Ruth 4:17
The neighborhood women started calling him "Naomi's baby boy!" But his real name was Obed (Servant). Obed was the father of Jesse (Possessor), and Jesse the father of David (Beloved). ` (parenthesis mine’s)
Lamentations 3:58
You, Lord, took up my case; you redeemed my life.
Isaiah 44:22
I have swept away your offenses like a cloud, your sins like the morning mist. Return to me, for I have redeemed you.”
Just a moment. This story starts with Naomi. Let’s finish it there. You see, we relate to Ruth’s story: a stranger in a strange land grafted into the Promise, a beautiful picture of us being grafted literally into the Body of Christ, into the well from which Eternal Life springs, into the House of God. But let’s not look past Naomi. Naomi, too, returned from a foreign land, but to what? Without a husband, without sons, what would become of her? An elderly widow with no visible means of lasting support, no immediate family save the foreign born widow of her deceased son, When Boaz approached the near-kinsman redeemer who was closer to Naomi in relationship than he (Boaz), that near kinsman (un-named) was in a win-win situation. Sure he would buy Naomi’s property and, in essence, the responsibility for Naomi’s care along with it. I can’t question his purpose or integrity. He was doing exactly what was required of a wealthy kinsman according to the law. But when Naomi passed, what would remain of the house of Elimelech and Naomi? What would become of their ‘legacy’? Quite simply, the name of Elimelech and Naomi would vanish, as though they had never been.
When faced with the prospect of having to also ‘redeem’ the widow of Naomi’s son and having to, by law, bear a son by her and pass the inheritance of the deceased to that son as a way of continuing the legacy and name of the deceased, it was too much for him take on. He became fearful that he would put his own property, legacy and inheritance at risk. However, when Boaz, stepped in and took on the responsibility of redeeming Ruth and Boaz, he made it a certainty that Naomi and Elimelech would be remembered, a real picture of eternal life promised to us in Christ.
Beloved, when Christ ‘redeemed’ us, He gave us an eternal inheritance. He writes our name in the Book of Life, He throws our sin into the ‘sea of Forgetfulness’ and remembers them no more. When Christ redeemed us, He took us from a place where we had no eternal sustenance and literally plugged us into … Himself. He is the Vine, the Source of all Life. When He saved us, we were hopeless, cutoff and ashamed. Literally ‘Despair-ate’… Desperate! In the moment we believed, He put Heaven in our grasp and all that entails. He Blessed us, and when God, Almighty, Blesses, you are Blessed!
Eternity awaits us, the promise of a Future and a Hope. Rejoice as Naomi did. She was given a ‘son’, a hope, a future, a name that would last. Beloved, you’ve been given the Son (Christ)! Rejoice!
Blessings,
.wb
Galatians 3:14
He redeemed us in order that the blessing given to Abraham might come to the Gentiles through Christ Jesus, so that by faith we might receive the promise of the Spirit.
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