The Final Resting Place

For any cycle to stop, someone has to take the final blow, the last hit. In the story of Samson there is an endless cycle of lust and revenge. Samson gets mad at the Philistines. They demand to know the answer to the riddle. They mess with his wife. He gets made and leaves. Her father gives the bride away to someone else. Samson gets mad and burns the field. They get mad and try to kill him. And so on. The hits just keep on coming until everyone is destroyed.

Again - a cycle will never end until someone takes the last hit - or better yet, lets the last hit rest on them. There is only one thing that has fully accomplished this: The Cross.

The cross is the final resting place for revenge. That’s why it’s such a violent scene, because all of the violence of revenge comes to a screaming halt upon it. The ‘hits’ end there and the cycle is broken. Christ takes the final blow and does not retaliate. The last hit rests upon His broken and bloodied body. And by taking the final blow, He disarms Satan, who lives off violence and revenge.

This frees us and allows us to take the ‘hit’ from the brother and end the cycle of violence on earth. We do not have to return blow for blow. We can turn the other cheek and walk the second mile - and to make it even more amazing, we can do this with pure intentions: the redemption of our enemy.

I do not have to return the blow. I can become a resting place.