Doug Blair ADMIN II
CCW GOLD MEMBER POETRY CONTEST WINNER Posts : 644 Age : 72 Join date : 2013-02-03 Location : Waterloo, Ontario, Canada
| Subject: Burning the Mortgage Sun Mar 24, 2013 5:39 am | |
| Burning the Mortgage
What a happy day when the final instalment is paid on the mortgage. The bank is now out of the picture. Its claim against title extinguished. The deed holder is free and clear with his property. Get the picture on redemption?
We speak in church circles about our Redeemer. We were not our own. Sin in our nature and in our deeds had encumbered us. The Devil played cruel banker. He pointed to the statute book and said that the sin record could only be expunged by death. He saw mortals as his slaves forever, and laughed at their predicament. But the carpenter from Galilee had been talking about the imminence of His death at the hands of wicked religionists. And die He did…and rose again, saying “He whom the Son sets free is free indeed.” (John 8: 31-36)
There is another beautiful story of redemption, the tale of Ruth. She was a Gentile woman married to a Jewish man, an expatriate who had fled with his family from famine. This husband died and the young widow pledged herself to return with mother-in-law Naomi to the Jewish homeland. Times were tough and Ruth occupied herself by gleaning from the outskirts of fields of grain in harvest. One lord of the harvest, Boaz took special note of this woman and allowed her extra portions and forbad his servants to bother her in any respect.
When Ruth told Naomi of this development, the older woman could hardly contain herself. This man was a relative of her deceased husband and could be asked to fulfil the role of “Kinsman Redeemer”. Buy out any encumbrances against the property in Naomi’s family and take the widow Ruth as his wife to bring children to the otherwise barren family unit.
I love Naomi’s comment to Ruth at one point: ‘You just watch, child. The man will not rest until he has taken care of this business this very day.’ And Boaz did as stated. He went to the town gate and assembled the elders and one other man, a relative who had a competing claim as kinsman redeemer. The heart and momentum of Boaz could not be bettered. He was quick to pay and to marry. A healthy baby boy became the joy of all, and a forerunner in the lineage of King David and ultimately of Jesus.
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