by David K McMillin

Created on: October 03, 2009   Last Updated: December 12, 2009

The book of Ruth describes in beautiful allegorical language the path each of must climb to the foot of the cross.  The course of Ruth’s path begins in the land of Lot's child, Moab, the land of compromise, incest, and death and moves to the land of the living God.  In the new land she is romanced and then redeemed by a man whom can only described as an archetype of Jesus.

 In the land of Moab, the people of Lot’s incest, we find Ruth, a Moabite, marrying a man with whom the Law of Moses has forbidden, an Israelite.  Probably because of Ruth’s husband's disobedience to God, he dies along with his brother and father, possibly for the same reason, disobedience to the law, the text does not make the reason clear, leaving Ruth, Ruth’s mother-in-law, Naomi, and sister-in-law, Orpah, widows in what can now also be called the land of death.  Here Ruth begins her climb from Moab to Israel, from death to life, from the valley up the hill to Calvary.

 Ruth, Orpah, and Naomi begin a journey to the land of the living God, but on the way Naomi stops them to send her daughter-in-laws back to their own people.  Both Ruth and Orpah are presented with the chance to return to the life they know or continue up towards an unknown land and life.  Orpah decides to return to the life she knows in the land of her family giving up, probably forever, a life before the living God.  Ruth, on the other hand, decides to give up the life she knows for a life she does not.

 Ruth enters Israel but is unfamiliar with the ways and laws of its people.  Naomi begins her instruction by sending her out to collect left over grain from the harvest as provided for in the law, an early work for your welfare program established by God.  Ruth, by no intent of her own, finds herself in the fields of Naomi's relative, Boaz, who upon discovering her identity, orders his field workers to treat her with extra kindness.  Naomi, after hearing of Boaz's kindness, again sends Ruth out, this time to ask Boaz to fulfill the requirements of the law of redemption.  Ruth does this by lying down at Boaz’s feet and covering her self with the hem of his robe in recognition of his authority to give her life.

 Boaz now must act.  He puts on his sandals and wanders over to the city gate to await the arrival of the only man who has first right to everything belonging to Ruth including her life.  The man, after discovering he must also take Ruth, a Moabite, rejects his right and gives it to Boaz.  Boaz then returns home and brings Ruth into his family as his wife and the family of Israel, making her one of the children of the living God and no more a child of compromise, incest, and death.

 The path for Ruth to the foot of the cross began in the land of her fathers, the land of Moab, the land of the incestuous child of Lot, the land where compromise of the law is acceptable, and the land of death.  The very same choice all of us must make at some point in our lives: to leave the life we know and enter the land and life of the living God.  Despite our lack of knowledge we can choose to go forward and learn about the redeemer, Jesus.  Jesus seeing our need for redemption and our desire to be redeemed, just as Boaz, went forth and bought it for us by the requirement of the law, in blood.  The lessons of Ruth, if we take the time to listen, will lead us directly to the foot of the cross and our own redemption and inclusion in the family of a living God.

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