Introduction

This is a prophecy full of passion. It is set within the context of a disastrous marriage. Hosea’s own tragedy leads him to a deeper understanding of the love of God in forgiveness and redemption. His own situation and his prophecy are intimately mixed – the prophet lives his message.  So do you. Like it or not, the context of your life tells you the story of God’s love. Your life speaks. The question is what message does it tell.

 

          In Canaanite worship, Baal was the husband of the land, thus ensuring its fertility. The influence of Baal in Israel was very strong. So strong even David named one of his children using Baal for God (1Chronicles 14:7) As a result Israel  saw YHWH as God of the land. Hosea’s message is that YHWH is wedded to his people, morally and spiritually, not the land. It is a relationship of love, faithfulness and honour he seeks with his people not offerings and bribes.

READ Hosea 1:1-3:5

1.       1:1-3:5        The marriage parable

a.       1:1              Historical setting

b.      1:2-9           the faithless wife

c.       1:10-2:23    Israel’s unfaithfulness

d.      3:1-5           The faithful husband

 

On Sunday, 28^th December, the pope tweeted:

 The Christian family is missionary: it announces the love of God to the world.

Now your relationships are hopefully not as bizarre as Hosea’s but they are an announcement to the world. They can either tell of God’s love or they reek of slander, envy, selfishness and the like. Marriage is very much abused in our society. Gone are the days when ‘for better or worse, … til death us do part’ are seen as the axioms of relationship. We have a new language to illustrate it. Pre-nuptial agreements, civil partnerships, co-habiting, civil marriages.

 So what is the underlying message for us from Hosea, today. I believe it is “I love you, you have broken my heart but I still love you”

Liz and I were reading in Matthew23:37-24:2 on Tuesday and what we read is that Jesus said a very similar thing.

³⁷ “Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you were not willing. ³⁸ Look, your house is left to you desolate. ³⁹ For I tell you, you will not see me again until you say, ‘Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.’”

Jesus left the temple and was walking away when his disciples came up to him to call his attention to its buildings. ² “Do you see all these things?” he asked. “Truly I tell you, not one stone here will be left on another; every one will be thrown down.”

 

Sin has consequences. But that does not diminish God’s love. So let’s examine what God’s love is like in this passage.

First and foremost is that God loves sinners. We don’t know whether Gomer was a prostitute before she marries Hosea although it seems likely. But God tells Hosea to marry her. Her children are the result of  her sexual adventures.  Let’s be clear, there are no illegitimate children. The illegitimacy is in the parenting.  Hosea accepts fathering children conceived  of other men. He is the faithful one and Gomer is the wayward one.  This is not some prescription about relationships. It is a disastrous relationship. It was not God’s plan for marriage. Nor was it God’s plan for Israel that they would run after every God that they came across. God’s ideal for marriage is the same as for him and his people. That married couples should live in the security of a faithful loving relationship and that the church should walk in the Spirit in a faithful and loving relationship with God. One of the reasons that marriage is so important to us is that it reflects God’s plan for his people.

Here the reality is a mess. Each child that comes along is identified as

 יזרעאל   Jezreel   God will sow/ scatter. Hosea is a contemporary of Isaiah & Micah in Judah and Amos in Israel. Their prophecies have similarities  Jezreel refers to the capital of Israel  where political intrigue was awash with assassinations, murder.  Jehu established his dynasty by killing everyone in the family of Ahab. Mind you Ahab was definitely not  Mr. Nice Guy, he had murdered Naboth to get his vineyard! ‘Jezing’, as in Jezreel,  is meant to mean sowing anticipating a harvest but it has come to mean scattering and destroying rather than planting.

 

 לא רחמה   Lo-Ruhamah  not have mercy This is a theological shock. In Exodus 33:19 God says

I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion.

Again in Deuteronomy 7:6-9

6 For you are a people holy to the Lord your God. The Lord your God has chosen you out of all the peoples on the face of the earth to be his people, his treasured possession.

 

7 The Lord did not set his affection on you and choose you because you were more numerous than other peoples, for you were the fewest of all peoples. 8 But it was because the Lord loved you and kept the oath he swore to your ancestors that he brought you out with a mighty hand and redeemed you from the land of slavery, from the power of Pharaoh king of Egypt. 9 Know therefore that the Lord your God is God; he is the faithful God, keeping his covenant of love to a thousand generations of those who love him and keep his commandments.

Because they rejected God’s ways, they have to face the consequences of their sin. God withdraws his love and mercy.

 

 לא עמּי    Lo-Ammi  not my people  This is the second theological shock. God is the God of Abraham of Isaac and of Jacob. He has chosen Israel to be his people. But their sin inevitably leads to this reversal. No you are not my people any more.

 

But the prophecy moves on. 2:1 suddenly, unexpectedly reverses what we have just been told.

2:1 "Say of your brothers, 'My people,' and of your sisters, 'My loved one.'

What is going on? One minute Hosea rejects his children, the next he adopts them. One minute God rejects his people, the next he re-adopts them. Then , to add to the confusion, he launches into  a divorce.

2:2 "Rebuke your mother, rebuke her, for she is not my wife, and I am not her husband.

Let her remove the adulterous look from her face and the unfaithfulness from between her breasts.

What follows is a bitter vitriolic attack on Gomer’s unfaithfulness. That is up to verse 13. It is also God railing against unfaithful Israel.

Then verse 14 – 23 the switch changes again. This time God is clearly speaking about Israel.  Here are words of a lover seeking out the one who is loved and allurement, betrothal and  covenant appear. The much-loved line and will make the Valley of Achor a door of hope. Refers to the incident in Joshua 7 where Achan disobeyed God and Israel lost a battle. Achan  and his family were stoned to death in the valley of Achor. It was a place of despair, but now, God says, it is a door of hope.

Finally, in chapter 3, God instructs Hosea to replicate his message in his life.

 "Go, show your love to your wife again,

You have broken by heart, but I can’t stop loving you.

(Leo Sayer track)

So God’s message to us is “I can’t stop loving you even though you break my heart” The call of God this morning is to repent, turn around, see that you have wandered away from grace and from living  by faith. He is calling out “I love you” but are you listening?  The Bible says that the terrible things that happened to Israel were because they refused the love of God.

The writer to the Hebrews points out that we have a greater revelation of God’s love in Christ Jesus and says in Hebrews2:3 “ how shall we escape if we ignore so great a salvation?”

 

When we say “God loves us”, we need to realise the pain of our disobedience. That love lead Jesus to die on a cross for us.

Hosea lived out a disastrous marriage and family situation which God used to proclaim his love for his people, that’s you and me. We are called to respond to the love of God, to receive his grace, so freely offered, and live transformed lives through the power of the Holy Spirit. You can’t worship the gods of this world AND have a close relationship with God

 

I will show my love to the one I called 'Not my loved one.

' I will say to those called 'Not my people, ' 'You are my people';

and they will say, 'You are my God.'"