The News of Spring
A few Sundays ago, Ken spoke from the book of Ruth with a theme of spring. Oh-so-typical for the early April in Michigan, it was a dark and snowy morning. Though I understood the natural course of seasonal progress, it just felt unlikely that the long coming spring was about to bloom into light and warmth.
In the land of Moab Naomi lost her love and joy. She was highly distressed and quite understandably so;
“Don’t call me Naomi,” she told them. “Call me Mara, because the Almighty has made my life very bitter. I went away full, but the Lord has brought me back empty. Why call me Naomi? The Lord has afflicted me; the Almighty has brought misfortune upon me.” (Ruth 1:20)
I was taken aback by her open accusation against the Almighty. There are numerous passages of pretty bad things happening to people, when they offended the Old Testament God. Surely Naomi would’ve been very familiar with them, but I guess she was passed the point of caring. Her life couldn’t get much worse anyway, right?
The sense of angry apathy in her speech is strangely familiar. I have been in there, we have all been in there, in the wasteland of Moabite winter; where self-pity is our friend and nothing we have can solace the disappointment of what we lost or didn’t get.
Naomi continued to live in that place even after she returned to her home land. But Ken pointed out that the chapter does not end with Naomi’s tragic monologue.
So Naomi Returned from Moab accompanied by Ruth the Moabitess, her daughter-in-law, arriving in Bethlehem as the barley harvest was beginning. (1:22)
“As the barley harvest was beginning”… I have always read passed this sentence without much thought. However to those who are familiar with the land and customs of Palestine, it is an emphatic term of spring, a definite turn of events.
As if to glide over Naomi’s spiel, the narrator of the story closes the chapter with the declaration of a new season and a new beginning. And in this barley field, the spring of promise land encroached Naomi’s Moabite winter within; through an unlikely agent, Ruth the Moabitess. The book of Ruth is essentially the record of how this gentile woman became a part of the direct blood line of David, from which the Messiah was later born.
In the time of utter despair God did not leave Naomi alone. Though she did not seem to have taken much comfort from it, the relationship she had with Ruth was incredible. The scheme God was orchestrating around Naomi’s life was too grand to be perceived.
Much like Naomi, I in my spiritual blindness often failed to recognize the season around me. Not knowing what He has in store, I become joyless in a situation that does not appear to be going my way. I could even be telling the solution God has sent to me, “Go back to where you came from. What good can I do for you? What good can you possibly do for me?”
Good news is, the spring is here, weather I can comprehend it or not.
In the land of Moab Naomi lost her love and joy. She was highly distressed and quite understandably so;
“Don’t call me Naomi,” she told them. “Call me Mara, because the Almighty has made my life very bitter. I went away full, but the Lord has brought me back empty. Why call me Naomi? The Lord has afflicted me; the Almighty has brought misfortune upon me.” (Ruth 1:20)
I was taken aback by her open accusation against the Almighty. There are numerous passages of pretty bad things happening to people, when they offended the Old Testament God. Surely Naomi would’ve been very familiar with them, but I guess she was passed the point of caring. Her life couldn’t get much worse anyway, right?
The sense of angry apathy in her speech is strangely familiar. I have been in there, we have all been in there, in the wasteland of Moabite winter; where self-pity is our friend and nothing we have can solace the disappointment of what we lost or didn’t get.
Naomi continued to live in that place even after she returned to her home land. But Ken pointed out that the chapter does not end with Naomi’s tragic monologue.
So Naomi Returned from Moab accompanied by Ruth the Moabitess, her daughter-in-law, arriving in Bethlehem as the barley harvest was beginning. (1:22)
“As the barley harvest was beginning”… I have always read passed this sentence without much thought. However to those who are familiar with the land and customs of Palestine, it is an emphatic term of spring, a definite turn of events.
As if to glide over Naomi’s spiel, the narrator of the story closes the chapter with the declaration of a new season and a new beginning. And in this barley field, the spring of promise land encroached Naomi’s Moabite winter within; through an unlikely agent, Ruth the Moabitess. The book of Ruth is essentially the record of how this gentile woman became a part of the direct blood line of David, from which the Messiah was later born.
In the time of utter despair God did not leave Naomi alone. Though she did not seem to have taken much comfort from it, the relationship she had with Ruth was incredible. The scheme God was orchestrating around Naomi’s life was too grand to be perceived.
Much like Naomi, I in my spiritual blindness often failed to recognize the season around me. Not knowing what He has in store, I become joyless in a situation that does not appear to be going my way. I could even be telling the solution God has sent to me, “Go back to where you came from. What good can I do for you? What good can you possibly do for me?”
Good news is, the spring is here, weather I can comprehend it or not.
posted by Megumi @ 11:42 AM
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