The Gospel in Hosea

Photo courtesy of canossians.net

The Easter season has once again rushed upon me this year.  Before I knew it, it was just two weeks out from Palm Sunday, and I hadn't thought to pick up my Lenten devotional book that I had savored during the Lenten season last year.

So instead of flipping to the New Testament scriptures which explicitly tell about Christ's Passion Week and His crucifixion, I've found myself being drawn to the book of Hosea of late.  It seems that during the "white space" of my day--those moments that are not involved in accomplishing an agenda or completing a specific task--I find my mind meditating upon the notion that God.Loves.Me.  Now, that seems elementary to many theologians, but ahhh...how rich and unmeasurable and incomprehensible that concept is when we truly examine it!  A certain truth just began to echo in my mind, all throughout my day...

The world says: "I love you based on what you do." 

We as mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, and friends tell our loved ones: 

"I love you based on who you are." 

And while that seems so unconditional, God Almighty blows it out of the water, as He says: "I love you based on who I Am."

If you are not familiar with it, Hosea is a rich gem of an Old Testament book, written by the prophet Hosea who was instructed by God to marry a prostitute, Gomer.  Despite her continued unfaithfulness, Hosea was instructed by the Lord to continue to pursue her, even buying her back at one point from the arms of yet another man, to make known to her his unconditional love.  It is a beautiful picture of our Lord God, who unabashedly pursues us in the midst of our love affairs with various idols and our selfish affections for the things of this world, while He offers to us instead an intimate love relationship with Him based upon HIS faithfulness and goodness.

And yet, there are some very raw parts of the book of Hosea which describe how the unfaithfulness of the nation Israel will not go unpunished.  This is spoken of at length in chapter 2 of the book.

Look at it with me in Hosea chapter 2...

verse 3 speaks to the fact that God will "strip her naked" and "kill her with thirst."
verse 4 states that God will "have no mercy" upon her children.
verse 6 states that God will "hedge up her way with thorns"
verse 10 speaks to the fact that "no one shall rescue her out of my hand."

And yet, do you not see CHRIST in this passage of Scripture?  Christ...as He hung upon that cross in the days prior to that first Resurrection Sunday?

Christ who WAS striped naked and uttered "I thirst" on the cross...
Who received NO mercy from the Lord, so that we as His followers could...
Who wore a crown of thorns upon His head...
Who received no rescue from the Lord as He was forsaken on the cross...

It was because CHRIST received God's FULL punishment on the cross, that we as His people can now receive MERCY.  This mercy is spoken of as we continue in Hosea chapter 2, starting in verse 14:

“Therefore, behold, I will allure her,
    and bring her into the wilderness,
    and speak tenderly to her.
And there I will give her her vineyards
    and make the Valley of Achor a door of hope.
And there she shall answer as in the days of her youth,
    as at the time when she came out of the land of Egypt.
“And in that day, declares 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 they shall be remembered by name no more. And I will make for them a covenant on that day with the beasts of the field, the birds of the heavens, and the creeping things of the ground. And I will abolish the bow, the sword, and war from the land, and I will make you lie down in safety. And I will betroth you to me forever. I will betroth you to me in righteousness and in justice, in steadfast love and in mercy. I will betroth you to me in faithfulness. And you shall know the Lord.
 “And in that day I will answer, declares the Lord,
    I will answer the heavens,
    and they shall answer the earth,
and the earth shall answer the grain, the wine, and the oil,
    and they shall answer Jezreel,
    and I will sow her for myself in the land.
And I will have mercy on No Mercy,
    and I will say to Not My People, ‘You are my people’;
    and he shall say, ‘You are my God.’”

Do you not see it, too, dear one?  Christ suffering ALL the punishment...so that WE can be wooed by the Lord, betrothed to Him as His bride, and receive mercy to become HIS people?

Wow.

I not only encountered the unabashed love of the Lord God Almighty in the pages of Hosea, but also a beautiful picture of Christ Himself on the cross, at this blessed time of Easter!  It never ceases to amaze me that even in an Old Testament book like Hosea, you can see Christ crucified on the cross and His mercy and love to us sinners!