Unexpected Grace: The Christmas Story You Never Knew

It wasn’t until I saw tears in my teacher’s eyes that Naomi’s life came alive for me. Leaning forward, I drank in the beginnings of Ruth as if Naomi was right there, sharing her troubles with me. For the first time, I knew what it was like for Naomi to lose everything—her husband, her sons, and her home with God’s people. She felt the hand of the Lord was against her (Ruth 1:13). In her own words, she went away from God’s place full, but he brought her back empty (Ruth 1:21).  

Many of us are burdened similarly this Christmas season. We’re grieved by children far from the Lord, by family members who complicate Christmas celebrations, by loved ones we long to hold one more time. Maybe our financial needs or church family struggles weigh heavy on our hearts. We look over our lives and wonder if God’s happy with us. Like Naomi, perhaps we’re just plain lonely.

The book of Ruth may not be the first place you’d look for a Christmas story. Yet, Naomi’s story of loss, pain, and restoration offers hope to our weary hearts this season—all through the birth of a baby boy.

God’s Pursuit of the Needy

Geographically, Moab was a place Naomi shouldn’t have been. Christopher Ash reminds us that “all the resonances of Moab are poisonous—every single one.” Still, here she was, far from God’s place and his people, missing everything she’d lost.

What drew Naomi back home? She’d “heard in the fields of Moab that the Lord had visited his people and given them food” (Ruth 1:6). All the way out in a Moabite field, the news of God’s faithfulness reached her.

No person is too far away when it comes to God’s kindness and call. The news of God’s faithfulness reaching Naomi is no accident. Like a beacon’s shimmer on a late-night ocean, like a shepherd who searches for one of his lost sheep, God calls Naomi to come home.

Jesus knew something about searching for the lost: “What man of you, having a hundred sheep, if he has lost one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the open country, and go after the one that is lost, until he finds it? And when he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders, rejoicing” (Luke 15:4–5). This parable was about him coming to earth in pursuit of lost sinners. Jesus’s Incarnation puts flesh on this story.

God the Son was “born in the likeness of men” to pursue the lost sheep—to pursue us—who were as far off as the fields of Moab when we heard him call our names (Phil. 2:7).

Christmas Morning

Boaz’s reveal as guardian-redeemer—someone who has a “covenant obligation to care” for the deceased family member’s family—is often viewed as the “climax” of this story. Yet, we can’t overlook the birth of a baby who would change Naomi’s life forever.

When the city’s women place Obed in Naomi’s arms, they attribute him to Naomi (Ruth 4:17). Through Israel’s legal system, he is her true guardian-redeemer (Ruth 4:14). He is the renewer of her life and her sustainer in old age (Ruth 4:15). This baby restores all that Naomi has lost. While she thought bitterness defined her story, God “was working grace in every dark season and every dark detail in Naomi’s life.”

We understand this more fully when we see that Obed doesn’t conclude the book of Ruth. We can only imagine the original hearers’ celebration as they read of David in Obed’s lineage. This was David—their King David—the shepherd leader after God’s own heart. David, the greater Obed.

Praise God, this family tree doesn’t end here. As Tim Keller reminded us, “Even the begats in history drip with God’s mercy.” We follow mercy’s rivulet through the pages of the Old Testament to the wells of salvation—to “Jesus who is called the Messiah” (Is. 12:3; Matt. 1:16). Jesus, a descendent of David, who is a descendent of Obed, who is a descendent of Ruth, the daughter-in-law of Naomi. Jesus, the greater David, the restorer of all his people have lost. Jesus, the One through whom God works grace in our darkest seasons and darkest details.

Christmas Meaning 

Like Naomi, we may be hurting this Christmas season. We may feel far from God, lost and alone, certain he doesn’t care for us. But what does God promise in his Word? A greater Obed has come to draw us near, to redeem us, to have us share in every spiritual blessing that belongs to him (Eph. 1:3). A greater Obed has come to fill up our emptiness with himself (Eph. 5:2).

Christian, if you ever doubt God’s care for you, look to the Christmas story, when our great God took on flesh in pursuit of you (Heb. 2:17). You were once far from him, as far as the fields of Moab, but now he’s called you to himself. His Son entered our world as a baby to be the restorer of your life and sustainer in old age (Ruth 4:15).

The emptiness that loomed over Naomi didn’t have the final say—your emptiness doesn’t either. Together this Christmas season, let’s bless God, who has not left us this day without a guardian-redeemer.