On the Bethlehem Road Part II

Perhaps Mary found distraction from the difficulties of her journey as she and her new husband made their way along the Bethlehem Road, by reflecting on the stories that the surrounding rocks and occasional trees would tell if they could talk.

Many years passed since that first story of Jacob and Rachel along the road. Another couple - two women - trudged along possibly that same road. The younger, was there out of sheer love and dedication to the older. Naomi, the older of the two, was on a miserable journey back to her home in Bethlehem. As she would announce to her kins- people upon her arrival - she was returning empty and bitter.

Naomi, her husband and two boys had left there years before with high hopes, they were leaving the economic depression of Bethlehem for the prospective opportunity in Moab. Perhaps for a time, they did see the prosperity they hoped to find - the family grew as her two sons found wives. Then fortunes disappeared as Naomi lost her husband and eventually both her sons.  In that day, it was nearly impossible to survive as a single woman - especially in a foreign land.   So Naomi headed back down the Bethlehem Road . . . empty.

She was now returning without her husband or two sons, only Ruth - one of her daughters-in-law.  Both of the former wives of her sons had begun the journey with her, but Naomi convinced one to return; relentlessly, Ruth hung on.

As they walked the road in silence, everything must have mocked her: the hard surface of the road that resisted her steps and pained her feet, the howling wind that sang a jeering song and punished her with stinging sand.  Perhaps the old women would eye her with a knowing smirk - "we knew you'd be back".

Despite her shame there was one bright spot in the midst of her misery - Ruth.  Ruth would be her constant companion, her support - she was not alone.

Ruth held to hope in the same steadfast manner with which she clung to her mother-in-law. That hope was contagious, it encouraged Naomi and it caught the attention of Boaz, a great landowner.

Through a tender turn of events, Ruth captured the heart of Boaz and the sun rose afresh on Naomi.  Not only would her husband's lineage survive - but it would some day become part of the Royal bloodline that would precede Messiah.

Maybe Mary and Joseph found in that tale, the hope that their cold desert nights would sometime warm to the brightness of the day.