Tuesday
Carpenter Diem (Because Jesus Was a Carpenter and Is Now Preparing a Home for His People)
The resurrection of God the Son, Jesus Christ, is crucial to the Christian faith. In Luke 24:13-35, we read of the resurrected Savior walking the road to Emmaus. This specific geographical reference reminds us of the absolute accuracy of God’s Word in all areas. In verse 27, Jesus begins to teach from the Old Testament; He not only walked the talk but also talked the walk! This passage does not reveal the exact Scriptures Jesus employed to teach these journeying believers, but we do know that He fulfilled the entire Old Testament (Matthew 5:17,18). Fulfilled prophecy is one of the major reasons that we can be certain that our faith in Jesus is not misplaced. (I will be using this opening paragraph for each of the brief messages in this series. The following material will change daily.)
I remember Pastor Stuart preaching a Christmas sermon from the book of Ruth (probably forty years ago). Appropriately, he focused on the concept of the kinsman-redeemer (Ruth 3:9 “near kinsman” means kinsman-redeemer in the original Hebrew). Because God cared about families, He instituted the law of levirate marriage to ensure that a widow would be remarried and children raised within this close relationship. Boaz was willing to fulfill this role because he was a godly man. Of course, Boaz was taking on a substantial financial burden by marrying Ruth, for he was promising to care for both Ruth and her grumbling mother-in-law, Naomi.
As we would expect, God was doing even more than providing for Ruth. She and Boaz became the great-grandparents of David, with whom God made a covenant that included the promise that the Messiah would come from his line (II Samuel 7:16). Isaiah 59:16-21 tells us that “there was no man” to save us; thus God the Son came as our Savior (verse 16) and will come again (verses 17-21). Verse 20 uses the term “Redeemer”; this is the same Hebrew word found in Ruth 3:9. That Jesus is the ultimate Kinsman-Redeemer is made clear in John 1:14. He became fully human so that He is indeed a Kinsman (“dwelt” is a rich word: it means “tabernacled” and points to the glory of God in the Holy of Holies of the Tabernacle and later the Temple; it also reminds us that Jesus “pitched His tent” with us). Because He is fully God, Jesus is also a Redeemer. All of this is summarized in Philippians 2:5-11. Jesus became one of us (while still retaining His full deity) to redeem us. Instead of buying property (as Boaz did), Jesus is preparing a new and far better place for us (John 14:1-4). Instead of a relationship that may last only a few years, Jesus has established a permanent and eternal relationship. As our Kinsman-Redeemer, Jesus walked a rough road so that one day we can walk streets of gold.