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Let me begin with a question: who here likes romantic movies? When watching a really good movie like this, don’t you find sometimes that you almost believe you live in it? It’s hard to return to real life after watching them. This is often because we deeply identify with the characters and see ourselves in them.
I have mixed feelings about romantic movies for this reason - I think that’s because I often really see myself in the shoes of the characters. Yet, for this very reason, when there’s a happy ending, it brings tears to my eyes! Their happy ending has, for a moment, though fictional, become my happy ending too.
Well, for those who love romantic narratives, that’s what we have right here in Ruth! Except it’s my favourite type of romance - one with a completely happy ending!
So, as we explore this striking third chapter of Ruth’s story, have a think: with whom do you most identify? If you were in this story, where would you be?
Now let me say something that might sound crazy:
If you are a believer in Christ, then you are part of this story.
This is a chapter of the greatest romance epic there has ever been,
that everyone belonging to Jesus has a share in.
What do I mean?
Well, in the book of Ruth, we see the whole, beautiful, glorious narrative of the Bible, of the love of God for His people, enacted in miniature in this real-life romance story.
Don’t take my word for it though - let me show this through the word of God, so you can see for yourself. Let’s begin by zooming into verse 9, where a startled Boaz wakes up to find Ruth lying at his feet.
‘Who are you?’ he asked.
‘I am your servant Ruth,’ she said.
‘Spread the corner of your garment over me,
since you are a guardian-redeemer of our family.’
Are they speaking in riddles?
These words are a puzzle to us to begin with, and leave us with three big questions:
1 - What does it mean to ‘spread the corner of your garment’ over someone?
2 - What on earth is a ‘guardian-redeemer’?
3 - What have both of these concepts got to do with our relationship to Jesus Christ?
Let’s start with Ruth’s request for Boaz to spread the corner of his garment over her.
Here Ruth is asking something very deep and personal. It’s like she’s saying, I want to be clothed in the same garment as you. Clothing is symbolic of identity - so Ruth is saying that she wants Boaz to cover her in who he is, take her into his identity, into the family of God, to take on his family name, to be clothed in his clothing. In short, she desires to become one with him - so much so that they can say to one another, ‘What’s mine is yours and yours is mine.’ So, this is a marriage proposal.
So what about this ‘guardian-redeemer’ idea? Ruth uses this to justify and strengthen her marriage proposal to Boaz:
‘Spread the corner of your garment over me,
since you are a guardian-redeemer of our family.’
What is a ‘guardian-redeemer’? To redeem means to buy back from slavery, or more broadly to save from a hopeless or desolate situation.
Not all slavery is obvious however - the concept of ‘guardian-redeemer’ also applied to those whose hopeless circumstances, bitter loneliness and abandonment felt like chains around their heart, and a prison around their soul. This sort of slavery to bitter hopelessness is as alive and well as ever in our nation today. Maybe you have tasted of its stinging bitterness yourself?
Now, remember how Naomi was so sick of life that she wanted to be renamed Mara, meaning ‘bitter’, because continuing to live had become so bitter to her heart. Loneliness, abandonment and feeling like their lives had amounted to nothing and were pointless and fruitless and barren - was what felt like slavery for these two courageous women. I wonder if any of us can relate to them? I know I can! So for them, redemption looked like relationship, welcome into the family of God, who brings the lonely into a family.
This is the sort of proposal Ruth was making to Boaz, asking him to be a ‘guardian-redeemer’ to her and, by extension, Naomi, her family, by marrying her, joining her to his family and redeeming them from the abandonment and hopelessness they felt enslaved by. Redemption for her was not a financial deal, but something deeply personal, intimate and overflowing with kindness and love.
Maybe you see where this is going…
With this backstory filled in, we move to our last question: What does all this have to do with our relationship to Jesus Christ?
Earlier I said that, if you are a believer in Christ, then you are part of this story.
This is a chapter of the greatest romance epic there has ever been, that everyone belonging to Jesus has a share in.
How? In short, the whole idea of marriage, of two people becoming one, through love and care and kindness, was created by God as a beautiful, enthralling, wondrous picture of how Jesus Christ is one with His people. The relationship between Christ and His people is repeatedly described as marriage - indeed the paradigmatic marriage of marriages, with a beauty and glory that every marriage here on earth is only a partial reflection of. So, in Boaz and Ruth, we see one of these reflections of the glory - a picture of Christ and His people.
Here is what blows apart my mind with wonder: Jesus Christ calls us all together His Bride, the one people of God, whom He has become one with in marriage.
I have thought on this again and again and it seems too wonderful, too amazing, too mysterious to be true. Yet that is what that is what I sincerely believe God’s word teaches - but it doesn’t matter what I think - see what you think, based on what I think is the clearest passage of all on this beautiful subject - Ephesians 5:25-32, which speaks of a husband and wife as a picture of Christ and His people, His Church. Here it is:
25 Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her 26 to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, 27 and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless. 28 In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. 29 After all, no one ever hated their own body, but they feed and care for their body, just as Christ does the church— 30 for we are members of his body. 31 “For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.” 32 This is a profound mystery—but I am talking about Christ and the church.
Here is the epic story of romance between Christ and His Bride the one people of God - that we are made part of if we trust in Him!
Do you hear that verse 32? This is a ‘profound mystery’... Yes it is indeed! A mystery in a biblical sense is not something that we can’t know anything about, but more that something that is so deep that we can never fathom how wonderful it is. To explore this mystery is like a firework going up into the sky, making us look up to see its explosive beauty, only to see the seemingly infinite depths of stars behind it. I often feel like my head is swimming when I try to think about this.
But what does this mean? Christ to become one with us, as a husband becomes one with his wife? Let’s approach this holy mystery gradually, one step at a time…
We begin to get a clue in the language of Ruth’s proposal to Boaz in Ruth 3:9 -
‘Spread the corner of your garment over me…’
Now, the Hebrew word for ‘garment’ here is kanaph, which is more often translated as ‘wing’ elsewhere. Ruth is, in Hebrew, saying to Boaz, ‘spread your wing over me’, as the language of her proposal to marry him.
Wait a minute - wings… Where did we hear about wings? Remember last week - all those pictures of wings on the screen - all because of what Boaz said to Ruth in chapter 2 verse 12 -
May you be richly rewarded by the Lord, the God of Israel, under whose wings you have come to take refuge.”
There that same word is again - kanaph - ‘wing’. What Ruth asks from Boaz, to come under his wings in marriage, is the same thing as Ruth finds coming under the wings of the one God of Israel.
So the marriage of Christ and His people involves a sense of coming under His wings. Now, here the idea of ‘wing’ is the idea of refuge, protection, and covering - just like with Ruth to Boaz. It means we are protected by One who is infinitely strong. Even more than that, it signifies becoming one with Christ - taking on His identity, His family name - the name of ‘Christian’, finding our everything in Him.
This is what true refuge means - what real salvation means - it is based on a deep relationship. We are saved from our sin not because Christ gives us some abstract idea called ‘salvation’, but instead because we become one with Him, clothed with Christ’s life, identity, and name, just as Ruth was clothed with the identity of Israel through her marriage to Boaz.
Like the marriage ceremony here on earth, all the people of God say together to Jesus, who also says back to them, ‘What’s mine is Yours, and Yours is mine.’
I come to Him, what’s mine is now His - full of all my sin and failure and darkness - He takes it upon Himself, bears every ounce of the sentence of judgement it is due on His cross, and thus obliterates it forever. We are finally free indeed!
I come to Him, what’s His is now mine - just as you get shared property and shared bank accounts, Jesus Christ shares the truly infinite riches of His glory, His righteousness, His holiness, His joy, His love, with all His people. Because we are now one with Him, all these things are now ours - we did not earn them or deserve them - they are ours only by virtue of our being joined to Jesus Christ.
So we see how this concept of ‘guardian-redeemer’ applies most wonderfully to Jesus Christ. In Isaiah we have a mind-blowing statement of how God to His people is both Husband and Redeemer - the same root word used for Boaz as redeemer:
For your Maker is your husband—
the Lord Almighty is his name—
the Holy One of Israel is your Redeemer;
he is called the God of all the earth.
We are familiar of this concept of ‘Redeemer’ - but less with the concept of Christ being husband to His Church, all His people together. They are connected together wonderfully in the romance of Boaz and Ruth - where her redemption from the pain of her loneliness is found in marriage to Boaz. In the same way, our redemption from our cosmic, existential loneliness, destitution, and fruitlessness - because of our estrangement from our Creator God - this redemption is through our own ‘Guardian-Redeemer’, Jesus Christ.
He pays the overwhelming price of His own blood on the cross, the lifeblood of God - think of how infinitely valuable that is - in order to buy us back from every form of slavery to our sin, to fear, to evil - so that death and hell have no claim on us any more. And all this happens when we, like Ruth with Boaz, become one with Christ and so are welcomed into full membership of the people of God, the true Vine, the Body of Christ. Who the Son sets free is free indeed!
The wondrous end to this epic romance that everyone is invited to be part of, through giving their lives to Jesus Christ, so that our sin becomes His and His beautiful life becomes ours - the happily ever after - is found in the soaring words of the final chapters of the Bible:
Here’s the cry of the great multitude of all God’s people in Revelation 19:6-9, praising God the Father and Jesus, the Lamb of God:
6 Then I heard what sounded like a great multitude, like the roar of rushing waters and like loud peals of thunder, shouting:
“Hallelujah!
For our Lord God Almighty reigns.
7 Let us rejoice and be glad
and give him glory!
For the wedding of the Lamb has come,
and his bride has made herself ready.
8 Fine linen, bright and clean,
was given her to wear.”
(Fine linen stands for the righteous acts of God’s holy people.)
9 Then the angel said to me, “Write this: Blessed are those who are invited to the wedding supper of the Lamb!” And he added, “These are the true words of God.”
These are the true words of God indeed! We are invited to be like Ruth, coming under the wings and becoming one with Jesus Christ, our Guardian-Redeemer, the Lamb of God, who purchased us with His infinitely precious lifeblood. And so we are called to join in the wedding supper that will last forever, with Christ and all His people, made one never to be separated again!
The question is: will we come to the wedding feast?
Will we come to the feet of Jesus, who calls us into such oneness with Himself?
Will we allow Him to redeem us, cherish us, hide us under His wings?