Love As The Lord Love

Hosea 1:2-3; 3:1-3

Introduction

the most painful wedding. How many of us would want to sacrifice for Malaysia? Father of the nation building?

in a world of war, violence, divorce, and all kinds of heartache, people do question the love of God. Although Hosea does not directly address the issue of why there are so many problems in this world, it gives reassurance that God does graciously love his people even when they do not desrtve it.

Love is one of the main theme of the Bible. Love is also one of the most important factors that influences personal relationship between individuauls. However, love is also something that is seriously lacking in today’s world between parents and children, between husbands and wives, between friends, and between the nations.

Many people struggle with the God in OT as a loving God.

background: Hosea was called to be prophet in a difficult time. Israel was falling apart politically and economically. They are facing Assyrian attack, and many men died in the war against Assyria. one of the main reason why Israel was in such bad shape was the perversity of their understnadnig of God and their wide acceptance of Canaanite culture with its relision of Baalism. the worship of Yahweh, israel’s God, was so syncretized with Baalism over the years that some people thought Yahweh and Baal were just two different names for one divine being. his calling is a calling to remind His people to be faithful and God would one day bring prosperity to Israel again. Hosea’s love as a reflection of God’s love

there is no evidence that Gomer is a prostitute by profession, but only having the spirit of prostitution. the clear referent is the inclinations of Israel, whose cohabitations with all sorts of syncretistic and heterodox doctrines and practices which are metaphorically depicted as anologous to the promiscuity of a common prostitute. most likely, the name if referring to Israel’s corruption and religious unfaithfulness at the time whichwas so great that all Israelites are automatically entangled by “prostitution”, disloyalty to God. Any Israelite woman Hosea married and any children he had would automatically be tainited by this “prostitution”.

though the narrative functions metaphorically to show God’s faithfulness for Israel, there is a lesson for us to learn in loving others.

his marriage is the first requirement for his calling as a prophet. nobody would want this, but that shows us how a faithful servant of God is to obey God beyond understanding. the submission itself is a prophetic act God asked of Hosea. the first public prophetic act.

“Love as God loves” - our enemies, our spouse, our children, our family members, the poor and the needy

but it is not an easy calling.

before we look at the kind of love, we have to understand that we are not too sure if the wife in chapter 1 and 3 refer to the same person. some scholars believe that it is the same who is Gomer, but some believe that they are two different wives, means to say Hosea was called by God into two marriages.

the first woman in chapter 1 is not directly described as a prostitute, but the second woman in chapter is.

love as God loves. what is the characteristic of God’s love?

God’s love for Israel

it is a irrational/undeserved love (1:2) - “marry a promiscuous woman…adulterous wife” . this woamn with a checkered moral past would undoubtedly undermine some of the moral principeles the prophet stood for and preached agains.t She would like bring endless distress, sorrow and embarrassment to him when she became unfaithful ot him and their children. an undeserved love is more love that is unexplainable and paradoxical. it is a free giving of love to another person without strings or conditions attached. the marriage last at least 5 to 6 years. in verses 2-9, the marriage and the three pregnancies, at least one of while followed a weaning which in ancient times was at age two or three, would require such an interval. Gomer represents the nation and its evil culture, the “children of unfaithfulness” represent the individuals Israelites who later witness against their mother. As the mother, Gomer symbolizes Israel’s syncretistic religion that its leaders promote, while the children are those pressured to follow this cultural ideology. in the same way, no one deserves God’s love, it is always a free gift to those who are unworthy.

it is a painful love (1:3) - hurting. “she conceived and bore him a son”. verse 4-11 the names of his children alll bring pain. some of the children might even be an illegitimate child. Can u imagine how painful it is if you have a child whose name reminds us of some painful moment whenever we call them? and when friends and relatives ask us about the meaning of their name? my boys’ name are Theodore and Theophilus, because they mean the gift of God and the faithful friend of God. there name served as a constant reminder of Yahweh’s message though Hosea. The name of his Jezreel reminds Israel of bloody massacre and battle happened before. the name Jezreel was to remind Hosea’s audience of what had happened in the Valley of JEzreel, where King Jehu poured out the blood of innocent lives in order to solidify his political power. the second child’s name was Lo Ruhaman, which symbolically annoucnes that God will have no compassion and love. this reveals that God will end his tender feelings of deep affection. God gives the third child the name Lo Ammi, which means not my people. Now it is official, the covenant connection is brokne. However, in 1:10-2:1, we see how a it ends with a great paradoxical surprise and a reversal of the meaning of the children’s names. God accepts them back as his covenant people.

it is a faithful and forgiving love (3:1) - never giving up, do not pay evil with evil . “Again…though” (3:1). “to love/show love” occurs four times in the verse. Hebrew has a wider range of meaning than the English very “to love”. it includes the English senses of “love romantically”, “prefer/like”, “do acts of love for”, “be loyal/compassionate towards”. Hosea is to show love for his wife (either Gomer or new prostituting wife) in the sense of caring for her and protecting her. the wife, by contrast, loves evil in the sense of “taking delight in/prefer”. Yahweh’s love for Israel is noble, unselfish, generous, protective. Israel’s love for its raisin cakes and the adulteress’s love for evil are selfish, indulgent, pleasure-oriented. Raisin cakes which is sweets made from pressed and dried grapes, were prized as a delicacy and by Hosea’s time they were prbably routinely associated with cultic worship, the fitting metaphorical food of those who seeks spiritual and material gratification from other gods than Yahweh. Hosea’s new wife does not deserve his love, but she will recieve it, just like Israel does not deserve God’s love, but she will He has been showing it to her all along and will continue to do so both during and by means of the long season of discruption he will impose on her.

it is a costly but immeasurable love (3:2) - not being calculative. “bought her with fifteen shekels of silver and about a homer and a lethek of barley”. Hosea paid a bride-price for his wife, in parallel to the figurative bride-price Yahweh had paid for his Israel. Why would Hosea need to make payments for someone who is already his wife? Possibly she is indebted in some way to someone else and is not free to go home with Hosea. Gomer has left and Hosea then bought her back with fifteen shekels of silver and a lethek of barley. the total price was not excessive, but that is most likely the price of a prostitute that time. a female slave would cost more: thirty shekels (Exodus 21:32). a better explanation is that Hosea is paying off Gomer’s debt to free her from bondage.

it is a committed love (3:3) - “you are to live with me many days; you must not be a prostitute or be intimate with any man, and I will behave the same way toward you.” it does not mean that Hosea only do so, if his wife fulfilled her part of duty first. it is not a contract, but a covenant. Hosea gave four instruction to his new wife, which explains his commitment to her, in which each is more restrictive than the preceeding one. First, she must stay with him for a long time. this is beyond expectation to a professional prostitute, as a prostitute expect to be resold eventually or soon abandoned, but Hosea tells her she will stay with him at length. the second instruction precludes her practicing prostitution. she has been bought; her sinful life is now over. The third instruction makes clear that she will not have relations with anybody else. the fourth instruction may well have been a complete surprise. she is told that even her husband has no intention of havin sex with her. she has been bought from prostitution to a sexless marriage, a different kind of life ahead. Hosea has bought her not for his own pleasure, but in order to reform her. Our love should also function as such, to bring reformation to the one whom we love.

Conclusion

as we ponder upon these characteristics of love of God towards Israel through Hosea’s love for Gomer, we should not forget that that is the same love Jesus Christ has given to us on the Cross. His love, in the same way, is irrational, painful, faithful and unforgiving, costly but immeasurable, and committed for us.

love is never easy. the issue of divorce is not what we want to discuss here. by bringing up the character of Hosea’s love, i am not saying that one can never divorce. whether believers are allowed to divorce, it is a complicated issue involving theological, biblical and christian ethical reasoning. however, this is the stand of Methodist church in our Book of Discipline.

God has a higher purpose for Hosea’s marriage, so do our marriages. While Hosea marriage symbolically mirror God’s relationship with Israel, our marriage also mirror God’s relationship with mankind. God’s calling on Hosea involved his whole family, his marriage and even the naming of his children, so do ours. people would look at our family and learn something about the ways of God, just like how Israelites would look at Hosea’s family. To some extent, people today still learn something about God’s transforming power through observing what God does in Christians’ lives. Hosea’s obedience to the unusual circumstances God planned for him presents a challnge for all who foresee great difficulty ahead in our relationship.

Hosea’s example of love did more to communicate God’s love for his people than a hundred prophetic sermons. the say a living human picture of God’s love through the prophet’s act of loving his unworthy wife.

story of man who love as motivated by Christ

what motivates us for such kind of love? Jesus Christ who has bore the same love for us. How his love being shaming, painful and costly? on the cross. the cross itself is a love as such.

what happens when we love as God love? restoration and redemption. a promise that God has given to Israelites through Hosea’s prophecies over and over again, in each chapter.

it also brings out God’s great love. though the children’s name are about painful memories, but God continue to show His love.

and i believe the person that is most greatly transformed is Hosea. Through the way he showed his love for his wife, he must have understood deeply God’s love for Israel. His tender and devastating experiences with his wife, Gomer, explicate the ins and outs of God’s love in a more real way than a thousand definitions. He like God, irrrationally loved someone who was not very lovely, stayed committed to that love relationship in spite of great unfaithfulness by his covenant partner, and out of deep love forgave and took back a lover who betrayed him.

Hosea felt something of God’s sense of agony when people reject God’s love. He experienced how a lack of an intimate relationship, unfaithfulness, and deceit can undermine a love relationship. he also came to understand something of God’s great grace and forgiveness when he forgave his wife for her prostitution and brought her back to his home. He was able to preach the sermons God gave him with much greater passion because he identified with God’s situation.

Hosea came to understand and empathize in a much fuller way with God’s deep hatred for sin and his unending love for those who deserve no compassion. Hosea felt the pain of God by having an unfaithful wife, and he came to experience a broken covenant relationship in more than an intellectual way. He knew how adultery destroys a relationshipl; he experienced the sorrow of raising a cild that was not his. He also must have marveled at God’s ability to love those who reject him.

in fact, the marriage and the birth of unfaithful children must have taken place first in order for the revelation mediated to take place.

so, what is the one God called you to love as He love, at this point of time, so that both you and the one whom you love will be transformed? Your husband, your wife, your rebellious child, your colleagues, your enemies?

no one should ever question the availablity of God’s love. The question, rather, is this, Will people respond to God’s love?

God’s love is evident but one does not always see it illustrated in the lives of his people that cross our paths every day. Those who are hurt often look for revenge or try to figure out how they can sue someone. Instead of loving the unlovely, it is far more common to hear people condemn them with harsh arguments, trash talk, and severe criticisms not aimed at restoration.