raised between heaven and earth, and in his death he brought all into his own death, executing kings in the day of his wrath, that a new heaven and new earth might be raised through him, our rod of strength, the head of all things, our last Adam, our redeemer, our life giving spirit. Samson’s enemies may have taken his eyes, but none is so blind like Gods servant (Is 42:19), who darkened all heaven and earth as he tore down every principality and power on which the old creation hung, for all was from him, and all through him, and to Him, and the whole cosmos darkened and died with him.

As his eyes dimmed, the sun lost its light, and the moon did not shine.

The serpent promised the first Adam that his eyes would be open to good and evil; the last Adam shut those eyes and shut that system, and opened our eyes to the greater world: the kingdom of God, where God is all and in all. When he rose from the grave, he made this fallen world his footstool, sat at the right hand of the Father, and now the Lord says unto us, rule thou in the midst of your enemies through the weapons of my warfare!

How do we rule in the midst of our enemies?

Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good. Give to those who ask you, and do not turn away from him who wants to borrow. Share your bread with the hungry, even when you can barely feed yourself. Bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you, and use you spitefully.

Forgive those who say sorry, up to 70×7 a day. If your enemy is hungry, give them something to eat; if thirsty, something to drink. Love your enemies, so shall you rule in their midst.

On that last day, at the resurrection of the dead, our last enemy, death, shall be destroyed, and shall forever be under our feet. In this world, you shall have tribulation, but be of good cheer; Jesus Christ has overcome the world.

In Nanny’s last two weeks in this world, she lost one of her toes, perhaps a sign and a battle scar, reminding us that she did indeed live surrounded by her enemies, and that ancient serpent did bite hard. Yet one toe cannot compare to the seed she left us, through whom death shall be destroyed and the head of the enemy crushed. For Christ is a rod that blossoms, and the root becomes the offspring. This is how it can be said: “The Lord said to my Lord, sit at my right hand, until I make your enemies your footstool.”