Candle of Hope: Ruth 1

The Candle of Hope - Ruth Chapter 1

I wrote this for Neighborhood Church, Adrian, MI but I wanted to share it with the rest of my family as well. 

The book of Ruth opens in hopelessness. In the time of the judges (see the book of Judges) when Israelites were in a cycle of rebellion and oppression. A family finds themselves in a dire situation (1:1-4). Famine. Need. Hunger. Exiles in a foreign land. Not belonging. Sinful--they should not have married Moabite wives. Death. Widowhood. Poverty. Bitterness. A Moabite, an ethnicity with a shameful background and thus excluded.

 And us--where is the dark stronger than the light of advent hope right now?

Yet in this darkness there are gleams of hope: Ruth’s faithfulness and commitment, her presence as she travels back to Bethlehem with Naomi. Her language is one of covenant. Naomi heard “that the LORD had visited his people and given them food” (1:6). “They came to Bethlehem at the beginning of barley harvest” (1:22). Perhaps interpreted as coincidences, a natural cycle by some. Little things, but hope--the Lord is working into a grand plan. Hope--for Ruth’s story points beyond her. She is not the hero, but Christ is the hero of this story. He is the true Ruth, the one who has said, “Where you go I will go even unto incarnation. I will make you my people and my God shall be your God. Since you know death, I will know death so that you can have life in me and with me and not even death shall do us part” (1:16-17).

Spirit, we pray you open our eyes to your gleams of light in our dark and in our neighborhood.