Paid in Full

Bible passage: Ruth 4:1-22

Last week salvation as deliverance – Exodus

Word of the week is redemption – one kind of deliverance. Word comes from the marketplace – buying something that has been lost. For redemption need three things: something lost, a price that has to be paid to redeem it, a person to pay that price – the redeemer. Property lost, price paid, person to pay.

OT has lots of obscure laws about redemption. Laws about redeeming or buying back lost goats or sheep. Law said first born son belonged to the Lord, but you could buy him back by paying five silver shekels.

Prophet Hosea married a woman called Gomer who was unfaithful. She became a slave and Hosea was told by God to go to buy her back. Although he was her husband, he still had to pay the slave price to free his wife and get back.

Example of redemption in modern world is the pawnbroker. Left something at the pawnbroker to get some money, then later, if you can, you go back and redeem what is yours but lost to you. Three Ps again  – Property you want to get back, Price you have to pay get the property and the Person – you who pays the price.

Lovely story of redemption in the book of Ruth.

Ruth and Naomi journey to Bethlehem. Naomi left Bethlehem many years before and married and man in Moab and had two sons. Her husband and her sons had all died, and now it was just her and her Moabite daughter in law Ruth who had sworn allegiance to Naomi and to the God of Israel.

The poor, especially widows and orphans, got the food they needed by gathering whatever grain the harvesters left behind. And so Ruth went out into the fields to glean – to pick up the scraps.

But Ruth was on the bread line and needed redemption. She was poor, in mourning and a foreigner – might be called an asylum seeker these days.

New Testament says we need redemption. We are God’s but we have become slaves to sin. We need to be bought back, and the Bible says we are offered redemption by the redeemer Jesus. “Roms 3:23-4 “all have sinned… and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus”. Titus 5;3, Jesus “gave himself for us to redeem us from all wickedness”. Key idea in the New Testament is that Jesus came as our Redeemer.

Ruth needed a redeemer, and it came in the form of a man called Boaz who would probably have won the title of Bethlehem’s most eligible bachelor. He was kind and generous and godly and pure and rich. Best of all he was part of the family and by law was eligible to be Ruth’s redeemer.

In law redemption was a family matter – Moses’ laws said that property could be redeemed within a family. The poor were to be rescued by members of their family. If someone was poor he could sell a piece of land or even sell himself into slavery, and later someone else could buy back the land or buy the person back out of slavery. But the redeemer of the land or the slave had to be part of the same family.

Boaz was to Ruth a kinsman-redeemer, on who through family connection could pay the price to buy back property of freedom.

That’s another insight into our relationship with Jesus. Jesus came as our kinsman-redeemer. But he could only redeem us because he was first of all in relationship with us. That’s why God had to become flesh and blood. Only a human being could redeem humanity.

Three p’s of redemption: property, person and price. We, like Ruth, needed redemption, needed to be set free. We like Ruth found a person a redeemer: Boaz for Ruth, Jesus for us. And in both cases a price has to be paid.

For Ruth that meant persuading Boaz to marry her. She dressed up in her best clothes and dolled herself up with perfume and went to where Boaz was on the threshing floor, and asked him to marry her.

A complication – another member of the extended family who also had the right to redeem Ruth and her property. So Boaz entered into negotiation with this other man. He told him that he had the right to buy back Ruth’s land, but if he did do there would be a  price to pay – he would have to look after Ruth and Naomi, ands by law when Ruth had children the land would become theirs, not his.

Redeeming Ruth might have sounded like a good deal, but really there was little to be gained, there was high price to pay and a sacrifice to be made. The other man realised it was a liability and said that Boaz could have the right to redeem Ruth and Naomi and their land. Now Boaz had the right to be the redeemer, he had the ability to be the redeemer, because he was rich and could afford to, pay the price, and he had the willingness to be the redeemer, he chose to pay the money and make the sacrifice.

So many parallels here with Jesus. He came as our kinsman-redeemer, able and willing to pay the price to buy our freedom.

The price for Jesus was his own life. Mark 10:45 “the son of man (Jesus) did not come to be served but to serve and to give up his life as a ransom for many”. Word for ransom is the same word as redemption – his life is the price that redeems us. Eph 1:7 “we have redemption through his blood”.

Property is you and me, the person is Jesus ands the price is his life. When we call Jesus our redeemer it reminds us of the price he paid to buy us back.

One more thing: Redemption is an image from the marketplace, but in the Bible redemption is always an act of love. Redemption is a decision of the heart, an act of romance.

The story of Ruth and Boaz is a love story, one of the best love stories ever told – loss and despair is turned into happy ever after because of a match made in heaven.

Jesus redeems us because he loves us. To receive the message of salvation, to trust in Jesus as redeemer is to become his beloved possession. 1 Cor 6:19 says, “you are not your own, you were bought with a price”. God has shown his love for us and he causes us to love him in return.