Shavuot Preparation and the One New Man
Shavuot Preparation | Have You Prepared?
Shavuot preparation is key when it comes to receiving the empowerment God has for us. After all, the Word tells us to prepare—as the wise virgins did—and God Himself is The Great Preparer…
“In My Father’s house are many mansions; if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you.”
—John 14:2
Shavuot Preparation | What You Need to Know…
Shavuot is a time of harvest and new beginnings. Yet, Shavuot preparation takes place in the events leading up to it: Passover and the Counting of the Omer (the fifty days used to examine and change our behavior).
These events leading up to Shavuot are vital! Use them to get quiet before the Lord, asking His power to fill you so you can fulfill your destiny for His Kingdom.
Know this: Without Shavuot preparation, stepping into new seasons, destinies, and callings becomes difficult, and at times, even impossible…
This is why God uses our journeys to prepare us. We must walk in His timing. His timing includes many seasons that connect to create a pattern for life. This is why we have to know His seasons. Then we will be able to align with the preparation.
“To everything there is a season, a time for every purpose under heaven.”
—Ecclesiastes 3:1
Passover and the Counting of the Omer are times of preparation… where we are cleansed in the blood and made ready for the new season of our calling.
Even Ruth went through this preparation to reach her destiny—and ours.
For it was during the Counting of the Omer, that Ruth went to the field to glean. A humbling time, and yet, as she gleaned seed, she was not only planting her new self but coming face to face with her destiny!
She could not have known a destiny if she had not been humble, willing to alter her character.
Shavuot Preparation | Getting Ready for the Harvest
Ruth said to Naomi…
“Entreat me not to leave you, or to turn back from following after you; for wherever you go, I will go; and wherever you lodge, I will lodge; your people shall be my people, and your God, my God. Where you die, I will die, and there will I be buried. The Lord do so to me, and more also, if anything but death parts you and me.”
—Ruth 1:16-17
This statement is what many believe to be Ruth’s conversion; the first step she took to follow the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and the first of many preparatory actions.
Following her mother-in-law, Naomi, all the way from Moab to Bethlehem was the next. In that journey, she was turning her back on everything she had known…
- Her biological family—whom Naomi entreated her to return to…
- Her culture…
- Her former god…
- The foods, traditions, and customs of a place so foreign to the ones she would come to know…
Yes, she had some idea of the sacrifices she would face. She had been married to an Israelite of the tribe of Judah and had lived with his family. Yet, nothing could truly prepare her for what was to come… the weariness of travel, the poverty she would live in, and, of course, the people who may not accept her.
It was a season of pruning before she would enter into her destiny. Trimming away the old so that she could embrace the fullness of life with Naomi’s God, now her God.
Ruth’s Shavuot preparation was a prophetic journey of the One New Man…
“… Boaz… said to her, ‘It has been fully reported to me, all that you have done for your mother-in-law since the death of your husband, and how you have left your father and your mother and the land of your birth, and have come to a people whom you did not know before. The Lord repay your work, and a full reward be given you by the Lord God of Israel, under whose wings you have come for refuge.’”
—Ruth 2:11-12
Boaz was not merely a man of great wealth, but a kinsman of Naomi. Thus, when Ruth’s behavior—honorable in its own right—was made known, Boaz was more than impressed…
She gave up everything for this kinsman!
In his awe, he returned her kindness with his own. Feeding her and granting her great favor as she gleaned in his fields.
God blessed Ruth even in her time of training. Gleaning in the fields was not her destiny. It was not the finish line.
The Lord was using the Shavuot preparation season to bring about Ruth’s destiny and the destiny of many. He was using this time to prepare Ruth for a greater harvest.
Shavuot Preparation | Getting Ready for Your Destiny
She could not glean barley forever, for all seasons have their end. A new season must take its place. Thus, Naomi prompted Ruth to go to Boaz, to obey her instructions though they must have appeared insane to her—for she did not know all the customs of Israel…
“Then Naomi… said to her, ‘My daughter, shall I not seek security for you, that it may be well with you? Now Boaz, whose young women you were with, is he not our relative? …he is winnowing barley tonight at the threshing floor. Therefore wash yourself and anoint yourself, put on your best garment and go down to the threshing floor; but do not make yourself known to the man until he has finished eating and drinking. Then it shall be, when he lies down, that you shall notice the place where he lies; and you shall go in, uncover his feet, and lie down; and he will tell you what you should do.’
“And she said to her, ‘All that you say to me I will do.’”
—Ruth 3:1-5
Following Naomi’s instructions was a great act of faith for Ruth, and the final step in her preparation. The final test as she entered Shavuot…
A test she passed in unwavering obedience, finding her full reward.
“… ‘I am Ruth, your maidservant. Take your maidservant under your wing, for you are a close relative.’”
—Ruth 3:9
Boaz, not the closest relative to Naomi, sought out the one who was closer still according to tradition, and upon his refusal of Ruth, Boaz gladly took her for his wife…
“… ‘Blessed are you of the Lord… For you have shown more kindness at the end than at the beginning, in that you did not go after young men, whether poor or rich. And now… do not fear. I will do for you all that you request, for all the people of my town know that you are a virtuous woman. Now it is true that I am a close relative; however, there is a relative closer than I… if he does not want to perform the duty for you, then I will perform the duty for you, as the Lord lives…’”
—Ruth 3:10-13
Thus, Boaz indeed played a part in Ruth’s destiny. He became her kinsman-redeemer, changing the lives of Naomi and Ruth to ones of wealth, status, and safety. Yet, marrying Boaz was not the total of Ruth’s destiny.
It was part of a greater plan. The union of Boaz and Ruth, a beautiful picture of what was to come—the Jew and Gentile coming together, creating one new man from the two…
“Therefore remember that you, once Gentiles in the flesh… were without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood…
“For He Himself is our peace, who has made both one, and has broken down the middle wall of separation, having abolished in His flesh the enmity… so as to create in Himself one new man from the two, thus making peace…”
—Ephesians 2:11-15
Yet, this bringing together of Jew and Gentile would not only occur in Ruth’s lifetime, but within a future generation; not through the marriage of a traditional kind, but through redemption far greater than that Ruth experienced! For Jesus is in the lineage of Ruth and Boaz.
The ultimate Redeemer who would be found in her lineage, and would bring Jew and Gentile together through redemption!
This redemption and the bringing together of Jew and Gentile is the greatest of all Shavuot preparation stories. Dozens of generations and hundreds of years passed between the time of Ruth’s redemption and the life of our Messiah… This event was a catalyst for one of the greatest things to come!
Yes, God could have chosen another earthly family for Jesus. He did not HAVE to use Ruth in Jesus’ lineage. Yet, what better portrait of love could God have chosen to give us? What better representation of what Jesus was to do?
That is to redeem…
Bring restoration…
And to graft the Gentiles into His people.
Shavuot preparation brings us to understand Jesus’ ministry of salvation and reconciliation. For this reason, we can expect and receive the empowerment released at Shavuot with open arms.
Let us, this Shavuot, remember that we are ONE in Messiah; and that we are better able to receive the harvest of souls when we work together as one new man…