My God Is King
A story written in antiquity that continues to exceed contemporary standards of what is considered “good storytelling” is more than a little interesting. The book of Ruth has drawn accolades from many voices for many years. Goethe held that it was "the loveliest complete work on a small scale" while another pronounced, "No poet in the world has written a more beautiful story."(1) The book is simple and honest, the lives it gives account of both ordinary and compelling.
But the story is not an island anymore than are the lives of people it describes. By means of a beautifully told story, we are shown both the weaving of redemption throughout history and the God who redeems.
Ruth was a young woman from Moab whose husband died in the midst of a great famine. Returning to her family would have been appropriate; the young widow would have been cared for and could have married again among her own people. But she chose to stay with Naomi, her also-widowed mother-in-law, who was not a Moabite. Shortly after the story begins, we hear Ruth declaring resolutely to Naomi: "Where you go I will go, and where you stay I will stay. Your people will be my people and your God my God. Where you die I will die, and there I will be buried" (1:16-17a).
At this point in the story, we don't know much about Naomi's God or her people, or why Ruth would be so determined to adopt them, other than as a sign of loyalty to her mother-in-law. The story briefly mentions Naomi's God, though it seems to arrive as secondhand information, and not from the widow herself. (The text reports that she heard that the LORD had come to the aid of his people and food was to be found in Judah.) Interestingly, the first time Naomi speaks directly of her God within earshot of Ruth, it is to say that God has made her cold and grieving. Naomi imparts that her name should no longer be Naomi, which means "my delight," but Mara, which means "bitter": "For I went out full, but the LORD brought me back empty" (1:21).
I have heard both sides of the argument about admitting anger at God. Some say, "God knows you are angry and God can handle it." Others insist, "Saying you are angry at God is in effect saying you don't believe God is acting as your redeemer." But I have experienced God's grace in both places. With angry words I have pounded my fists on God's chest and God in his mercy convicted me with his redeeming presence. I have also tried taking thoughts of bitterness captive, answering cynicism with truths of Scripture and discovering God's grace and comfort. (I have also just been angry and altogether refused to see God.)
Naomi's words were at once both honest and blind. Her grief is unfathomable to me, and the very meaning of her name seems a cruel irony. But she was also not seeing everything clearly; in fact, she had not returned entirely empty. God had led Naomi back to Judah with the gift of a loyal daughter-in-law who had pledged to discover the God of Israel, perhaps even as Naomi rediscovered this God again herself.
And she did. Naomi and Ruth came to see the work of God’s redemption among them, as Job did even in the midst of his grief: "For I know that my Redeemer lives, and that in the end he will stand upon the earth" (Job 19:25). The book of Ruth ends with a child who offers the promise of redeeming the name of Naomi's deceased husband. In Hebrew culture, Ruth's child, Obed, was seen as the one who would carry on the line of Naomi's husband. And in fact, his name, which lived on because of loyalty and in spite of blinding despair, can be followed all the way to the lineage of King David and the line of Jesus Christ. His name was Elimelek, which stirringly proclaims the meaning of the entire book: "My God is King."
Jill Carattini is senior associate writer at Ravi Zacharias International Ministries in Atlanta, Georgia.
(1)As quoted by Tremper Longman in The Introduction to the Old Testament.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|