The book of Hosea contains one of the strangest love stories in all of literature. God tells his prophet to marry a promiscuous woman, named Gomer, who will make no effort to be faithful to him in their marriage. And when they have children, they give them names that are codewords for things like “punishment” and “no mercy” and “you don’t belong to me.” God directs Hosea into this marriage so that, as Hosea speaks to Israel on God’s behalf, he will also have first hand knowledge of what God experiences as Israel’s covenant partner. Israel is like an unfaithful spouse, and Hosea’s marriage to Gomer will hold up a mirror to that broken covenant relationship, all the while using language more “PG-13” than we’re accustomed to on Sunday mornings!
Israel is guilty of idol worship (not only allowed by the priests, but instigated by them!), of putting too much faith in military might, and of relying too much on foreign nations for agricultural and economic stability (instead of relying on God). Hosea places all this under the umbrella of one unifying image: adultery. And much of what the prophets have to say is in response to such unfaithfulness. God will judge. God will decimate. God will strip Israel of all her comfort, splendor and luxury. God promises to make Israel “like a wilderness, and turn her into a parched land, and kill her with thirst.” (Hosea 2:3) Israel will be estranged by every nation they’ve leaned on instead of God. Israel will experience agricultural and economic devastation, as well as the devastation of their religious institutions.
Israel’s vast infidelity to her covenant partner will not go unpunished. But what if this isn’t the bad news? What if it’s actually the good news? The truth is, we want God’s judgment. We may not realize it, but we want God to come to us harshly and strip us of our comforts and loves, because the judgment turns out to be purification. God is not pronouncing this utter decimation because he’s angry and ready to take it out on us, but because he loves his wife too much to let her keep running toward everything that distorts her and robs her of the beauty that he has seen in her since the beginning. We want God to bring us to a harsh and arid wilderness where everything immature and misaligned within us is stripped away and we may hear the loving voice of God again, which is exactly what happens next.
“Therefore, I will now allure her, and bring her into the wilderness and speak tenderly to her… On that day, says the LORD, you will call me, ‘my husband,’ and no longer will you call me, ‘my Baal.’ For I will remove the names of the Baals from her mouth… And I will take you for my wife forever; I will take you for my wife in righteousness and justice, steadfast love and mercy. I will take you for my wife in faithfulness; and you shall know the LORD.” (Hosea 2:14-20)
The wilderness sounded like threat and punishment the first time Hosea mentioned it. But now we see that it was the reward itself all along. God is purifying us of every desire, comfort and insecurity that moves us in any direction but his. And in doing this, God is taking us as his beloved, fully espoused to him in love and mercy, righteousness and justice, and in faithfulness. Let us stop chasing cheap comfort and security and anything that distorts the image of God in us. It will scare us to do so, but our God loves us too much to not strip it all away and allure us back to intimacy with him.
0 Comments