Unlikely Redemption

The book of Ruth is often described as a story of redemption. The title character follows her mother-in-law to Bethlehem after losing her husband and son. There, she experiences the favor and rescue of God when she meets and eventually marries Boaz.

I appreciate that aspect of the story. Lately, however, I have been looking more at the account of the woman she followed, Naomi.

Naomi left Bethlehem with her husband and two sons when famine struck; ten years later, all three had died. She was essentially alone and without provision in a land of foreign gods. It was time to go home.

But the woman who returned was not the same woman who left. “’Don’t call me Naomi [pleasant],” she told them. ‘Call me Mara [bitter]’” (Ruth 1:20).

As she and Ruth settle in and begin looking for a way to get by, God immediately provides. Here, our attention usually turns to the courtship of Ruth and Boaz. Even Naomi is watching Ruth, having given up hope for her own future.

Soon, the couple is married and Obed is born. Ruth the foreigner has been redeemed. Yet, the townspeople see the possibility for more:

“The women said to Naomi: ‘Praise be to the LORD, who this day has not left you without a kinsman redeemer. May he become famous throughout Israel! He will renew your life and sustain you in your old age. For your daughter-in-law, who loves you and who is better to you than seven sons, has given him birth.’ Then Naomi took the child, laid him in her lap and cared for him. The women living there said, ‘Naomi has a son’” (4:14-17).

Notice Naomi needed someone else’s eyes to help her see that her own redemption was laying right in front of her. Then she had to pick it up.

Ruth wasn’t the only one being offered a second chance – but Naomi had to be willing to look beyond herself and choose it. It wasn’t the life she had dreamed of on her wedding day, or even as she left Bethlehem, arms full with her family.

But with the simple act of seeing and picking up a child, Naomi took a step outside her narrow world of bitterness and stepped into a plan of redemption bigger than she could have ever dreamed: “Boaz the father of Obed, whose mother was Ruth, Obed, the father of Jesse, and Jesse, the father of King David. . . . the father of Joseph, the husband of Mary, of whom was born Jesus, who is called Christ” (Mt.  1:5-6, 16).

The one who had decided there was nothing left to be made of her life was now bouncing the seed of Earth’s redemption on her knee.

What have you decided about your life?