NEVER WANING

NEVER WANING:

This probably isn’t the kind of message you’re going to hear at any church service this Easter weekend. But the empty tomb is the pinnacle of God’s love for us in Christ Jesus. A love that is never waning.

One of the clearest pictures we have of redemptive love in the Bible comes in the book of Hosea. In Hosea 1:2, he (Hosea) is instructed by God, “Go, marry a promiscuous woman and have children with her.” That’s the kind of thing every young man longs to hear - not. The girl who's been passed around like a loaner mitt - the one with the reputation as a tramp among the girls and easy with the guys… nobody gets butterflies and starry-eyed thinking about marrying her.

One might think that things got better, like in a Disney princess movie, but they didn’t. In Hosea 3:2 we read, “Go, show your love to your wife again, though she is loved by another man and is an adulteress.” Gomer split the 1.5 kids and white picket fence scene in order to go get her slut-jam on - again. She ditched the man who submitted to God’s will and authority - a holy man and prophet, but that didn’t change anything inside her. She might have tried to play the role of wife at first, but, like the woman at the well in John 4… the looks, the judgment, the guilt and the shame all made being the passed around loaner mitt - and life in the cesspools and sewers - more desirable than day-to-day life. So Gomer split.

Can you imagine the thoughts blazing through Hosea’s head? “Soooo, I don’t get to pick my wife because You picked a promiscuous whore for me. Then when she cheats for the umpteenth time - and Scripture tells me I’m free to stone her - You tell me, ‘Go show your love to your wife again?’”

It’s easier when we think of the truths of the Bible as stories akin to fairy tales, then we can rationalize the stories as fiction, and fiction is obviously something to be dismissed. “Surely God wouldn’t expect ME to demonstrate that kind of love or obedience toward my promiscuous, whoring, adulterous spouse?! Surely God wants me to be vindicated, for justice to be served, for a plague of wrath to come upon them, for them to be left in the crumpled heap of their selfish and disastrous choices, and for ME to triumph in this?!” But that’s never been, nor will it ever be, the heart and character of God.

In 3:3 we read of Hosea’s simple obedience, “So I bought her for fifteen shekels…” which was about ½ the price of a female slave. That wasn’t the value which God or Hosea placed upon Gomer, but rather it demonstrated how she was virtually worthless in the eyes of one to whom she’d readily sold herself to.

Hosea 1-3 is a prophetic symbol of God’s love - not just for the nation of Israel, but for humanity. The very same Bride (humanity) that sold itself into the bondage of sin through our promiscuity and adulterous hearts that perpetually long for anything and everything but our faithful Groom (Christ). We know this because long before Israel was a nation, God made a unilateral covenant with Abraham (click HERE for more on that) where God promised that despite humanity’s sin and rebellion, which would always cause us to turn away - He would die for us.

So this Easter Sunday, or Resurrection Weekend, or whatever your church calls it… think about that empty tomb as God’s perfect expression of redemptive love. We, like Gomer, are a promiscuous Bride. We, like Gomer, who have been redeemed out of sin and shame, are inclined to return to the cesspools and sewers of sin-riddled lives because of their comfort and familiarity - rather than embracing the new identity we’ve been allotted by our Groom. We often drive off the redeemed Gomers from our churches as if God appointed us as judgmental morality police. Between our affinity for sin (idols, money, security, promotions, status, power, stuff…) and our hypocrisy - it truly is a miracle and testimony of God’s grace and provision that His Bride exists at all.

As we celebrate Christ’s resurrection, let’s remember He, unlike Hosea, didn’t pay a pittance of fifteen shekels for our redemption. God Himself condescended into His creation, into time and space and into the cesspool and sewer of humanity - and He paid the ultimate price. It wasn’t merely at the hands of Romans or Jews. It was at the hands of humanity. Our hands. My hands. Your hands. The hands of us with loaner mitt hearts, and despite our marriage to Him… despite the price He paid to redeem us… despite the life, and victory, and power, and spotless identity we have as His bride… there we are back in the filth, grime, and putrescence of sin.

Regardless of the reason, whether habitual comfort, familiarity, or an inability to swallow the depth and truth of His love… we, like Gomer, allow our hearts and passions to wander. Thankfully, God revealed His character and love for us, His Bride, through Hosea when He said, “Go, show your love to your wife again, though she is loved by another man and is an adulteress.”

He has. He is now. And He will again for countless tomorrows because there is no length to which He will not go for His Bride - the Church. His love is never waning.

He is risen!

He is risen, indeed!

Blessings!

-Kevin M. Kelley

aMostUnlikelyDisciple.com