Ruth the Moabite: Finding Refuge as Kinsman Redeemer | Advent Day 10

She stood at the crossroads with nothing. Her husband was dead. Her father-in-law was dead. Her brother-in-law was dead. The famine that had driven the family from Bethlehem to Moab had claimed everything except three widows left behind. Naomi prepared to return home. She urged her daughters-in-law to stay behind. "Go, return each of you to her mother's house." Orpah kissed her mother-in-law and left. Ruth clung. What followed stands as Scripture's most beautiful declaration of loyalty. "Where you go I will go, and where you lodge I will lodge. Your people shall be my people, and your God my God." Ruth abandoned everything familiar: her nation, her family, her gods. She chose an old widow over a young husband. She chose poverty in Israel over provision in Moab. Consider what this meant. Moab was enemy territory. The Law prohibited Moabites from entering the assembly of the LORD for ten generations. Ruth came from the wrong people with the wrong blood and the wrong history. Yet she came. Julius Schnorr von Carolsfeld painted the pivotal scene in 1828. Ruth bends to glean among the barley sheaves while Boaz approaches with welcoming posture, hand gesturing invitation. Schnorr placed Ruth in the foreground, isolated from other workers. A foreign woman gathering scraps at the edge of the field. No one expected her presence to matter. Yet she labored in the right field. Providence had guided her steps to the land of her redeemer. The Hebrew word "goel" defines this role. The kinsman redeemer could redeem property a relative had sold in desperation. He could redeem persons who had sold themselves into slavery. He could avenge blood when a relative had been murdered. Boaz would fulfill the first two duties for Ruth. Boaz noticed her immediately. "Whose young woman is this?" The servant identified her as the Moabite who came back with Naomi. The label could have prompted rejection. Instead, Boaz spoke words that would change everything. "Do not go to glean in another field. Stay close to my young women. I have told the young men not to touch you." He provided protection, water, food, and deliberately generous gleaning. He went beyond legal obligation into grace. Why? "All that you have done for your mother-in-law has been fully told to me, and how you left your father and mother and your native land and came to a people that you did not know before." Ruth's loyalty had preceded her. Her reputation arrived before her feet. The story unfolds through harvest and threshing floor toward marriage. Ruth approached Boaz at midnight and asked him to spread his wing over her, to take her as wife, to redeem her. The imagery echoes what Boaz had said earlier: "A full reward be given you by the LORD, the God of Israel, under whose wings you have come to take refuge." One problem remained. A closer relative held prior claim. At the city gate, this unnamed kinsman initially agreed to redeem the property. Then Boaz mentioned Ruth. The kinsman withdrew. "I cannot redeem it for myself, lest I impair my own inheritance." He valued his inheritance over redemption. Boaz did not share this hesitation. "Also Ruth the Moabite, the widow of Mahlon, I have bought to be my wife." Boaz paid the price. He took the risk. He married the foreigner. The child from this union received the name Obed. The women of Bethlehem blessed him: "He shall be to you a restorer of life." Their words proved prophetic beyond imagining. Obed fathered Jesse. Jesse fathered David. David's line led to Bethlehem's manger. The town's name carries meaning. Bethlehem means "house of bread." The story begins with famine driving a family away from the house of bread. It ends with Ruth harvesting grain in the same town. Centuries later, the Bread of Life would be born in the house of bread. Matthew opens his Gospel with Jesus' genealogy. Four women appear, which was unusual in Jewish genealogies. Tamar, Rahab, Ruth, and Bathsheba. Each carries stigma. The Messiah's lineage includes the broken, the foreign, and the scandalous. The line of promise ran not through the righteous but through the redeemed. Christ is our goel. He purchased us from slavery to sin. He restored the inheritance Adam forfeited. He brought foreigners into the family of God. What Boaz did for one Moabite widow, Jesus does for all who take refuge under His wings. Ruth began as an outsider with no claim and no hope. She ended as great-grandmother to Israel's greatest king. She made the choice that changes everything: "Your God shall be my God." And the God she chose became, through her descendant, God with us. Your past does not determine your future. Ruth came from Moab, a nation born from incest, excluded from Israel's assembly. Her resume offered nothing. Her background screamed disqualification. Yet she appears in the royal genealogy. She became an ancestor of the King of Kings. You stand in the right field. Whatever brought you here, whoever pointed you toward God, you glean in the field of the one who will redeem you. The Owner has noticed you. He has commanded protection. He offers more than scraps. This Advent, make Ruth's choice yours. "Your people shall be my people. Your God shall be my God." Belonging comes through choosing, not through bloodline. The foreigner becomes family. The outsider enters the lineage. The redeemer spreads His wing over all who ask. Tomorrow we meet David, the shepherd boy who became Israel's greatest king. From Ruth's line came the man after God's own heart. The seed advances another generation toward Bethlehem.