Meeting Boaz at the Threshing Floor – Part 2

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Picking up where we left the story of Boaz and Ruth, today we fast forward to the end of the harvest. One night as they are sitting in their home Naomi comes to Ruth with some very interesting advice. Naomi knows that the men will be partying that night because their work is done. They have received their wages, maybe even with a little bonus because of the good harvest and they will hold a celebration down at the threshing floor. So, Naomi tells Ruth to clean up, put on her best dress and don’t forget the perfume. Like any good Jewish mother, she is determined to leave nothing to chance! Then she sends Ruth out just as it is getting dark to the threshing floor and tells her to wait till after the men to finish eating and drinking and are finally lying down to sleep.

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Following her instructions exactly, Ruth, tiptoes in between the stacks of grain to the spot where she finds Boaz is sleeping. Now before you think she is about to do something sketchy; the Bible makes it clear that all she does is lie down at his feet. This was no indecent proposal which Ruth has in mind, instead, it was a custom, rooted in the culture of Ancient Israel> She has come to appeal to Boaz to redeem her. Now, he is eligible to do this, not just because he was a rich single guy, but because he was a family member to Naomi’s late-husband. From that culture’s point of view, Boaz’s right to redeem most importantly was about, buying the land and home of Naomi. Of course, we know from the story that Boaz cared a whole lot more about marrying Ruth than any fields! And just like Boaz, Jesus waits for us. Though He has loved us enough to have given His life to pay for our redemption, He will never stride down to our house and demand our allegiance. Instead, Christ waits to hear our proposal, though long ago He has determined what His answer will be. And when we come and lie at His feet, He gives us a promise that He will redeem and tells us it is our turn to rest until morning. Then just like Boaz, Jesus is on the move! He leaves us with His promise of redemption, and we can trust that He will not stop until finally and forever we are His!

Meeting Boaz at the Threshing Floor – Part 1

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Remain tonight, and in the morning, if he will redeem you, good; let him do it. But if he is not willing to redeem you, then, as the Lord lives, I will redeem you. Lie down until the morning.” So, she lay at his feet until the morning but arose before one could recognize another. And he said, “Let it not be known that the woman came to the threshing floor.” Ruth 3:13-14 ESV

The book of Ruth is both one of the most romantic stories of the Bible as well as a beautiful picture of our relationship to Jesus Christ. It begins with a lovely, yet poor widow named Ruth. Ruth had chosen the difficult life of an immigrant, in order to care for her aging mother-in-law Naomi, and in the process had come to trust in Naomi’s God. Together they returned to the long-abandoned family home in the village of Bethlehem. With little savings, no promised help and no definite plans they face a desperate situation. So, on day one, Ruth goes to farm nearby where the men are harvesting barley. Being the accepted custom of the day to provide for the poor, Ruth quietly trails behind the workers gathering any heads of grain that had been missed. Suddenly onto the scene strides the wealthy (and single!) farmer named Boaz. Immediately, Boaz catches sight of Ruth and he not only likes what he sees, but he admires the loyalty and grit of this young lady of whom he has already heard. Of course, if this were a Hallmark movie there would be lots of drama, romantic mood music, and a bad guy or two lurking on the horizon. But the Bible paints a far simpler picture for us of Boaz’s growing love for Ruth, as he waits to see what God will do. Now me, if I were Boaz, I would have marched down to the cottage where Ruth and Naomi lived, knocked on the door and asked Ruth out for a date! But not Boaz, and not Jesus either. Yes, Jesus loves me, and the Bible tells me so. But Jesus also waits for us to come, just as Boaz waited…. So, stay tuned tomorrow to see how God mysteriously unfolds this amazing love story!

In Praise of Cursive Writing

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Back in the days of quill pens and ink wells, Charles Dickens began his writing career first as a court stenographer and then a reporter on the daily activities of the English Parliament. Maybe the interesting array of the names of his characters arose from the parade of plaintiffs and lawyers he met while scratching away with his pen. In our age of word processing, when most of us barely recall typing, much less cursive writing, it is hard to imagine Leo Tolstoy penning over 1,000 pages of War and Peace or Shakespeare churning out 38 plays and hundreds of sonnets.

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And yet, we call ourselves writers, with a winsome nod to the true writing of a past filled with ink splotched pages and crossed out lines. But there in that disorderly process, there lived a richness of creativity with circles and arrows, side-by-side with doodles and fanciful drawings in our margins. It was a pace when the work of writing dragged on far slower than racing minds, and allowed us to slowly consider our words as they scrawled out on the page. Without the ability to click “send” or “publish now” we possessed an extended moment between imagination and reality and a slower time that worked as a wonderful assistant. It was a time that God granted a holy pasue, so that we could sift through our thoughts and remember that our words have power.

Before God said, “Let there be light!” He had had an eternity to consider what he would do in creation and the exact order in which He would do it in. So, when He spoke those first words – immediately it was so! He has called us to be writers, in His likeness though we are deeply flawed often filled with a mixture of confusion and faith. So, we should be thankful for interruptions, for scratched out lines and the constructive criticisms of friends. In that space between our words, we can reconsider our message and imagine whether others will be encouraged or insulted, stirred to action or lulled to sleep and more importantly we can listen. For if our writing is to be His message for others, then we must hear the whispers of the Word who became flesh at Bethlehem and wonder what He would have us to write today!