Anticipating the Promised Son: The Story of Naomi (Ruth 4:11-17)

The Looney Tunes “mirage”

Water… water… How many of you grew up watching Looney Tunes on Saturday morning? One of the tropes quite frequently utilized by the cartoon writers is that of being in a desert without water. The "mirage" becomes part of the cartoon play, meant to make us laugh. Whether it's Bugs Bunny, Wile E. Coyote, Daffy Duck, or Yosemite Sam, we empathize with the need for water in a hot and dry desert. We also empathize with the mirage. The cartoon writers use the mirage trope or idiom as a mechanism to make us laugh… for 5 minutes of hilarity. But we would not laugh if there wasn't something inside of us that resonates with the basic need for refreshment when there is no water to be found, especially in deep south Texas.

We've all experienced this. What is it that sustains your faith? What do you do to keep looking at Jesus? When the life is at its worst and your husband is oblivious? Worse… when your soul feels dry? Have you ever had those times in your life when God seemed distant? On the outside you are the warrior, the champion, the example to be followed, the testimony to good Christian living, and inside you are the prodigal, a wandering heart chasing mirages, and slowly finding yourself internally destitute and dry and cut off from Jesus.

We have someone in our lesson today who is all those things. She has spent her life chasing mirages, and it has come up bitter and empty. Without hope, until the unexpected and unexplainable happens.

Famine: From Bethlehem to Moab

The book of Ruth is considered "adorable", a historic "love story." Choices of destiny. It also has all of the earmarks of a great novella: the tragedy, the dilemma, a champion who saves the day, and the boy gets the girl (or is it the other way around here?). Epic love born in adversity. Make no mistake. This is a great love story. There's a reason why Ruth is a favorite bed time story.

But also make no mistake: this is no typical love story and we must be careful not to impose a Western sense of touchy feely on to the text. There is judgment and heartache and self-righteousness and unbelief and epic unfaithfulness to the covenant.

This story isn’t simply about Boaz and Ruth and they live happily ever after. This story starts off with the camera on another woman, another wife. Her name is Naomi. Naomi and her husband lived during the time of the Judges in the Bible. They live in a small town called Bethlehem. And the time of the judges wasn’t a very good time. There's this rhythm of obedience and disobedience, faith and unbelief. Everyone did what was right in their own eyes. There is a sense of anarchy and apostasy. Life in Canaan was not supposed to be this way. It was not supposed to be a time marked by idolatrous infidelity.

At the time of Naomi, there is famine. This famine has been caused by God because his people stopped believing in him. So Naomi and her husband, Elimilech, leave Israel and go to live in another country that has food. However, this country is Israel’s enemy. Moab. They not go to Moab for food, they stay. They build a home, build a life, put down their roots. They raise kids… two sons… the two sons get married, and life is good. That is, until Naomi’s husband dies. And then both sons die.

Ruth 1:5 “Naomi was left without her two children and without her husband.”

This is serious, serious stuff. In a foreign country living with foreign in-laws, Naomi has no husband and no sons. She has nothing. She is at rock bottom. The pain and anger and depression and bitterness (which comes up later) from losing a husband and two sons in a foreign country is something that resonates with all of us. She probably wonders "was it worth it?" when they left Bethlehem all those years ago. She is as low as she can go as an Israelite. Outside of the land with nothing to show for it. There’s no inheritance in Bethlehem to go back to. Elimilech had sold it all.

This is the horror of barrenness in the Old Covenant. This is why Sarah, and Rebekah, and Rachel and Manoah's wife, and Hannah and Elizabeth are compelling stories and a focal point of the storyline of the Bible. To be barren is to be excluded from a destiny of participation in the covenantal blessings promised to Abraham. You have no husband, you have no heir, you’re too old to have a husband, you’re too old to have an heir, you have no land, you have no inheritance, you have no destiny with God’s people.

The Return

She hears there is food in Bethlehem, the house of bread, so she decides to go back to Bethlehem any way. This "return" is the rhythm of faith beginning to work in the heart of Naomi. Her faith is still weak. But there is a stirring. All of a sudden, there is moment of clarity. Moab brought pain and heartache. God is providing his people again with bounty. Naomi is stirred to relocate her life within the boundaries of God's blessing.

And when she returns, she isn't by herself. She has a daughter-in-law by the name of Ruth, a widow. And Ruth says she’ll go with Naomi.

Ruth 1:16 “Wherever you go, I will go, and wherever you live, I will live; your people will be my people, and your God will be my God.”

The widow Ruth cling to Naomi. Few images speak to saving faith in God as the ultimate provider of all things than the posture of clinging. We see this in Jacob with the wrestling angel… Jacob clinging to the angel upon the point of death desperate to be blessed by the only One who can ever give blessing. Here, Ruth clings to her only hope.

Like Naomi, Ruth faces the impossibility of ever having a husband. But it’s not because she’s too old. She is a Moabite. No one in Israel is going to marry a Moabite. Unlike her husband, no good Israelite would marry an outcast, an enemy, an infidel. There would be no heir for Naomi, because there would be no marriage and no heir for Ruth. Yet in an amazing display of true faith, on Ruth's lips is the grandest of the covenantal formulas of the Old Testament, the covenantal mantra that occurs dozens of times throughout the Old Testament. This statement is Israel's identity. From the very beginning, the covenant has been God’s promise: I will be your God and you will be my people.

God first said it to Abraham and then repeated it again and again: I will be your God and you will be my people. All of Israel's hopes and dreams were bound up in that statement. And here in Ruth it occurs on the lips of a foreigner, who in the face of the impossible, is embracing the core identity of what it means to be "God's people". In fact, she doesn’t simply state the covenantal formula… she personalizes it, she makes it her own: “Your people will be my people. And your God my God.”

God is at work. God's grace is on display. Ruth has been graced by God and is giving grace to Naomi. And God’s grace is at work through the rest of the story. Ruth does meet an Israelite who is willing to marry a Moabitess. With Naomi’s help, she does meet someone who will redeem her and the family inheritance. His name is Boaz, and Boaz is kind and compassionate and everything Ruth needs in a husband redeemer.

At the big town meeting where Boaz is securing the rights of Naomi and Ruth, Boaz says this:

Ruth 4:9-10 “Boaz said to the elders and all the people, “You are witnesses today that I am buying from Naomi everything that belonged to Elimelech, Chilion, and Mahlon. I have also acquired Ruth the Moabitess, Mahlon’s widow, as my wife, to perpetuate the deceased man’s name on his property, so that his name will not disappear among his relatives or from the gate of his hometown. You are witnesses today.”

This is the stuff of greatness. There will be a destiny. There will be a future for Ruth and Naomi’s inheritance after all. And the next thing you see, there’s a wedding.

Ruth 4:13 “Boaz took Ruth and she became his wife.”

That’s the Disney ending right? A great love story. The perfect match. For Ruth, a rags to riches story. She has her prince. Is that all there is? Is this the real story of what is happening?

In the west, it’s easy for us to focus on the story that captures our attention. We love the love story. And it’s easy to see the story of redemption in the actions of Boaz. But if we look really closely at what is happening in this story, the camera really pointed somewhere else, somewhere we don’t expect.

Ruth 4 goes on to tell us from the marriage of Boaz and Ruth comes a child, a son. An heir is born. And here’s the scene as it is described in Ruth 4:

Ruth 4:13-15 “Ruth gave birth to a son. The women said to Naomi, “Blessed be the Lord, who has not left you without a family redeemer today. May his name become well known in Israel. He will renew your life and sustain you in your old age.

Huh? Ruth has a son, and the women are talking to Naomi. It’s quite possible this is a song. And they are not singing around Ruth, they are singing around Naomi. Naomi has been the one who has been redeemed, Naomi is the one who is blessed, Naomi is the one who will be renewed and sustained.

And the women take it one step further:

Ruth 4:16-17 “Naomi took the child, placed him on her lap, and became a mother to him. The neighbor women said, “A son has been born to Naomi.”

Whose son is it? It is Ruth’s son of course, but in the grand narrative of redemption, Naomi is the one who is acting like a mother, and is getting a son. This story ends with the newborn son on the lap of Naomi. That’s shocking. “There is a son born to Ruth?” No. “There is a son born to Naomi.” What provision. What grace. What hope. In chapter 1, Naomi returns completely broken and empty. No husband. No son. No heir. And here in chapter 4 where we would expect a perfect picture of the mother Ruth with her child it is not Ruth the author wants us to see, but Naomi who has been provided a son. The utterly impossible has been accomplished by divine grace through a kinsman redeemer, Boaz, and a foreigner named Ruth who speaks gospel with her lips: Your God will be my God, and your people my people.

and note what the women sing:

Ruth 4:14 “Blessed be the Lord, who has not left you without a family redeemer today.”

There in the lap of Naomi in Ruth 4, lies a son… who is her redeemer. We’re used to thinking of Boaz as the redeemer and he is, but Obed here in the song of the women is the one who is redeeming Naomi. Why? Because it is through Obed that she and her posterity will enjoy all the benefits of being God’s covenant people. It is through Obed King David will be born. Kings and thrones are on her lap as the women sing.

And there is no mistaking the child on her lap being called a redeemer… and where that is pointing. It is from that son’s family line that will come another Son and another Heir who will establish a kingdom whose rule and reign is forever. Obed foreshadows the One who will end all famine, all barrenness. The eventual Son and Heir is Bethlehem’s Emmanuel who will redeem His people from their sins. This One signified by Obed will realize the hopes and dreams of Naomi and Ruth, redeeming a people for Himself and securing an inheritance for them in His salvation and life.

What is it that gives us hope when it feels like we have been cut off from Jesus? When our soul is dry, when our life is a mess, when our wives are not responsive, when our husbands are not listening, when the task of life seems impossible, when the text of the Bible no longer excites us, when we're being tempted to chuck it all and we feel like a hypocrite because nobody knows…. When our internal life is a desert and our salvation doesn't seem real… when Jesus seems to be absent from his church… where is our hope? What's on our lips? Where are our eyes?

Come and sit with these women and gaze at Naomi and Obed and what they anticipate. This is our hope. This is where our eyes must be. We must place our gaze on the offspring of Obed, the Son, the Heir of all things. When life seems impossible, when salvation seems out of reach, when we find we’ve been chasing a mirage: Our hopes and your dreams must be found in the Bread of Life who gives us water to drink and bread to eat. The dwelling place of God is in Jesus. He dwells with us. We are his people. He is our God.

The story of Ruth and Boaz and Naomi and Obed ends this way: there is a Son. There is an Heir. There is a hope. His name is Jesus.

Let’s pray.

Are you parched and thirsty? Are you feeling bitter and forsaken? This Table is for you. Bethlehem is the house of bread. Bethlehem is the home for the Bread of Life. Our redeemer meets us here and feeds us with His life. From his broken body and shed blood. The Bread of Life, the New Obed who redeems his people and gives them life and sustains them. He is here for you and for me. Right now. This moment was anticipated by Obed and Naomi and the women singing their song.