A Thrill of Hope

Text

Ruth 2 ESV

1 Now Naomi had a relative of her husband’s, a worthy man of the clan of Elimelech, whose name was Boaz. 2 And Ruth the Moabite said to Naomi, “Let me go to the field and glean among the ears of grain after him in whose sight I shall find favor.” And she said to her, “Go, my daughter.” 3 So she set out and went and gleaned in the field after the reapers, and she happened to come to the part of the field belonging to Boaz, who was of the clan of Elimelech. 4 And behold, Boaz came from Bethlehem. And he said to the reapers, “The Lord be with you!” And they answered, “The Lord bless you.” 5 Then Boaz said to his young man who was in charge of the reapers, “Whose young woman is this?” 6 And the servant who was in charge of the reapers answered, “She is the young Moabite woman, who came back with Naomi from the country of Moab. 7 She said, ‘Please let me glean and gather among the sheaves after the reapers.’ So she came, and she has continued from early morning until now, except for a short rest.” 8 Then Boaz said to Ruth, “Now, listen, my daughter, do not go to glean in another field or leave this one, but keep close to my young women. 9 Let your eyes be on the field that they are reaping, and go after them. Have I not charged the young men not to touch you? And when you are thirsty, go to the vessels and drink what the young men have drawn.” 10 Then she fell on her face, bowing to the ground, and said to him, “Why have I found favor in your eyes, that you should take notice of me, since I am a foreigner?” 11 But Boaz answered her, “All that you have done for your mother-in-law since the death of your husband has been fully told to me, and how you left your father and mother and your native land and came to a people that you did not know before. 12 The Lord repay you for what you have done, and a full reward be given you by the Lord, the God of Israel, under whose wings you have come to take refuge!” 13 Then she said, “I have found favor in your eyes, my lord, for you have comforted me and spoken kindly to your servant, though I am not one of your servants.” 14 And at mealtime Boaz said to her, “Come here and eat some bread and dip your morsel in the wine.” So she sat beside the reapers, and he passed to her roasted grain. And she ate until she was satisfied, and she had some left over. 15 When she rose to glean, Boaz instructed his young men, saying, “Let her glean even among the sheaves, and do not reproach her. 16 And also pull out some from the bundles for her and leave it for her to glean, and do not rebuke her.” 17 So she gleaned in the field until evening. Then she beat out what she had gleaned, and it was about an ephah of barley. 18 And she took it up and went into the city. Her mother-in-law saw what she had gleaned. She also brought out and gave her what food she had left over after being satisfied. 19 And her mother-in-law said to her, “Where did you glean today? And where have you worked? Blessed be the man who took notice of you.” So she told her mother-in-law with whom she had worked and said, “The man’s name with whom I worked today is Boaz.” 20 And Naomi said to her daughter-in-law, “May he be blessed by the Lord, whose kindness has not forsaken the living or the dead!” Naomi also said to her, “The man is a close relative of ours, one of our redeemers.” 21 And Ruth the Moabite said, “Besides, he said to me, ‘You shall keep close by my young men until they have finished all my harvest.’ ” 22 And Naomi said to Ruth, her daughter-in-law, “It is good, my daughter, that you go out with his young women, lest in another field you be assaulted.” 23 So she kept close to the young women of Boaz, gleaning until the end of the barley and wheat harvests. And she lived with her mother-in-law.

Prayer

Heavenly Father, thank you for this text. First and foremost, we praise you for being the God who redeems the hopeless. When all seems lost, and all that remains seems to be “bitterness,” the fact of the matter is, you, the Living God, are working. And this working is a redeeming working. You take what is used for evil, and show that, in a deeper, truer sense, it was used for good. We pray that, as you speak to us this morning, you would grant us ears to hear. We pray that you would bless and mold your people into Christ, as they worship you. And we thank you for Christ, above all, our kinsman redeemer. In his name we pray, Amen.

Sermon

Intro

You remember how the last chapter ended:

Ruth 1:21–22 ESV

21 I went away full, and the Lord has brought me back empty. Why call me Naomi, when the Lord has testified against me and the Almighty has brought calamity upon me?” 22 So Naomi returned, and Ruth the Moabite her daughter-in-law with her, who returned from the country of Moab. And they came to Bethlehem at the beginning of barley harvest.

At this point in time, it’s like the darkness has settled over the story and only a bitter waiting until death is what remains for Naomi. But in that darkness, a ray of light of shines, and they don’t realize it.

Though Naomi has returned to Bethlehem under what she views as the worst possible circumstances, she is returning home “at the beginning of the barley harvest.”

This was the case in a literal sense—the barley harvest was beginning—but also in a symbolic sense. The difficult period of sowing in Naomi’s life was about to bear fruit. There was going to be an unexpected series of joyful events in the near future.

Verse 1 explains this: there was a relative of her husband’s, whose name was Boaz (v. 1).

At first glance, it might read as if Naomi knew about this, but that is not the case. They had been gone for years; they would have had zero idea of who was where, and owned what. Instead, this is the author helping us understand what is going on.

This is the author tapping us on the shoulder and pointing upwards: “See, God is at work.”

This makes even more sense to us when we realize it was Ruth’s idea to go and glean. Mark explained what this was last week, but the basic idea is that, in order to care for the vulnerable people in their community, crop owners were required by law to leave the outer portions of their crops unharvested.

Ruth says, “Let me go to these fields and work.”

This is where the author zooms in and captures what happens in more detail.

Ruth goes into the farmland, which was owned by multiple different people, and is gleaning what she can. We will learn later that she would clock quite a long shift doing this.

But she didn’t need to work more than a day for everything to change.

Boaz, this family member of Naomi’s late husband, comes from Bethlehem, and notices Ruth.

He checks in with his crew, and begins with first things first: a blessing.

Ruth 2:4 ESV

4 And behold, Boaz came from Bethlehem. And he said to the reapers, “The Lord be with you!” And they answered, “The Lord bless you.”

To me, this is meant to cue us into the kind of person Boaz was. He was not a harsh master, but cared and was concerned for his servants. Before asking about this foreign woman gleaning from his field, he first checks in with his people. I like that.

He then asks about this woman he hadn’t ever seen before, and gets the rundown. What happens next changes everything.

Seeing Christ in Ruth & the OT

Before we proceed, we need to get a few things front and center in our mind. Whenever we open our Bibles, and wherever we open it to, we are entering into specific points in one, coherent work. 66 books, 1,500 years, bunch of different authors—one voice. One ultimate author. One ultimate message.

Whether we are reading a genealogy, a poem, ceremonial laws in Leviticus, or whatever—we are hearing ultimately one voice, one message, one aim. God’s word is in his voice, whose aim is to reveal and instruct his people about himself and the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

In the best bible study in history, the resurrected Jesus — God with us — appears to two disciples on a seven mile walk. They don’t recognize him, and they explain their disappointment at the recent death of the man they thought was the Messiah.

They said, “We thought he was the one to redeem Israel, but just three days ago he was put to death. Some of the women checked on his tomb and found it empty—we checked, and sure enough it was, but we couldn’t find Jesus. We don’t know what to think.”

Jesus said,

Luke 24:25–27 ESV

25 And he said to them, “O foolish ones, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken! 26 Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things and enter into his glory?” 27 And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself.

This phrase “Moses and all the Prophets” is shorthand for the whole Old Testament, which includes Ruth. Jesus walked through these disciples whole Bible and illustrated how everything was going according to plan.

Two reasons I bring this up:

All Scripture points to Jesus Christ, and therefore Ruth is pointing us to him. We should be, in a sense, looking for Jesus here.

Ruth, specifically, is a beautiful foreshadowing of our salvation. If we have the eyes to see, it will shine out of the text.

Boaz the Savior

Look now, with this in mind, to the rest of the chapter.

Ruth 2:8–9 ESV

8 Then Boaz said to Ruth, “Now, listen, my daughter, do not go to glean in another field or leave this one, but keep close to my young women. 9 Let your eyes be on the field that they are reaping, and go after them. Have I not charged the young men not to touch you? And when you are thirsty, go to the vessels and drink what the young men have drawn.”

Boaz, a successful man in Israel, who had nothing material to gain by helping this foreign, Moabite woman, extends to her the warmest greeting.

“My daughter.”

Ruth is already preaching. In a time when wicked men ruled, and the people of God abandoned him for other gods, this man appears, and shows amazing kindness, at what will be great personal cost.

Does that sound like someone familiar?

Our Lord is all over this story, most obviously in the person of Boaz. I can’t speak for Mark, but I think he’d probably say the most thrilling part of reading Ruth is to read God’s passion for his Son. He’s telling the story of his Son, all throughout the Old Testament, centuries before he came on Christmas.

And in this Advent season, I can’t think of a practice more suitable for anticipating the coming of Christ than to see how he had been promised, over and over, down throughout the ages.

He says, “My daughter, don’t go work any other fields. Stay here, work with my ladies. Follow after the reapers and do your work in peace and safety.”

Danger & Hesed

You may have missed this, I know I did the first time I read this through.

Go back to verse 2.

Ruth 2:2 ESV

2 And Ruth the Moabite said to Naomi, “Let me go to the field and glean among the ears of grain after him in whose sight I shall find favor.” And she said to her, “Go, my daughter.”

Is Ruth asking for permission just because, or are there some reasons why Naomi would say “No”?

If we didn’t intuitively pick it up, the answer is in Verse 9.

Ruth 2:9 ESV

9 Let your eyes be on the field that they are reaping, and go after them. Have I not charged the young men not to touch you? And when you are thirsty, go to the vessels and drink what the young men have drawn.”

Boaz says, “Have I not charged the young men not to touch you?”

We just finished Judges. You know the kind of stuff that was going on this time period. Things were far from safe in the land.

Not only does Boaz form a hedge of protection around this foreign woman, but he commands his team to draw water and escort the ladies as they do their work.

At this point in time, is there anything Boaz hasn’t done for her?

Is there anything God doesn’t give the one he loves?

Naomi was bitter because God took away her husband and two boys, but is now bringing her Boaz; God gave his only son. There is no “replacement” for the Eternal Son.

On Christmas morning, the Father sent into the world the only priceless thing that exists: his Son. And he sent him to die, but to then be raised again.

Romans 4:25 ESV

25 who was delivered up for our trespasses and raised for our justification.

Why did this happen? Ruth did nothing to warrant this attention from Boaz; we do nothing to warrant Christ’s affection. In fact, we do everything to offend it.

These things happen according to that precious hesed of God—his lovingkindness. His loyal love.

Deuteronomy 32:10 ESV

10 “He found him in a desert land, and in the howling waste of the wilderness; he encircled him, he cared for him, he kept him as the apple of his eye.

Psalm 17:6–8 ESV

6 I call upon you, for you will answer me, O God; incline your ear to me; hear my words. 7 Wondrously show your steadfast love, O Savior of those who seek refuge from their adversaries at your right hand. 8 Keep me as the apple of your eye; hide me in the shadow of your wings,

It’s just the vast love of God that cannot change, in Boaz to Ruth and in Christ to us, that does this. That spares no expense. That not only delivers us from danger, but lavishes us with riches.

Look down a bit.

The Feast & Falling

After opening his fields up to Ruth, Boaz invites her to feast.

Ruth 2:14 ESV

14 And at mealtime Boaz said to her, “Come here and eat some bread and dip your morsel in the wine.” So she sat beside the reapers, and he passed to her roasted grain. And she ate until she was satisfied, and she had some left over.

A foreigner to God’s community, who has come in faith and been led by the promises of God, is saved from starvation and not only this, is welcomed into the feasting hall. This foreigner has been rescued from danger, given a hope for the future, and is now feasting at the table of this Master.

Does this remind you of anything?

God loves to tell this exact story.

In Genesis, when Joseph’s brothers sell him into slavery (essentially a death sentence), and he works his way up to Prime Minister of Egypt, and those amazing events occur, where those same brothers are now in Egypt asking for help, what happens?

Joseph shows kindness, forgives them, and rescues them from starvation and feeds them. He saves them, and they feast.

When David becomes King, and is now beginning his administration, one of the first things on his list is to fulfill a promise he made to his best friend, Johnathon. He commands his servants to go and find someone from the house of Saul so he can bless them and provide them, for the sake of his dead friend Jonathon, whose legacy he promised to protect.

Who does he find? Who is brought to the King’s Hall? The weak, crippled son of Jonathon, Mephibosheth.

2 Samuel 9:7–8 ESV

7 And David said to him, “Do not fear, for I will show you kindness for the sake of your father Jonathan, and I will restore to you all the land of Saul your father, and you shall eat at my table always.” 8 And he paid homage and said, “What is your servant, that you should show regard for a dead dog such as I?”

This is the story God loves. This is the steadfast love of God that he pours out on foreigners and cripples.

Ruth reacts just like others, look at Verse 10.

Ruth 2:10 ESV

10 Then she fell on her face, bowing to the ground, and said to him, “Why have I found favor in your eyes, that you should take notice of me, since I am a foreigner?”

Here is the falling and the feast, the thrill of hope in someone who has received the kindness of God.

The hope for you and all the world is found in the kindness of God in Christ.

The fact that these people fell on their faces reveals that they understand what they have been rescued from.

And this is where hope begins. It begins in the darkness.

It begins with the realization that we are not simply lost and wandering in life, just needing some luck to catch a break.

We are an insect suspended over the yawning abyss, and it is only the kindness of God that keeps us from falling in.

Because God is holy, and we are as insects before him—vile and repulsive—we do not rest in his hands, but are scraping to get away. In our sinful ignorance, our disobedience attacks the only one who is protecting us from hell.

In the darkness of sin, we are looking for salvation everywhere but the light.

But it is in this darkness that the kindness of God shines forth.

He opens our eyes to the reality of our condition, and our need for Jesus. Our “soul feels its worth.”

Listen to these words from the Christmas carol, O Holy Night:

Long lay the world in sin and error pining 'Til He appeared and the soul felt its worth A thrill of hope the weary world rejoices For yonder breaks a new and glorious morn Fall on your knees; O hear the Angel voices! O night divine, O night when Christ was born O night, O Holy night, O night divine!

When Christ appears, our soul feels its worth.

Ruth falls on her face just for what Boaz is giving her to glean. She doesn’t expect to be welcomed into his house to feast!

But this is what she got. She “ate until she was satisfied, and had some left over.”

Are you sitting at Christ’s table today? Are you aware of the rich provision he has made for you?

Everything could go wrong in this life, but it would be a brief blip that can’t compare to heaven.

If you are a Christian and in pain like this, part of the reason is to remind of you this. That heaven awaits, that this isn’t your home.

The feast of heaven has not come yet, and only then will you be truly satisfied.

It encourages us to know that Christ, our Boaz, has already opened door to us.

apple of his eye, not insect

Closing

Midnight! Christians, it is the solemn hour When the God-man descended to us, To erase the stain of original sin And to stop the wrath of His Father. The entire world trembles with hope At this night which gives it a Savior. People, on your knees, await your deliverance. Christmas! Christmas! Here is the Redeemer! … Bow your heads before the Redeemer! …

The Redeemer has broken every shackle; The earth is free, and heaven is open. He sees a brother where there was only a slave; Love unites those whom iron had chained. Who will tell Him of our gratitude? It is for all of us that He is born, that He suffers and dies. People, arise! Sing your deliverance. Christmas! Christmas! Sing to the Redeemer!

Placide Capeau, 1843, French

Prayer

“May he be blessed by the LORD, whose kindness has not forsaken the living or the dead!”