Posted on 08/12/2019 8:02:01 AM PDT by Salvation
In the Office of Readings of the Liturgy of the Hours last week we read from the Book of the Prophet Hosea. The story of the Prophet Hosea’s troubled marriage is a powerful testimony to two things: our tendency to be unfaithful to God, but also God’s passionate love for us. This is particularly important today as there has been so much discussion about divorce and “remarriage.” While many people have endured difficult marriages, remember that God Himself is in a very painful marriage—with us, His people! God surely knows what it is like to have a difficult spouse. The story of Hosea depicts some of God’s grief and shows what He chooses to do about it.
The precise details of Hosea’s troubled marriage are sketchy; we are left to fill in some of the details with our imagination. Here are the basic facts along with some of that “fill in”:
This story is both difficult and beautiful. Its purpose is not so much to tell us about Hosea’s marriage as it is to show the troubled marriage of the Lord, whose bride—His people—is unfaithful to Him. Both collectively and individually, we have entered into a (marital) covenant with God. Our vows were pronounced at our baptism (usually on our behalf) and we have renewed them on many occasions since that time.
All too often, though, we casually “become intimate” with other gods and worldly paramours. Perhaps we have become enamored of money, popularity, possessions, or power. Perhaps we have forsaken God for our careers, politics, or worldly philosophies. Some have outright left God; others keep two or more beds, speaking of their love for God but dallying with others as well. Yes, it is a troubled marriage, but we are the unfaithful ones.
What does God decide to do? In the end, as Hosea’s story illustrates, God chooses to redeem, to buy back, his bride—and at quite a cost: For you know that it was not with perishable things such as silver or gold that you were redeemed from the empty way of life handed down to you from your forefathers, but with the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish or defect (1 Peter 3:19-20). Yes, God paid dearly to draw us back to Him. Yet still we stray and often show little appreciation of His love. There’s an old gospel song says, “Oh, Lord, I’ve sinned but you’re still calling my name.”
A deeper look into the story of Hosea reveals God’s grieving heart. Reading these Old Testament passages requires a bit of sophistication. The text we are about to examine describes God as grieving, angry, and weighing His options; but it also shows Him as loving and almost romantic. On one level, we must remember that these attributes are applied to God in an analogical and metaphorical sense. God is said to be like this, but He is not angry the way we are angry; He does not grieve the way we do; He is not romantic in the way that we are. Although we see these texts in terms of analogy and metaphor, we cannot wholly set them aside as having no direct meaning. In some sense, God is grieving, angry, loving, and even “romantic” in response to our wanderings. Exactly how He experiences these is mysterious to us, but He does choose to describe Himself to us in this way.
With this balanced caution, let’s take a look at some excerpts from the second chapter of Hosea, in which God decodes the story of Hosea and applies it to us. He describes to us His grieving heart as well as His plan of action to win back His lover and bride.
Thoughts of divorce – Protest against your mother, protest! for she is not my wife, and I am not her husband [Hosea 2:4]. The text suggests that God is weighing His options, but perhaps the better explanation is that this line is intended for us readers, so that we will consider that God could rightfully divorce us. However, God will not do that, for although we break the covenant, He will not. Though we are unfaithful, God will not be. If we are unfaithful, he remains faithful, for he cannot deny himself (2 Tim 2:13).
The bitter charge against her – Let her remove her harlotry from before her, her adultery from between her breasts …. “I will go after my lovers,” she said, “who give me my bread and my water, my wool and my flax, my oil, and my drink.” Since she has not known that it was I who gave her the grain, the wine, and the oil, And her abundance of silver, and of gold, which they used for Baal [Hosea 2:4, 7-10]. God’s charge here is not merely that we are unfaithful but also that we are ungrateful. God is the giver of every good thing, but so often we do not thank Him. We run after the world and the powerful in it, thinking it is they who provide our wealth. We love the world and forget about God. We “sleep with” the world. We give credit to medicine, science, and human ingenuity, but do not acknowledge or thank God. Our ingratitude contributes to our harlotry, for we are enamored of secondary causes and not of God, who is the cause of all. We get into bed with the world and its agenda, and we adulterously unite ourselves with it. God is distressed by our ingratitude and adultery and is presented in this passage as a wounded and jealous lover. Remember that these things are said by way of analogy and metaphor. God has inspired this text and wants us to understand that although He is not hurt, angered, or passionate the way that we are, neither is He indifferent to our infidelity.
Grief-stricken but issuing purifying punishment – I will strip her naked, leaving her as on the day of her birth; I will make her like the desert, reduce her to an arid land, and slay her with thirst. I will have no pity on her children, for they are the children of harlotry. Yes, their mother has played the harlot; she that conceived them has acted shamefully. … I will lay bare her shame before the eyes of her lovers, and no one can deliver her out of my hand. I will bring an end to all her joy, her feasts, her new moons, her sabbaths, and all her solemnities. … I will punish her for the days of the Baals, for whom she burnt incense … If she runs after her lovers, she shall not overtake them; if she looks for them, she shall not find them [Hosea 2:5-7, 12-13, 15, 9]. This text could be seen as describing God in a jealous rage, but God has a result in mind. He does not punish as might some despot exacting revenge. He punishes for its medicinal effect. He punishes as one who loves and seeks to restore. We are not sinners in the hands of an angry God; we are sinners in the hands of a loving God who seeks reunion with us.
The hoped-for result – Then she shall say, “I will go back to my first husband, for it was better with me then than now” [Hosea 2:9]. God’s intent is to bring His bride back to sanity, to the point that she is ready to seek union once again. Without it she will perish; with it, she will be united with the only one who ever loved her and the only one who can save her.
Passionate lover – So I will allure her; I will lead her into the desert and speak to her heart. From there I will give her the vineyards she had, and the valley of Achor as a door of hope. She shall respond there as in the days of her youth, when she came up from the land of Egypt. On that day, says the LORD, She shall call me “My husband,” and never again “My baal.” Then will I remove from her mouth the names of the Baals, so that they shall no longer be invoked [Hosea 2:16-19]. God wants to be alone with His bride and woo her once again! God will speak lovingly to her heart and declare His love for her again. She, now repentant and devoted, will renew her love as well. There is also an image of purgatory or purgation here. It is likely that when we die, we will still have some attachments to “former lovers” in this world: creature comforts, power, pride, and the like. As we die, God lures us into the desert of purgatory, speaks to our heart, and cleanses us of our final attachments. After this He restores to us the vineyards of paradise that once were ours.
Renewed covenant – I will make a covenant for them on that day …. I will espouse you to me forever: I will espouse you in right and in justice, in love and in mercy; I will espouse you in fidelity, and you shall know the LORD. … and I will have pity on Lo-ruhama. I will say to Lo-ammi, “You are my people,” and he shall say, “My God!” [Hosea 2:20-22, 2519] God renews the marriage bond with us, both in the Church and individually!
Here, then, is the astonishing, undying, and pursuing love of God for His bride, the Church, and for each of us individually. After all our whoring and infidelity, we do not deserve it, but God is a passionate lover. As He commanded Hosea to buy back his adulterous wife, so too did God Himself buy us back—at a high price. Certainly, God did not pay Satan. Rather, the large payment in Hosea’s story indicates the great sacrifice God had to make to win back our hearts. We had wandered far, and He had to journey far and then carry us back.
I am not here to render a personal judgment on those who have tried valiantly to save their marriage but were unable to do so. Rather, my purpose is to reach those of you who are currently struggling, who are trying to persevere, so that you realize that God understands your pain. He, too, experiences it from us, time and time again. Yet each day He renews His covenant with us and offers us mercy. In the words of a famous spiritual, “Nobody knows the trouble I’ve seen; nobody knows but Jesus.”
Monsignor Pope Ping!
Good piece.
Preachers like to point at the symbolism in this marriage, as Hosea is led to redeem her again and again.
I like to remind people that, quite simply, God loved her. He knew who she was, how she came to be who she was, and who he had intended her to be. Whatever symbolism there is, it is also quite personal. God loved her, and presumably, Hosea loved her. With God its always personal.
who?
it depends on whether she was eventually to be saved or not- if not- there are many many verses that say that God does not love His enemies. I don’t know if she eventually repented or not- but the symbolism is that God was very very patient with her as was Hosea - The symbolism shows that God gives everyone every possible chance to be saved- and to repent- and of course the symbolism is meant to show God’s enduring patience with Israel.
It is true that God shows love towards people, towards His enemies- but there is a limit, and many verses show that God hates His enemies- those whom He knows will never accept Him- Some He dealt, and deals, with very harshly- others who He doesn’t while they are alive on earth- We must not forget that He ordered the complete destruction of certain people who were thoroughly evil- men women and children=- Because He knew their hearts past present and future-
So, while He does show love towards some unsaved people- and does so by being very patient with them- He also knows their hearts and knows whether they will ever accept Him or not- and again, there are many passages which show He hates His enemies
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