Sketches to Fill In
Ruth
I can’t tell you how lovely it’s been to review this book over the spring
holidays. You can picture me sitting on an old cotton quilt on the beach, my
kids happily playing in the distance with their Dad and Granny. And I’m not
feeling guilty about staying put here on the sand with a book in my hands.
Rather unusually, my reading’s been imbued with an importance and a purpose it
wouldn’t ordinarily have. Of course, reading a book like this is always
important and purposeful and I hope this little sketch of me on the beach might
inspire you to carve out a time for yourself to sit and read a few chapters of
this golden book.
If big stories overwhelm you, chapter 3 is a great place to begin.
Alistair Begg has been charged with the task of illuminating the story of Ruth
for us, and I love his simple recommendation that, “Tiny stories are hugely
appealing in our time.” (p.58) Our ever-present bombardment from facebook,
blogs, the accumulation of so much stuff in our lives, makes it all too easy to
feel information indigestion. There is a quiet pleasure in a short story.
Before Begg gets started on Ruth he helpfully lists the assumptions he’s
making about the Old Testament before unpacking the story. These are neatly
encapsulated by borrowing B.B. Warfield’s analogy (from Warfield’s Biblical Doctrines) that likens the Old
Testament to “a richly furnished but dimly lit room; the contents become clear
only when the light is turned on in the person and work of Jesus.” (p.58) If we
stay with Warfield’s picture and walk around that room, Begg presents his own
sketches of Ruth, with the work of Jesus the torch in his hand.
Begg has a background in drawing and this chapter is rich with visual
allusions. Begg uses drawing both as a metaphor and as a helpful way of
structuring his account of what happens in the book of Ruth. With bold clear
strokes, he dashes off “three charcoal sketches” (p.59) with the intention that
the reader fill out the rest of the picture on their own. It’s a lovely way to
structure a reading of a book like Ruth. A brief story, that is also
action-packed. A tale about gleaning. A tale that crumb-drops its way, down through
a historical genealogy, all the way to a man called Jesus.
First Sketch
In picture one, Begg shows three women on the road to somewhere, crying
and desperate and shows how Ruth couldn’t be persuaded to return home (like Orpah
does). Begg sites this as her conversion (p.61): Ruth turns her back on her old
life and embraces Naomi and Naomi’s God. And Begg pulls back the golden curtain
in that richly furnished room and reveals:
“God was reaching into Ruth’s life across the barriers of race, and her
picture was painted in the great scene in Revelation: persons “from every tribe
and language and people and nation.” (Rev 5:9) Those people are worshipping
King Jesus, who descended from this woman, Ruth.” (p.62)
Second
Sketch
In the second picture Begg draws Boaz. Ruth comes home after a day in
the fields gleaning for food and says to Naomi, “The name of the man I worked
for today is Boaz.” (Ruth 2:19) Ruth finds favour with a kinsman redeemer – a
relative of Naomi’s, someone who “has the right to intervene in the
circumstances of Naomi and Ruth.” (p.64) And he saves them, quite wonderfully,
by marrying Ruth. There are many echoes to our own kinsman redeemer in Christ.
Third Sketch
In the third picture a son is born, (Ruth 4:16) and, in light of all the
tragedy and hardship Naomi has survived, Begg imagines “quite a baby shower at
the birth of this son!” (p.64) The tale ends with a family tree. And little do
the women know how prophetic their prayer for Naomi’s grandson, that his name
be renowned in all Israel, is going to be. (Ruth: 4:14)
Filling it
in
Through these three brief sketches Begg gives this Old Testament story a
shape that is easy to cling to. He sprinkles a little colour and grit on the
characters to show they are ordinary and real, like us. But best of all, he
presents it the way it was always intended: as a jewel on a dark velvet cloth (p.55),
a personal story of rescue and redemption, of real love that echoes our own
Christ to come and links all the way to him in the Ruth and Boaz family tree.
This is a truly shining story in the Old Testament: understandable,
digestible, with a great storyline that is captivating and satisfying. And, as
tiny stories go, deep indeed. In his concluding remarks Begg quotes philosophy
professors, Dreyfus and Kelly, from their book In All Things Shining, a book about classic western texts, where
the authors observe, “That when you search for shining moments, you must be
aware that they do not cohere or combine to make any sense at all.” That
existential statement is refuted by Begg in his reading of Ruth. “In Jesus all
things hold together.” (p.65) It makes me think of the first four verses of the
gospel of John, “In the beginning was the Word…All things were made through
him…In him was life, and the life was the light of men.” He’s the golden thread
running through the Old Testament. Standing at the Father’s side as the world
was made through him. He sustains it. He pulls it all together in the New
Testament, and he will return to reconcile all things to himself. Those shining
moments in Ruth mean something.
Final sketch
I’m not a visual artist but I can still think in pictures: I can see the
tragedy of the three women on the road, all alone, the dust and the pain and
the hunger and the weariness. A decision has to be made, one parts ways. But
there’s a glimmer of hope! One is sticking with the other! But they will struggle to survive. Then the
excitement of meeting a man named Boaz, a man with kind eyes and a kind heart. Who
turns out to be Naomi’s relative. A kinsman redeemer. And there’s hope in Ruth’s
eyes and sparks with this new man and the romance blossoms and he steps in and
saves them, and marries Ruth. There’s a wedding and a new son is born and
Naomi’s face is beaming and her friends are all praying for her. Lives have
completely changed. Hearts are overflowing with happiness and thanksgiving to
God. History is in the making too. This baby is part of a special family tree.
By getting our brains to work at filling in more of the detail by going
back and reading Ruth, Begg reminds us that these are ordinary people and that
God is doing extraordinary things through their lives.
Begg takes inspiration for his charcoal sketches from an old art teacher
who, when he would ask for help, would take a pencil out and put a few lines
here and there to get him started. But he wouldn’t do it for him, and Begg had to
fill in the rest (p59.). What a good metaphor this is. Not just for the book of
Ruth. But for how we as Christians, how any thinking person, ought to go about
reading and understanding the life-changing story of the Bible. It is a life’s
work seeing and preaching Jesus in the Old Testament. Books like this get us
started. But it is up to us, by God’s grace, to fill in the rest.