LOVE RECONSIDERED
How do you know that God loves you? Right now, in the middle of the
craziness of Christmas preparations, how do you really know that God loves
you?
How we answer that question will depend on how we understand love.
Whilst there are glorious exceptions, generally our culture defines love as
feeling and emotion. We feel it in our fingers, feel it in our toes, as Billy
Mack’s spoof song ‘Christmas Is All Around’ put it. We ‘fall in love’ and ‘fall
out of love’.
But today, we’re going to see that God’s love is a very different kind of
love...
BOAZ MEANS BUSINESS
As the day-after-the-night-before dawns, we now find ourselves at
Bethlehem’s ‘town gate’ (v. 1), where legal decisions were made. This is a very
different scene from yesterday! The intimate language of ‘lying down’ (3:4,
7–8) has been replaced with the formal language of ‘sitting down’ (vv. 1–2).
But we’re here because of love. Boaz won’t rest until Naomi and Ruth’s
predicament is resolved (3:18).
And, would you believe it, who should Boaz spot but Naomi’s closer
relative, the potential ‘guardian-redeemer’. The ‘just as’ phrasing here (v. 1) is
the same as when Ruth found herself in Boaz’s field (‘as it turned out’, 2:3).
The same sovereign God is working behind the scenes.
Boaz means business, so he directs the relative to sit down (v. 1) and
quickly gathers ten elders to act as necessary witnesses (v. 2).
A LEGAL REDEMPTION
What’s this scene all about? Every Israelite family had a plot of land that
would be passed down the generations as a marker of their share in God’s
promises. But when Naomi and her husband left Bethlehem, probably either
they sold their family land or someone else took it over.
Now that Naomi is back in the promised land, it seems she can only get
the family land back if someone redeems it on her behalf, in turn providing
for her as well. As we’ve seen, the responsibility to do this lay upon the
closest relative, and so Boaz addresses this unnamed man: ‘If you will
redeem it, do so’ (v. 4).
MR RIGHT?
Not for the first time in Ruth, we hold our breath! But then the man speaks:
‘I will redeem it’ (v. 4).
On paper, it probably seemed a good deal. Naomi’s land would generate
extra income, most likely more than covering the cost of looking after an
ageing woman. Yet it’s a heart-in-the-mouth moment for us. Of course, we
wanted Boaz to be the guardian-redeemer!
LEGAL LOVE?
We’ll have to wait to see what happens next, but take a moment to reflect on
this ‘business scene’. Maybe this ‘legal stuff’ seems a bit technical? But in the
Bible, God’s covenant love is bound up with a legal commitment. It’s not just
an emotion or a momentary feeling. It’s the difference between ‘I’ll do it
right now, whilst I feel like it’ and ‘I will do it, because I’ve promised’. To be
sure of God’s love when circumstances are hard, we need a Redeemer who
has signed on the dotted line.
REFLECTION
The apostle Paul says this: 'God sent his Son born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those under the law, that we might receive adoption to sonship' (Galatians 4:5). Jesus' love doesn't depend on our feelings. He gives his life to ensure an unchangeable legal commitment. Give thanks for a Redeemer who did everything necessary to redeem us.
Listen to 'Lift Your Eyes (Come Adore)' by Sheffield Collective.
Discipleship
Discipleship