LOVE THAT REDEEMS
based on Hosea 1:2-10
By Dr. David Rogne

Have you ever wondered how it is that a person gets inspired with ideas about God? Certainly, a lot of what we believe about God comes to us from people of the past who had certain experiences. Moses, for example, that great man of God, was a channel through whom God communicated the idea that there are certain laws of conduct that one must follow if life is to be satisfying. From Moses, therefore, we picked up the idea that God is the great lawgiver.

Later, the Psalmists, reflecting on those laws, tended to see God as a rewarder of the good. They reminded us that "the steadfast love of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting upon those who fear him, and his righteousness to children's children, to those who keep his covenant and remember to do his commandments." It was from such writings that we Jews got the idea, rightly or wrongly, that God loves only those who are good.

There were also the prophets, stern men like Amos, who preached on the justice and severity of God. They caused us to see that God is a righteous judge of conduct, and woe to us if our conduct was not upright. Through Amos, we learned to fear the Lord. Sometimes those prophets of unrelieved doom gave us the idea that God was cold, indifferent, and impatient with our human frailties.

I suppose you could say that I generally fell into that school, too, in the early days of my preaching. My name is Hosea. Like Amos, my predecessor, I was called to be a prophet, a preacher, a spokesman for God. The only God I knew about was the stern God preached by Amos. So I preached that my people were heading straight for destruction--going to hell in a hand basket, you might say--and from all I could see, if that was what they got, it served them right. At least, that's the way I went about my preaching at first.

But something happened in my own life which was to have a profound effect on the way I understood God. That is why I asked you at the beginning how you think a person gets inspired with ideas about God. You probably think that God speaks directly to certain people, word for word, the things that God wants them to say, and those people pass the words on to the rest of us. Maybe God does do that sometimes. I can't speak for Moses. But I'll bet that a lot of what Moses had to say came to him as God helped him try to make sense out of the situation in which he found himself. Then the words were written down for our benefit, and our understanding of God was increased.

As a preacher, I felt it was my task to pass on the ideas and warnings from the past, to preach judgment and condemnation. I wasn't changing anybody. I wasn't making anybody happy by what I said, but I felt that that is what a preacher does. Give 'em hell! At least keep 'em from enjoying what they are doing! Then God spoke to me. Not in words you could hear, but through my experience. In my case, it was through my marriage that God made me aware of some things about which I had formerly been ignorant.

The first thing I had to learn about God deals with our relationship to him. I was a happily married man. My wife's name was Gomer. She bore me three children and I thought that everything was just fine in our marriage; the rent was paid, we were clothed and fed, I had work, everybody was healthy. I don't know quite what happened between us; maybe I spent too much time being a preacher, and not enough time being husband and father. You know, it's one of the hazards of being a preacher that you are always on call. Maybe Gomer couldn't handle it. Maybe I brought too much of my work home. I know I was terribly intense. I felt that it was my job to denounce the sins of the people, and there was plenty to denounce. The people were greedy, materialistic, self-indulgent, and, therefore, taking advantage of others. The religious establishment was corrupt. The government officials were seeking bribes and corrupting justice. I felt that they needed to be convicted of their sins.

You probably know that preachers are always looking for illustrations to help them make their point. Perhaps you have heard preachers use illustrations based on experiences in their homes or with their children. Well, I thought I would go one better. People weren't paying any particular attention to what I said, so I decided that instead of speaking of my children in sermons, I would work it so that wherever my children went, they would be a constant reminder of God's judgment. As the father, I had the right to name the children. My first child I named Jezreel. This was a place of bloody battles in Israel's history. It was kind of like naming a child Armageddon. Wherever he went, when people asked his name, the name would serve as a warning that a day of reckoning was coming for the people of Israel.

My second child, a girl, I named Lo-ruhamah, which means "not pitied." Wherever she went, her name would be a living message that divine judgment was about to fall on Israel without pity. My third child, a son, I named Lo-ammi, which means "not my people." I wanted the people of Israel to know that whatever covenant they thought they had with God was broken. Israel could not expect to continue to enjoy a preferred status under God's protection, for her very life denied that she was a people of God. I suppose that I made my point very well, but my methods and my message must have made our home a bitter and loveless place, for eventually, my wife left me.

In my misery, I thought to myself, "How like marriage is God's relationship with his people." God had called Israel when she was but a wandering group of tribes in the wilderness. God gave her continuity, purpose, leadership, protection, food, a homeland. It was God who made Israel what she was. God had entered into a covenant akin to marriage: Israel was to be true to God, and God was to care for Israel. Israel freely consented to the agreement at Mt. Sinai, but corruption soon set in. God had attempted to refine the covenant through the law, the prophets, the priests, the religious ceremonies, but without success. Injustice, oppression, and exploitation continued to be a part of Israel's pattern, so that she became less and less what God had intended her to be.

Of course, I identified myself with God's position in my relationship with Gomer. I was angry. I had provided her with a place to live, a family, the necessities of life. She should have been grateful. As far as I was concerned, Israel and Gomer had each chosen to go their own way, and both should be permitted to follow their course to destruction if that is where it led. God would be justified, and so would I!

The second thing I had to learn, however, was the pain of alienation. Not only did Gomer leave me, she went off and became a prostitute. There was abroad in our land the abominable practice of Baal worship. The Baals were fertility gods who were believed to provide for the increase of flocks and herds and crops. The people thought of Baal as husband of the land and people, and they thought of his union with them as one based on marriage and sexual union. This was accomplished by entering into sensuous and immoral rites with women who were in attendance at the shrines. Gomer had become one of these women. She got her support, her food, her lodging, from those who became her lovers. She was reduced to seeking only the physical necessities: food, drink, and clothing. She had given up any consideration of those things which went deeper than physical need; she was not concerned for love or affection or responsibility. She was utterly alienated from me.

And yet, I could not forget her. A part of me said, "Let her go. Good riddance! She has freely chosen this way for herself. Have nothing to do with her!" I was bitter; I was disappointed; I was hurt. But I was also tormented by my separation from her. I didn't want to love her. I felt degraded by her. But I loved her nevertheless, this faithless one who did not deserve my love, and I desperately wanted her back.

Here was the turning point in my understanding of God. I began to see beyond my own pain to the pain of God. If my love for faithless Gomer could still endure, how much more the love of God for God's erring people. How many times had Israel gone off after its Baals, violating its agreement to be God's people, and entering into unholy alliances which must have torn the heart of God? How many times had Israel attributed its increase, its flocks, its herds, and its advancement to Baal rather than to God who was the real provider? Israel so often acted like a confused wife, going after those things she thought would bring happiness and security, only to find that the pursuit of physical goals left her empty and unfulfilled.

Realizing all this, my message changed. I felt God was telling me, "Continue loving Gomer; you are allowed to love her, you must love her, for even so do I love Israel." My longing to have my own wife back was but a symbol of the longing God feels for his estranged people. I, who sat alone in the ruins of my own broken home, was given a vision of God, not as a judge, enraged by broken laws, but as a lover, alone, with his head in his hands, broken hearted by desertion. I could hear God saying, "How shall I give you up . . . .? How shall I deliver you, O Israel?"

But I found more than suffering; I found also the possibility of reconciliation. Things had gone badly for Gomer. When she was no longer of value to the shrine of Baal, she had been ejected. Having nowhere to go, she wound up in debt and was eventually sold to a slave dealer. She was now owned by the way of life she had sought to follow. No longer was she free to choose her way of life.

Such was her condition when I found her: a poor miserable thing to be bought and sold in the market place. I paid the price for her so that she was released from bondage. There was no need for the punishment I had so long preached as the payment for sin. Gomer had known punishment enough: the degradation of chasing false lovers; the poverty of goods and spirit which were the results of her slavery; the drabness that had come into her life from the pursuit of pleasure. What Gomer needed now was knowledge that she was a person of worth, for she had lost her dignity. She needed to know she could be loved, for she was no longer able to love herself. In short, she needed to be redeemed, not scolded. I brought her back to our home and asked her to be my wife again. I did not expect fawning gratitude from her; neither do I expect admiration from you. In those long months without her, I had discovered that I was as responsible for what had happened as was she. My own attitudes had to change. No condescension. No blaming. I sought her and wooed her again because I loved her and needed her. She was helping me to understand the meaning of love.

In all this I saw hope for God's people. God does not stand idly by when his people have spurned his love. He absorbs the pain and seeks them out nonetheless. His victory is not found in our destruction, but in our redemption. God so loves the world that he only wins when we are redeemed, won back to him. He is with us no matter how far we have fallen. He comes among us, he suffers with us, he takes the initiative in rescuing us, not because of any merit in us, but simply because he loves us.

And how this realization changed my message! I changed the name of my daughter, Lo-ruhamah, "not pitied," to Ruhamah, meaning "she has obtained pity." I changed the name of my son, Lo-ammi, "not my people," to Ammi, meaning "my people." I had discovered that God was wooing his people back to himself. My message was no longer the negative one of judgment and punishment, but the good news that we who had been alienated from God were still loved by him and could be reconciled to him once again. And this good news of God's love is not simply for Israel; it is for all people. God loves us and seeks us to be his people even now.