Message
Ruth 4:1-22
“The More Than Happily Ever After”
If you have got children or your teenagers then you will be familiar all those moves put together by Disney and Pixar. And you will know that all of those movies end the same way.
They Lived Happily Ever After.
The fairy-tale ending.
Snow Whites isn’t dead.
Pinocchio is a real boy.
The Fox and the Hound can be friends.
Woody and Buzz have saved the day.
Elsa is finally able to accept herself.
We like those sorts of endings because it means we can all go to bed happy that something is nice in this world.
But is that real life? Can we have the expectation of a “Happily Ever After?”
Let’s read Ruth 4:1-22
Disney would be happy with that ending wouldn’t he!
But is it realistic? Is the story only about Happily Ever After?
I’ll tell you up front that it isn’t. In fact this a More Than Happily Ever After Event
Let’s work our way through the text and see how it works.
The Happily Ever After For RUTH
It might seem hard to believe but it has been less than 24 hours since Naomi first came up with the plan for Ruth to find rest. Remember the radical plan.
Get washed, perfumed and nicely dressed.
Sneak into the end of Boaz’s bed.
Ask Boaz to marry you in the middle of the night.
The planned worked – but there is a small problem. There is a kinsman-redeemer who is first in line before Boaz.
Now I don’t know about you, but I sense Boaz is on a mission.
Ruth and Boaz get up early in the morning, at a time when no-one can recognise that a woman is there.
Boaz gives Ruth a heap of barley – then he goes to the town gate and sits there.
He is looking for a certain man, and the town gate is the best place to find him.
The town gate is also the place where important business takes place because the elders are on hand to witnesses these transactions.
So the man eventually comes … and we never know his name. In fact the Hebrew text is deliberately vague because probably the best translation is “Hey Mr So-and-So”.
Hey Mr So and So … we need to talk about a deal.
Let’s look behind curtain number 1
Naomi has land and no one to inherit it.
All those listen would nod their head, “Yes … yes”. Bethlehem was only a small town and Naomi’s return as a poor widow was widely known. The law of God required that, if at all possible, the land should remain in the family and be offered to the nearest relative.
Mr So and So would hardly be able to contain his joy. Because this is how the process works.
When he says I will redeem it he is actually agreeing to take over the land until the year of Jubilee – which occurred every 50 years. At the year of Jubilee all property bought in this way had to revert back to the family of the original owner – which in this case would be the sons of Elimelech. But Elimelech has no sons … so the land will not need to be given back.
But behind curtain number 2
If you want the land you also need to take the widow.
In this case the widow in mind is Ruth … because she is the only one with the physical ability to maintain the name of the dead.
When she has a son the land will pass on to him and Mr So and So gets nothing. In fact Mr So and So would have more heirs with who he must divide his own property.
The deal of a life-time comes with strings … wedding strings.
Boaz gets Ruth.
Ruth is now secure.
Naomi is protected and will now be looked after.
They all live happily ever after.
Except maybe for Mr So and So who now needs to buy a new pair of sandals.
But is that what the story is all about … Happily Ever After.
It isn’t.
The MORE THAN Happily Ever After For RUTH
She is not just getting a husband … she has been redeemed.
She doesn’t owe anything to anyone.
She has been given a place, a name … security.
No longer is she Ruth the Moabitess. She is Ruth the wife of Boaz.
Her past has been made irrelevant. Her future is security in the land, and in the hand, of God.
That is what Redemption brings.
You see, too often in this world we are like Mr So and So. We ask
What is in it for me?
Will it fulfil me?
Will I enjoy it?
What will it cost?
We make our evaluations based on these sorts of criteria and sometime … maybe too many times … we forget to ask – What blessing does God want me to have?
God wants to bless us.
In the Old Testament the blessing is worded like this:-
For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future (Jeremiah 29:11).
It isn’t saying, you will have a big house and a fancy car and lots of money.
Because that isn’t what makes up life.
It is saying “Trust me for the unknowns that tomorrow will bring”.
In the New Testament the blessing looks like this:-
And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose (Romans 8:29)
It is in God’s nature to bring good. The good things that will keep you walking faithfully on the journey to eternity.
But to get the blessings we need to go into each day living as those who have been Redeemed.
Redeemed …
Believing our past has been taken care of – no matter what our past looks like. No matter how much we thought we were an outsider.
Redeemed …
We have a place and we have security. Nothing is able to take that away for us. Not even the mistakes of life that we keep on making. Not even those times when we think that we have completely let God down.
Redeemed …
We don’t owe anything to anyone, for the price has been paid.
Jesus says, “You are mine”.
Redeemed. That is the more than happily ever after.
Which bring us to the next stage.
The Happily Ever After For NAOMI
Naomi’s happily ever after can be summed up in a few words … grand-child!
When Naomi came back from Moab she wanted people to call her “bitter” because she went away full and came back empty. But now that emptiness is filled.
The emptiness is filled by the fact that the loss of her two sons has been more than compensated by a daughter-in-law, who loves you and who is better to you than seven sons. Ruth’s devotion to Naomi has caused Naomi’s life to be filled with blessing.
But more than that, the emptiness has been filled because Naomi has an heir to continue on her husband’s name … indeed verse 16-17 describes the child this way. Then Naomi took the child, laid him in her lap and cared for him. The women living there said, “Naomi has a son”. Ruth’s willingness to stick with Naomi has led to security and rest for Naomi.
It you have known anyone who has been struggling to be able to conceive a child – and then they finally do – you can understand the joy that is involved here.
But when you add into the picture that there is now security in terms of land and family … well we can really see what is going on.
Everyone is happy. It is a good place to close the story. Kind of like the end of the Lion King when they hold up the new born cub of Simba and Nala. It’s the circle of life.
Happily ever after? Yes – but there is so much more.
Which brings us to …
The MORE THAN Happily Ever After For NAOMI
Why is it that Naomi is no longer bitter?
It is because she has finally understood that the Lord has been with her the whole time.
The emotional time when the decision to move to Moab is made.
The heart-wrenching time when her husband and sons pass away.
The tear-filled time when Naomi and Ruth return to Israel.
The sparking-of-hope times when Boaz made Ruth welcome onto his land.
The anxious time as Ruth wait to see what Boaz would do with her marriage proposal.
The apprehensive time as negotiations between two kinsman-redeemers take place.
The joyful times as a marriage takes place and a child is born.
If we just take life as a slice and base our perceptions on what is going on just on that slice we are going to find ourselves really struggling with life.
And it works on all occasions.
If I just focus on my ministry life when I was finding ministry somewhat frustrating.
Share an of your own …
I could become very angry.
If I just focus on my ministry life when I was finding ministry to be really easy
Share an experience of your own …
I could become very naïve.
I need it all. I am who I am today because of it all.
Because in that God has been working His purposes.
Just as much in you as he has in me.
Not to say, “Hey we all lived happily ever after”.
But so we can say, “God has been working through this mess that we call life.”
As we look at what is happening in the life of Naomi we have to believe there is more to life than “Happily Ever After”.
Because we don’t live a fairy-tale.
In real life Snow White, she gets forgotten because the prince found someone more beautiful and kissed her instead.
Pinocchio become fire wood and ends his life keeping Geppetto warm.
In real life the Fox becomes a fur coat and Woody and Buzz end up as a donation to Line-Line.
In real life a bigoted world can’t accept Elsa.
That is why we can’t stop at the Happily Ever After. We need to move to
The MORE THAN Happily Ever After For EVERYONE
And you can only see that by looking at two lists of names.
18 This, then, is the family line of Perez:
Perez was the father of Hezron,
19 Hezron the father of Ram,
Ram the father of Amminadab,
20 Amminadab the father of Nahshon,
Nahshon the father of Salmon,
21 Salmon the father of Boaz,
Boaz the father of Obed,
22 Obed the father of Jesse,
and Jesse the father of David.
This is the genealogy of Jesus the Messiah the son of David, the son of Abraham:
2 Abraham was the father of Isaac,
Isaac the father of Jacob,
Jacob the father of Judah and his brothers,
3 Judah the father of Perez and Zerah, whose mother was [Tamar],
Perez the father of Hezron,
Hezron the father of Ram,
4 Ram the father of Amminadab,
Amminadab the father of Nahshon,
Nahshon the father of Salmon,
5 Salmon the father of Boaz, whose mother was [Rahab],
Boaz the father of Obed, whose mother was Ruth,
Obed the father of Jesse,
6 and Jesse the father of King David.
David was the father of Solomon, whose mother had been [Uriah’s wife]
When we put these facts together we find an amazing truth.
Ruth was a Moabitess … a widow no less … coming to live in a foreign country that held no promise.
Boaz is a faithful Israelite with a chequered past. In his ancestry we discover a prostitute called Rahab. This is the same Rahab who was the unlikely heroine of the story of the battle of Jericho, found in the book of Joshua. This is Rahab, the harlot, who spared the Jewish spies with a clever lie. This is the Rahab who is a foreign woman … and one who had a questionable means of income.
This means that the ancestor of a non-Jewish prostitute has married a barren foreigner.
What good could ever possibly come from that?
What kind of a messed up plan is this?
Remember the blessing of the people to Boaz?
May you have standing … and be famous in Bethlehem. Through the offspring the LORD gives you by this young women.
Boaz and Ruth are the great grandparents of King David. Now that is famous.
Go further down the line.
For the genealogy in Matthew goes on to name the descendants of David coming down to Jacob the father of Joseph, the husband of Mary, of whom was born Jesus, who is called Christ.
That is incredibly famous!
God has been at work so much here.
The line to the Messiah continues because an outsider … a Moabitess … was included.
Nobody is too far outside of the plan of God that they cannot be brought in … nobody.
If you are looking for a life of Happily Ever After … go to Disneyland.
If you are looking for a MORE THAN Happily Ever After trust the plans of the Redeemer.
You may not always understand it.
You may not always like it!
But you can be sure of one thing.
When the Redeemer is involved we are never just Mr or Mrs So and So.
We are named. Named personally by the Redeemer.
Outsiders brought into the family of God.
Prayer
