Ruth 4:

13 So Boaz took Ruth and she became his wife. Then he went to her, and the Lord enabled her to conceive, and she gave birth to a son

Now, Companionship and union, which Ruth has become with Boaz is not biological age related but spiritual. The believer as spirit is ageless and the glow of the beauty cannot fade. It’s called incoruptibility. I know that this, examined with the slant eyes of the flesh, is old school. 

Every marriageable adult female, in this steaming age, wants a male very close to her in age. This is good as it goes, but sometimes there may be a deviation from the rule. It may even be God behind the scene, some of the time. One thing portrayed in the Bible is this: God has an end, a goal. Christ is the end plan of God; Christ is the purpose of creation. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made (John 1:3). For by him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things were created by him and for him….in him all things hold together (Colossians 1:16-17). The eternity of God throws him up as one that doesn’t have past or future; he’s NOW. In the germ of creation was present the future as it is now. The now’s deviation of creation from the beginning’s present was then and now not a sudden occurrence; the whole was and is in God’s present.

God is always working out his goal from the now. Which brings us back to the Ruth story. The plan of God to get to his end involves very costly sacrifices. Sometimes, man may be part of this sacrifice. Elimelech gad to go and his two sons had to go, leaving Naomi depressed. But, though they were oblivious of divine plan for the ages, they participated in the realisation of God’s plan called Jesus, the Christ. Have you wondered why the story of Joseph, the husband of Mary, started with the divine conception of the Lord Jesus Christ and terminated on the age twelve of Jesus. It means that along the way, the man had been removed from the earth – for God’s own purpose after he (Joseph) had fulfilled divine goal.

Life is not about becoming somebody, an achiever, a super influential individual, one whose existence creates waves… Life is about the fulfilment of God in Christ.

In the little time I have been in this life, I’ve found out that God’s involving me in the process of salvation which is Christ, the Lord, for whom all – including me – was created might be costly (it’s already so for God) – I may, for example, be made to go through some sacrifice! In any case, the classical sacrifice for all is the death of the self and enthronement of Christ.

As a young man or woman considering marriage, it’s not easy to leave one’s age bracket for another far way beyond one’s age. This is the issue of generation gap. An old man like Boaz, who calls Ruth, My daughter, has undergone a lot of physical alterations. But his soul is virile, and can be a safe haven for Ruth. The far younger male or female simply cannot allow the thought of being boarded in the same space with the old hag cross their mind. But when it’s God at work in the life of the individual, a yielded heart will see the old one as the beau ideal. It’s yet a sacrifice!.

Sacrifice is a deviation from the normal which is painfully costly. They overcame him (the dragon) by the blood of the Lamb, and the word of their testimony; they did not love their lives so much as to shrink from death (Revelation 12:11). And I’m not saying that I received this as a commandment from the Lord, please.

Beauty, they say, is in the eyes of the beholder; age as beauty is in the eyes of the beholder. What is peculiar about beauty? Beauty is an ambrosia, a great tonic in marriage relationship that swells the head of couples and ensure tremendous frequency of sexual intimacy codenamed the marriage act by Tim Lahaye.

God may demand such high sacrifice as seen in Ruth coming down to take up Boaz. It can even be more demanding. Christ told Catherine Kulman not to marry. “I’m,” the Lord told her, “your husband.”!

Well, unless the Lord impresses us again, we come to the end of this meditation today. But let’s take note that, God, working out his salvation, interrupted the normal course of many lives to bring Christ who came through the lineage of Boaz. The Lord Jesus Christ is described as the son of King David of Israel, the fourth generation in the lineage of Boaz.

Father God, I pray that you will have Your way to Your own end in my life, whatever the cost.

Thank You, Lord