Ruth
Do you have a favourite person in the Bible? Not including Jesus… I love Peter in the New Testament, so passionate, so impetuous, so flawed – he gives me hope for myself! In the Old Testament there are two women I love to read about. The first is Hannah. We know so little about her: there is one chapter about her at the beginning of 1 Samuel, and a song of praise – and then she is only mentioned once more. She was a godly woman who took her deepest longings to God in prayer. She fulfilled her promise to God by offering her first-born son Samuel into God’s service. One of the most tender verses in the whole Bible is 1 Samuel 2.19: Each year [Hannah] made [Samuel] a little robe and took it to him when she went up with her husband to offer the annual sacrifice. Such love expressed in so small a verse.
The other woman I love to read about is Ruth. Like Daniel was a foreigner in Babylon, Ruth was a foreigner in Israel: she was even a Moabite – at the time one of Israel’s greatest enemies. She married an Israelite man, contrary to God’s law; he should not have married her. After ten years her husband died, and she and her mother-in-law Naomi moved back to her home in Bethlehem.
Ruth left her own family, her own country, and moved to a place far away from home… and with her mother-in-law! Cue the Les Dawson jokes…  Despite being a foreigner, she embraced God’s law, respecting the customs of his people, serving Naomi with love and faithfulness. She said to Naomi: ‘Your people will be my people and your God my God.’ Ruth was accepted into God’s family, marrying Boaz and becoming part of the line of King David.
Last week we thought about Daniel, a foreigner among hostile people. This week we have Ruth, a foreigner among God’s people. Both of them stood out for their faithfulness to God. Daniel risked everything for God; Ruth gave up everything for God. Sound familiar? While they present examples and encouragements to us, ultimately Daniel and Ruth point forward to Jesus, who truly gave up everything and lived in perfect faithfulness, so we could be children of God.
The key word in the book of Ruth is hesed. It means something like ‘kindness, loyalty, covenant faithfulness’ – sometimes translated loving-kindness’ and in some ways similar to ‘grace’. I like to think of it as ‘loyal love in action’ – and that’s exactly what Jesus showed, even unto death on the cross.
Hesed – loyal love in action – that is how God loves you. And I believe the best way to respond is to follow his example and love God, other people and creation with loyal love in action.
But this week let’s simply be grateful for the love our Father has lavished on us in Jesus, that we might be called his children: for that is what we are (1 John 3.1).