A broken tulip

If you’re new to the series, start here with part 1.

Have you heard of the servant songs sung by the prophet Isaiah?

Bear with me.

The most startling connection I found in the commentaries on Ruth was a claim that her story stacks on the fourth servant song of Isaiah.

So what? you might ask. You’re familiar now with this dusty story that starts in famine and ends with the birth of Obed, someone you probably haven’t spent much time thinking about. You know that the inbetween of this story is about a woman named Ruth serving her mother-in-law Naomi. What is surprising about a woman who serves?

Because the servant songs are the riddle set by one of the greatest prophets of all time. These songs are about “celebrating the sacrificial life of a righteous servant of God who brings about the redemption of others.”

This connection isn’t simply that Ruth serves, but that her life is tied into the work of redemption, the work taken on by none other than God Himself. When God became man, he came as the child of Ruth.

Here is the story again. You think you have heard it, but you have not yet heard it:

Ruth is the story of one woman cleaving to the covenant of God through Naomi, who cleaves through Elimelech, who cleaves through Abraham. It is a story of a Moabitess woman, a child of Lot, who reverses the fickleness of Lot who left Abraham, left his own family and the bearer of promise, to settle in a lush valley. Going back further, Ruth is a child of Adam and Eve and reverses their decision to turn to the easy and follow their eyes. Ruth turns from the prospect of security and the home of a new husband to cling to Naomi, the empty one. She takes Naomi’s emptiness upon herself until it redefines her life.

She becomes another Abraham, sojourning through the wilderness in a cleaving, covenant relationship to a woman who is barren, with faith in Adonai.

She leaves home, stripped of security, protection, exposed to ridicule, to physical assault, to rebuke, all for the purpose of pursuing one bitter soul, one worn out, empty heart trudging home.

Instead of accepting the blessing of Naomi, a blessing she was worthy of, Ruth called upon herself a curse. She bore the curse instead of Naomi, and filled Naomi’s life with blessing. For this Ruth herself is praised and blessed with an even greater blessing.

Ruth goes out to testify with her life that God has not testified against Naomi, has not gone out against her. She fills the void of the emptiness of Naomi with a love worth more than 7 – a perfection of sons in their loyalty, the number of Job’s sons.

Just as he would come later, one of her children, one man to fill all our emptiness with a love worth more than the depths and the heights of any human love we cling to.

Ruth’s child has refused to leave our side. He endures our silence on the long walk home. He has listened to us speak of being completely empty, relentlessly bitter, and he stands silent by our side.

He listens as we, at one with Naomi, at one with Job, berate the Sovereign one, Shaddai, forgetting the silent Servant standing behind us, beside us. Blameless as he is, deserving of our blessing, he instead calls a curse upon himself, to stand in our place, to wear our aged, wrinkled, barren shame, and to welcome the curse of being laid on a tree.

Like Ruth, he has promised never to leave you, the empty one. Not even in death. Not even in the grave.

He has gone out to work for our livelihood, putting himself at risk to give us rest, and he has won for himself the praise of the world. He is worthy of blessing, worthy of worship, above Boaz and above Ruth.

His name is Jesus, and he weeps with longing to gather under his wings the children of Jerusalem, wishing they would run to him for cover as Ruth had.

Mara was the bitter water, the tree made it sweet. Mara was Naomi’s chosen name, Ruth’s sacrifice made her sweet. Mara is your life, a man on a tree can make it sweet

by loyal, sacrificial, chesed love.

That is the story of Ruth.

Photo by Dikaseva.