May 26, 2019
Some 250 years after the founding of the nation, the economy which had been languishing is finally booming, prosperity is evident everywhere you turn, and the head of state is both praised and vilified. At the same time, the political and religious culture is corrupt, bribery is rampant, and in both public and private spheres, the moral decay is apparent to anyone with an eye to see. Violence is rampant, the poor are victimized by the wealthy, sexual ethics are almost non-existent.
No, I’m not talking about 21st century USA. This was life more than 700 years BC in ancient Israel. Jeroboam II was leader of a nation that had been founded a mere 250 years before. His ascent to the throne marked the beginning of a stretch of prosperity and wealth the nation had not seen for two hundred years. But that prosperity came at a price. Women and children were bought and sold like cattle, the poor had no recourse when oppressed by the rich, and courts were rife with bribery and corruption. Here’s the kicker: within a generation, the nation would be wiped off the map by an ascendant and aggressive Assyria. Does history repeat itself?
Into this cauldron of dissipation and corruption strides the prophet Hosea, whose personal life story is a sad tale of betrayal played out in counterpoint to unfailing love. His story was an object lesson revealing God’s unfailing love for his people. In 4:6, God laments that his people “are destroyed for lack of knowledge.” This wasn’t an indictment of educational or intellectual failure, but of the collapse of community and personal relationships. In Hebrew parlance, “knowledge” was used of the most intimate of relationships, the sexual union of husband and wife. God bemoans people who know everything but know nothing of themselves, of others, or of God.
In 2:15, God tells how he will turn “the valley of Achor into a Door of Hope.” Referring back to the pre-national history of Israel, he hints at the story of Achan whose greed became the occasion of the defeat of the nation (Joshua 7). Achan was executed and buried in what became known as the Valley of Achor (Tears). God’s promise to his people in Hosea’s book is that if we are willing to revisit the place of our defeats and failures with repentance and honesty, he can turn even the darkest of valleys into doorways of hope. 6:1 points us to this hope when Hosea says, “Let us return to the LORD...he will heal us.” And in 10:12, we are told to sow righteousness, to break up the fallow ground.” Most of us have events in our lives that have been buried and perhaps even forgotten. But because instead of dealing with issues we’ve buried them, there is no fruitfulness. The ground of our souls lies fallow, unproductive. Only by breaking up and exposing that which has been buried and by walking through the Valley of Tears can we begin to sow the better seed of righteousness and find healing.
Towards the end of Hosea, God himself wails in sorrow: “How can I give you up?” God cannot bring himself to abandon his people, no matter what they’ve done. Instead, he redeemed us from the power of death (13:16), which is exactly what Jesus did for us. We were being auctioned off in the slave-market of sin, used up, broken, and hopeless, when Jesus steps up and says, “I’ll buy that one!” He measures out the price, drop by drop of his blood, reaches out and takes us by the hand and leads us home where he places his own robe of righteousness upon us, the ring of authority on our finger, and calls on all heaven to rejoice.
It may seem like the world is falling apart and there is little hope for the future, but that is not the Gospel. The world as we know it may indeed collapse, but God’s love will never fail. No matter how unfaithful we’ve been, no matter how lost or how low we’ve sunk, Jesus Christ reaches out and says, “This isn’t who you really are. Your real self is who you are when you know you are loved by Me.”
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