Genealogy is critically important in the Bible, and this is amply demonstrated in the lineage of Jesus. It had been prophesied that Israel’s messiah would come from the line of David, and – as the beginning of the Gospel of Matthew tells us in exacting detail – Jesus was a direct descendant of King David.

While the Old Testament story of Ruth’s devotion to her widowed mother-in-law Naomi is a touching tale, it is far more than that in the lineage of Jesus. To me, it shows that Jesus was a Savior for all peoples, not just the Israelites. Ruth was a Moabitess, a gentile from another land. When she, also widowed, faithfully followed the Jewish Naomi from Moab back to Bethlehem in Naomi’s homeland of Judah (yes, the Bethlehem where Jesus was born), Ruth was a foreigner and an immigrant there. In time, Ruth married Boaz, a godly kinsman of Naomi, and bore him a son, Obed. Obed was the father of Jesse, who was the father of David. So Jesus, of the line of David, had an immigrant gentile in his human lineage. 

We see how God’s salvation plan was all-inclusive, for everyone. Ruth, a gentile, had the courage, the conviction and the love to travel from her native land of Moab to the strange land of Judah with Naomi, and to live among people she did not know. She pledged to accept Naomi’s God and to accept Naomi’s people as her own. So devoted was Ruth that she requested to be buried where her mother-in-law was to be buried. In Judah Ruth lived in near poverty, tirelessly gleaning for leftover grain for herself and Naomi in the fields after the reapers had gone until Boaz, a prosperous man, took her as his wife. 

In humility, Ruth asked Boaz why he should take notice of her, a foreigner. But Boaz said to Ruth, “The Lord recompense you for what you have done, and a full reward be given you by the Lord, the God of Israel, under whose wings you have come to take refuge!” When I read this story, I think of how essential Ruth’s faithfulness was in the story of Jesus, the messiah. It was not the first time God would choose a seemingly unlikely person to carry out His salvation plan, and it would not be the last. 

So when we celebrate Christmas this year, let us say a prayer of thanks for Ruth, the faithful ancestor of Jesus, and for all those forbears who came before and after her.  

God bless you!

Peggy