Hosea 11: 1-9 “Stories of the Faith: The Love of God”

“I love you”. Some of the most treasured and yet disregarded in the English language. When you say that you love someone what exactly do you mean? When I say that I have a relationship with someone I am trying to convey that I love them, they mean something to me, I care about them. Its what I mean when I talk about my relationship with my family, or friends, or you as part of this wonderful body of Christ. 

However, the English language misses the nuances of the word love. In Greek there are actually four different words that can be used for love that translate as affection, friendship, romantic love, and charity. C. S. Lewis explored each of these loves in his book The Four Loves, based off a radio presentation he gave in 1958. Lewis was trying to explain what we mean when we say that “God is love”. That love is so much more than a romantic feeling, and God’s love goes even deeper than the Greek understanding of love, because love is complex.

This morning as we continue in our sermon series on stories of the faith we arrive at the prophet Hosea, and this passage about God’s love for us. However, before we jump into unpacking God’s love for us, we need to figure out what we mean when we talk about our love in general, because the two things are very different. As Lewis described the complexities of love, he broke it into…. categories. First, there is Eros, or romantic love. The love that creates and builds families. That builds families for generations in fact. That romantic love is not just about seeking pleasure, but rather about connecting with another person for a sake bigger than yourselves.

When we speak about God’s love for us, its more than romantic love, it is love from God because God created us in the image of the Holy One. This love of God is agape, also called charity. The type of love that is unconditional, even when we screw up and in all circumstances. This is the greatest love that can exist, and is the love that God showed us not only in our creation but also through Jesus‘ sacrifice on the cross. A few years ago I was leading a Bible Study at Mansfield and one of the young men attending described agape love this way - we cannot do anything to make God love us more, and we cannot do anything to make God love us less, for the love of God isn’t based on us, but is a self-giving of God’s own spirit. Agape love is self-sacrificing, and can be seen as the highest form of love that anyone can ever give to another. That is the type of love that the prophet Hosea is speaking about this morning. 

The prophet Hosea describes the unending love of God through the metaphor of his own life. Hosea was a prophet who was given a strange direction by God – go and take a woman who he knew would be unfaithful as his wife. Okay, so at first glance it doesn’t seem that loving, but it is…because it’s our story. The book of Hosea is God’s plea to us to cease being unfaithful to God. It’s a reminder of everything that God has done for us but more importantly shows us the beauty of what God is currently doing in our lives as well, even when we have deeply strayed. 

“When Israel was a child, I loved him.” Take a moment a substitute your name in for Israel. In the Old Testament, Israel was the name of the collective chosen people of God. Today, you and I are the still the chosen people of God, the new Israel, the new gathering of those who love God, if you will. When the Church, the collective body of Christ brought together because of the love of Christ, was brand new in the 1st CE AD, God loved her. When the Church approaches God with a renewed attitude everyday, God loves us. It goes beyond that, though. When Michelle was a child, God loved her enough to speak a plan over her life, to knit her in Dottie’s womb and to place reminders of his presence daily in her life, if she would only open up her eyes and see. God loves us each with the intensity that a mother loves her child, only wanting our love in return.

But God loves us enough to call us out of the captivity that has taken a hold of our lives. In other words the love of God does not leave us the same. We feel bound by guilt and imperfections. By addictions. By how we see ourselves. By how we have treated others. And somehow we become so caught up in the things that keep us captive that we cannot see God right in front of us yearning to set us free. Gomer, the woman who was taken as a wife by Hosea, was so imprisoned by prostitution that she didn’t see that Hosea wanted to set her free by loving her. God is calling us to exit out captivity like the Israelites out of their captivity in Egypt. More often then not in situations where we feel imprisoned we ask “where is God?” but maybe we need to be asking “are we letting God be God?” Are we looking at the extension of God’s grace in front of us or like Gomer are we not acknowledging that God is enormous enough to heal any wound and set us free from any captivity? Do we see the problem as being bigger then the Almighty Creator of the Universe? He created the stars, placed the sun the perfect distance from the earth, etc. Yet he can’t handle my problem. Are we moving away from God the more God is calling us by constantly trying to handle our problems on our own or we ask other people for help and advice before we ask God? The more God is extending his love towards us are we shying away, not seeing how the love of God can heal all wounds?

We need to look to verses 3 and 4 from the scripture lesson when we are blinded to God’s immense presence in front of us. “It was I who taught Ephraim to walk, I took them up in my arms; but they did not know that I healed them. I led them with cords of human kindness, with bands of love.” Another version says ‘But they don’t know or even care that it was I, the Lord God, who took care of them.’ Here is another one of those places where we need to substitute our names into the passage. It was God, the Creator and Sustainer of all that lives and moves and breathes that taught Michelle how to walk through life. This does not mean that God abandons us blindly stumble through life on our own. God took time to teach us how to walk like a loving parent teaches their children. And when we do stumble and fall God picks us up, and gently urges us to try again. What a better way to see the overpowering present love of God then when God picks us up when we fall?

In verses 5-7 God is crying out of his discouragement towards God’s children. But this is where most people get caught. They forget to look in front of them to see God in the rising sun each day or at their wounds to see how God has brought about healing. They don’t see him as a daily presence in their lives. They are so blind they think God has abandoned them. This leads to complaining, a manifestation of our blindness of God in our lives. If we would look in front of us to see the grace we are given every day we really wouldn’t have a reason to complain.

We don’t look towards verse 8- 9 where God says God could never abandon us. We are marked with his love. We cannot out sin God’s grace. Like the lost Israelites or Gomar we need to return to God. Lying ourselves at God’s feet and thanking him from the depths of our hearts for the grace and countless blessings that he has lavished upon us. I think if we were honest with ourselves we would see that we could become closer to God.

If today you feel like God has abandoned you or unloved or unhappy, stop looking at God’s grace through the small lens of our human love and instead look at the fullness, unending nature of God’s love for us. Remember that you cannot out sin God’s grace for God’s divine love in so much stronger then any concept we have of God’s vengeance that binds us. Because even if we can’t quite grasp or display the agape love of God, God loves you with an radiating love, that will not leave us alone and never leaves us unchanged. 

Amen.