Is not Boaz, with whose servant girls you have been, a kinsman of ours? Ruth 3:2

I can almost hear the gasp of joy that escaped Naomi’s lips. Ruth, breathless from the day’s labor, recounted the story of an unexpected kindness—a wealthy landowner who had noticed her, protected her, and filled her hands with grain. Then came the revelation: he was not a stranger at all, but a relative, a kinsman. In that moment, Naomi’s despair cracked open, and light filtered in. She knew what this meant.

If an Israelite were in desperate financial straits, he would sell his field, or even himself, into slavery. The responsibility for redemption fell to his kinsman. God intended that the ransom be paid by those who had the greatest personal interest in redemption, the man’s own flesh and blood.

In Israel, when poverty drove a man to sell his inheritance, or even himself into slavery, the mantle of redemption would fall upon a kinsman. It was not a transaction between strangers; it was redemption that was written into the family’s very bloodline. God designed it so that rescue would come from within, from one who shared both the burden and the blood.

What a picture of Christ this is. Every thread of Ruth’s story glows with His glory. Boaz, the man of Bethlehem, became Ruth’s kinsman-redeemer. Jesus, born in that same Bethlehem, became mine. Since redemption had to be a family affair, the Son of God clothed Himself in humanity’s garment. He stepped into our brokenness, our hunger and our heartbreak. No angel could have done it. Only a Brother could pay the price.

What once seemed utterly hopeless for Naomi and Ruth—their futures desolate, their names nearly erased—was instantly transformed by the whisper of a redeemer’s name. Hope took root where grief had lived. I know that story intimately. I, too, once stood in the field of my own failures, unsure what to do with the ruins of my sin. But then Jesus appeared, as He always does, and spread before me new choices:  mercy for condemnation, grace for guilt, and second chances for failure.

The word “trapped” should never be in my vocabulary. You can redeem absolutely anything. Amen