Ruth 3:9. [Boaz] said, “Who are you?” And she answered, “I am Ruth, your servant. Spread your wings over your servant, for you are a redeemer.”
In the middle of all the evil and chaos of the time of the Judges we find one of the most beautiful stories ever told, the story of Ruth.
Ruth’s story is full of faith, hope, and love. The story of God’s redemption. The story of God spreading his wings over his bride and redeeming her from despair. It is the human story.
Like the human story, Ruth’s story begins with tragedy. Ruth and her mother-in-law, Naomi, have been widowed, and are left without an heir, without a home, without a people, and to Naomi, it appears without a loving God.
Ruth 1:20. “[Naomi said] call me Mara, for the Almighty has dealt very bitterly with me.”
Like the human story, Ruth’s story reveals our need for faith in God even when he appears to be hidden and silent. In the silence, Ruth insists on staying with Naomi entering into the unknown of a foreign people in a foreign land, all while trusting an unknown God with her life.
Ruth 1:16. For where you go I will go, and where you lodge I will lodge. Your people shall be my people, and your God my God.
Like the human story, Ruth’s story points to our need for a redeemer. Someone to restore our hope. Ruth is a destitute gentile widow. Her past is wrong and her future is hopeless. Without an intervention of grace she and Naomi will perish.
Ruth 2:2. And Ruth the Moabite said to Naomi, “Let me go to the field and glean among the ears of grain after him in whose sight I shall find favor.”
And like the human story, God sends Ruth a redeemer. He sends a near relative of her husband who can marry Ruth and give her everything that she needs and desires – children, land, support, honor, love, and hope.
Ruth 2:12. [Boaz said to Ruth] “The Lord repay you for what you have done, and a full reward be given you by the Lord, the God of Israel, under whose wings you have come to take refuge!”
1500 years before Jesus, Boaz is our preview of Christ. Like Christ, Boaz has the resources to redeem his bride. He can provide all that she needs. Like Christ, Boaz is righteous. He obeyed the law, providing grain for the widow and protecting the foreigner from danger. And just as Christ loves his cursed church, Boaz loves Ruth, the cursed Moabite widow.
And just like our union with Christ, the union of Boaz and Ruth replaced her curse with his blessing. Her past with his future. Her shame with his honor. Ruth is no longer a cursed immigrant widow. She is the wife of the honorable Boaz of Bethlehem, the grandmother of King David, and the ancestral mother of Jesus.
“To live is Christ” means we are Jesus’ Ruth. His once cursed bride, now presented pure and holy before God. This is a love story of epic proportions. The redeeming love of Christ has made his people our people. His God our God. His home our home. A home where we will rejoice every day in our “happily ever after” with God.
You
Do you see your life as a “happily ever after?” What gets in the way?
You in Christ
In Christ you are redeemed by your kinsman Jesus. How does this truth of his curse breaking love encourage you today?
Christ in you
Naomi (“pleasant”) changed her name to Mara (“bitter”). How can you be pleasant today in Christ, rather than bitter?
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Playlist: Redeemed.
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To Live is Christ 