The Book of Ruth has no supernatural miracles, superheroes, or VIPs; just normal ordinary people like us, going through the brokenness of life. It tells the story of Naomi and especially Ruth who face tragic losses and yet choose to cling to God in their desperate need and choose to remain faithful to Him. God on His part, shows Himself faithful to them through his providence, using natural, ordinary circumstances in His perfect timing to bring about His supernatural will in a way that only He can. The overarching theme of “Kinsman-Redeemer” reminds us that God is able to redeem all of the broken pieces of our lives and weave them into a beautiful part of His Grand Story through His Son, Jesus – our ultimate Kinsman-Redeemer. He did it for Ruth, and He will do it for us too as we learn to wait well on him, like Ruth did.
The book begins with an ordinary family of four in Bethlehem: Elimelech, Naomi, and their two sons Mahlon and Kilion. Faced with famine in the land, Elimelech and his family leave Bethlehem and move to Moab, a pagan rival nation. The story takes a tragic turn when Elimelech dies in Moab leaving Naomi a widow with her two sons. Mahlon and Kilion then marry Moabite women, Ruth and Orpah, in spite of God’s instructions against intermarriage with pagans.
More tragedy strikes the family when Mahlon and Kilion also die after a decade of living in Moab. Naomi’s family is now reduced to three widows. For Naomi especially, imagine the triple loss of her husband and both sons in a foreign land, far away from her relatives and support network in Bethlehem. How could anyone survive these severe trials and move forward? Apart from clinging to God for everything we need and trusting in his all-sufficient grace, it would be impossible.
Being a widow in biblical times meant certain poverty and vulnerability. So when Naomi hears that the famine in Bethlehem is over, she decides to leave Moab and return to her hometown. Naomi urges her daughters-in-law to return to their people and their gods but Ruth decides to cling to her mother-in-law with these famous words, “Where you go I will go, and where you stay I will stay. Your people will be my people and your God my God.” (Ruth 1:16) At this point, Ruth the pagan Moabite becomes Ruth the believer in the God of Naomi, the God of Israel – Yahweh!
During worship yesterday, I felt a particular anointing on the song “Jesus, Lover of My Soul”. I felt in my spirit as if I was singing alongside Naomi and Ruth as we declared to Jesus together, “I love you. I need you. Though my world may fall, I’ll never let you go. My Savior. My closest Friend. I will worship You until the very end.”
Naomi and Ruth’s world fell apart with three tragic deaths in the family. And I too have gone through seasons in life when it felt as if my world was falling apart – from a tragic death to terminal illness to a marriage breakup in our family. So I felt a strange connectedness with Naomi and Ruth during worship as we sang those words, in a way that I had never experienced before when I sang that same song. It was a desperate cry in my spirit to never let Jesus go because I can’t, because I love Him. I need Him. He alone has everything I need to carry on when life gets tough. And no matter what happens, “I will worship You until the very end.” Strangely, I didn’t feel alone in my spirit. There was a whole cloud of witnesses including Naomi and Ruth who made the same declaration.
Ruth’s story began with Tragedy and Death. It ended with Joy and Birth. In between the two bookends, Ruth waited well with patient endurance and remained faithful to the God of Israel, under whose wings she had come to take refuge (Ruth 2:12). God, in His providence, used natural, ordinary circumstances in His perfect timing to bring about a glorious end to her story as great-grandmother of King David, and as ancestor of Jesus, our Ultimate Kinsman-Redeemer! Today in worship, I felt even more so that if God can accomplish His purposes through an ordinary pagan-woman-turned-God-Worshipper, He can do the same through me. He can do the same through you!