Commemoration of Ruth
July 16
On this day, we praise God for an ancestress of our Lord Jesus Christ, Ruth.
“But Ruth said, ‘Do not urge me to leave you or to return from following you. 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. Where you die, I will die, and there will I be buried. May the LORD do so to me and more also if anything but death parts me from you’” (Ruth 1:16-17). With those stirring words of devotion, Ruth bound herself to Naomi, her dead husband’s mother. Evidently during their sojourn in Moab, Naomi and her family had shared Israel’s faith in the true and living God. Ruth had heard, listened, and believed. She loved her mother-in-law and wanted to be part of the people of God, who waited together in faith and hope or the coming of the Promised One. Together, then, Naomi and Ruth returned to Naomi’s hometown of Bethlehem.
Ruth set to work in the fields to support Naomi and herself. Her devotion to her mother-in-law, and by implication to her dead husband and father-in-law, became well-known in the village. The pious Boaz, a near relative, provided for the two widows by allowing Ruth to glean, that is, to pick up the leftovers in his fields (and even ordered his servants to leave extra wheat for Ruth to find). Emboldened by this sign of Boaz’s tender care, Naomi instructed Ruth to appeal to Boaz for “redemption”; Ruth asked to be taken under his protection as his wife, since in Hebrew law the nearest kinsman had an obligation to raise up children for their near relatives who left childless widows.
Boaz was touched by Ruth’s appeal, for he was an older man and humble. When a nearer relative refused the right of redemption, Boaz then took Ruth as his wife, Moabite though she was. Their first child was named Obed. He became the father of Jesse, who was the father of King David, ancestor of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Could Ruth have ever guessed the truth? She was joined by faith to the people who awaited the gift of a Savior, the advent of the Promised Seed of the woman who would crush the serpent’s head. Her hope was in the Seed of Abraham who would bring blessing to all the families of earth. And this child, so desired and longed for, would come from her very own body! For faithful Ruth, ancestress of Christ, all glory to God!
Prayer: Faithful God, You promised to preserve Your people and save Your inheritance, using unlikely and unexpected vessels in extending the genealogy that would bring about the birth of Your blessed Son. Give us the loyalty of Ruth and her trut in the one true God, that we, too, might honor You through our submission and respect and be counted among Your chosen people, by the grace of Jesus Christ, our Lord, and the Holy Spirit, who reign together with You, now and forever. Amen.
Weedon, William Celebrating the Saints 118-119