This week we’ll be looking at Ruth, chapter four in our Advent series on “Christmas in Ruth.” As I write this, it’s just a week until our Christmas Eve service (a highlight of the year!). Just a week before Christmas. One week is not a long time; and yet for those who are waiting, it can seem like an eternity. After all, it was just one week between Palm Sunday and Easter; how long did time feel to all creation as it waited for the Lord of Glory and the King of Creation to emerge from the grave! Often we find ourselves waiting — how long did the minutes feel as Ruth and Naomi waited for the scenes of Ruth 4 to play out? How long did the months and years feel after the death of Naomi’s husband Elimelech? How long did the years feel for Boaz to be alone and then finally to marry Ruth the Moabite? And yet, in God’s providence, all of that waiting came to an end in the little town of Bethlehem.

Advent, meaning the coming of Christ, reminds the longing heart that to wait with anxious expectancy isn’t just human, it’s holy. Since the beginning of Genesis, since the Fall, since we left the Garden of Eden, every person has been waiting, watching, and yearning for the day when every wrong will finally be made right. Our imperfect soul is begging the One who designed it to lean down low and do some re-tuning. But the fixing doesn’t come instantly. Each day we watch things in our world break, and we lift them up to our Maker with open palms. And we wait for restoration. This sense of waiting under the providential hand of God is right at the heart of Advent. We aren’t waiting for Jesus to be born; rather, we are waiting for Jesus to return and to make the world new, and to finally right every wrong. And yet, we’re waiting all the same — what gives us confidence is that when the fullness of time comes again, Jesus will return, because He came once before.

Our service this Sunday remembers the little town of Bethlehem that lies still in its sleep while Jesus was born; the one who was rich beyond all splendor becoming poor for our sake. And as we hear again of the work of the kinsman-redeemer, we’re reminded of how much it cost Him to redeem us, how great our purchase price was, and above all how amazing was the providence that governed all of God’s creatures and all their actions to bring all things together at just the right moment. And once again, the Book of Ruth sounds just like the Gospel. So come this Sunday and hear more of this Good News for yourself. See you then! Dr. Dave