Title: GOD’S MIRROR

Focus: God is faithful, but he will not be mocked by the deliberate failures of his people to keep covenant with him.

Function: To encourage the people to remain faithful to their covenant relationship with God as reflected in their baptismal vows and Christian identity.

Text: Hosea 1:1-11

Margaret Joni’s baptism tonight provides us with an opportunity to hear God’s message in chapter one of Hosea’s prophecy. You see, God has made a covenant promise to Margaret Joni (and to all of us who are baptized). In light of his promise to Abraham and his offspring, God now speaks to us: “I will be your God.” “I will grant you the gift of the Holy Spirit.” “Through Jesus Christ and his saving work on the cross, in the tomb, and in heaven today, I will adopt you as my child. In Christ, you shall have life and have it evermore.”

In his covenant promise to his people, God also issues a call: “You shall be my people.” God’s promise and God’s call signify that God sees his relationship with us as a marriage relationship, where the husband and wife covenant fidelity to each other for life. That marriage relationship brings us back to the Scriptures, for there we find the shocking and riveting story of the prophet Hosea. We learn that God commands Hosea to marry a wanton woman, who will seek her own pleasures and deliberately break covenant with her husband.

Hosea’s marriage with Gomer functions as God’s mirror in the midst of Israel. It reflects Israel’s unfaithfulness, God’s grief, and God’s anger. And strange though it may seem, Hosea’s marriage with Gomer also reflects a sparkle of God’s grace and God’s faithfulness toward his covenant promise. God does not break his promise.

In Margaret Joni’s baptism (and in our own baptismal vows, the Spirit of God calls us to remain faithful to God’s covenant relationship with us. And the Scriptures drive home that very same truth as it holds before us the mirror of Hosea’s and Gomer’s marriage. God is faithful, but he will not be mocked by the deliberate failures of his people to keep covenant with him. God is faithful, but he will not be mocked by the deliberate failures of his people to keep covenant with him.

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Consider the setting of Hosea’s prophecy. Politically speaking, Hosea lives in perilous times. For example, nationally the people of God are divided. There is the northern Kingdom (called “Israel”) and there is the southern Kingdom (called “Judah”). Ever since King Solomon died, rivals to the son of Solomon have split the nation of Israel. And that rivalry has led to idolatry and a falling away from God’s covenant relationship and Torah or law. Bloody wars, conspiracies and deceit in high places mark that period. Hosea, then, lived in perilous, unfaithful times.

Internationally, the situation is just as bad—if not worse. The Assyrian empire is on the rise; its brutal campaigns instill fear all over the Middle East. And the kings of Israel during the days of Hosea had to deal constantly with the Assyrian threat. For about 60 years, Hosea spoke the Word of the Lord in this hostile, apostate environment. Hosea spoke that Word and he lived it—together with his unfaithful wife, Gomer.

Ah, Gomer! Can you imagine the shock that must have been Hosea’s when the Word of God came to him, saying, “Go, take to yourself an adulterous wife and children of unfaithfulness, because the land is guilty of the vilest adultery in departing from the Lord.” Surely, this command of the Lord was shocking to Hosea.

God’s Word to Hosea seemed a recipe for marital disaster and pain and anger. For how can you build a solid home and a secure future with a husband or wife who is not committed to keep the marriage vows? How can there be a build-up of trust? And how can a society, let alone a home, flourish when adulterous relations break down the bonds of marriage and the stability of the home? Yet, Hosea obeys the Word of the Lord. He married Gomer, the daughter of Diblaim, and she conceived and bore Hosea a son.

The political setting of Israel and Hosea’s shocking marriage with Gomer call for insight. And Scripture provides us with that insight. For example,

(1) Hosea’s marriage mirrors God’s view of his covenant relationship with Israel. Hosea’s marriage with Gomer is comparable to God’s relationship with the Israelites. And Gomer’s adulterous inclinations point to Israel’s unfaithfulness to God’s covenant promises and demands. Listen again to the rationale given for God’s command to Hosea to marry a wanton woman: “…because the land is guilty of the vilest adultery in departing from the Lord.”

Today, God views his relationship with us in the same way. The Son of God is the bridegroom; the church is the bride. The two go together. Such is the sacred bond of God’s covenant relationship with us. When the apostle John envisions the final return of Christ at the end of time, he draws upon God’s covenant promise and uses the image of marriage. Listen: “Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea. I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, ‘Now the dwelling of God is with men, and he will live with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God.’” So, then, Hosea’s marriage with Gomer mirrors God’s view of his covenant relationship with Israel.

(2) The next insights builds upon the first one: Hosea’s children further mirror Israel’s unfaithfulness toward the Lord their God. Did you notice? Hosea’s first child is Jezreel. The text tells us in vs. 3 that Gomer “conceived and bore him a son.” Clearly, Hosea is the father of Jezreel.

The father of Gomer’s next child, however, is in question. The text says that “Gomer conceived again and gave birth to a daughter.” Here the relationship between Hosea and the child is not mentioned. Did Gomer bear Hosea a daughter? It does not seem so, especially when you consider the Lord’s command to Hosea: “Call her Lo-Ruhamah….” (which means: “not loved.”). I think the name has a double meaning: it points to God’s wrath upon rebellious Israelites who spurn the love of God; it also suggests that this child was conceived outside the bond of love between Gomer and Hosea. Unfaithfulness is a major issue in Gomer’s relationship with Hosea; and that unfaithfulness is mirrored in Israel’s relationship toward the Lord God.

The same observation applies to Gomer’s third child named “Lo-Ammi.” The name means “Not my people.” Its double meaning points to Gomer’s illicit relationships (thus spurning her husband Hosea) and Israel’s abandonment of God. Clearly,

Hosea’s children further mirror Israel’s unfaithfulness toward the Lord their God.

(3) The third insights from the text centers on the significance of the names of the children. Their names point to the consequences of Israel’s sins of unfaithfulness. The names of Gomer’s and Hosea’s children underscore God’s grief about Israel’s idolatry and anger on Israel’s covenant breaking.

For example: “Jezreel” means “God scatters.” The name is a play on “Israel.” It signifies that God will scatter his people because of their sins of unfaithfulness: “I will put an end to the kingdom of Israel,” says the Lord. And God announces that he will break the military strength of the Israelites so that they cannot resist the threat of the Assyrians invading their land. Thus the Lord says, “In that day I will break Israel’s bow in the Valley of Jezreel.”

The name “Lo-Ruhamah” means “Not loved.” It points to God withdrawing his love and compassion from the Israelites. The sins of the Israelites will not be covered by God’s forgiveness; they will drink their cup of sin to the fullest and find no mercy. Thus the Lord says, “I will no longer show love to the house of Israel, that I should at all forgive them.”

And to further intensify God’s anger felt by the Israelites God adds this solemn promise: “Yet I will show love to the house of Judah; and I will save them—not by bow, sword or battle, or by horses and horsemen, but by the Lord their God.” In other words, those who show faithfulness to God will be covered by his love; those who rebel and go the route of idolatry will wither and die without God’s compassion and love over them.

The name “Lo-Ammi” means “Not my people.” That name underscores God’s rejection of the Israelites. Breaking God’s covenant, living in rebellion and idolatry—all come with a price: abandonment by God. God is faithful. Yes! But he will not be mocked by the deliberate failures of his people to keep covenant with him.

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By commanding Hosea to marry unfaithful Gomer, God holds before his people a mirror in which they are confronted with their own faithlessness toward the Lord their God. That mirror is now before us. What do we see in that mirror?

First of all, the message is clear: God cannot be mocked. He takes seriously our response to his Word. Thus we must walk our talk as Christians. We do well to echo the teachings of Scriptures and model them to our children.

We do well to live our baptism, for all God’s love and grace is bundled up—signed and sealed—in that sacrament: God has sent his Son, Jesus—that we may have life; Forgiveness is ours because of Jesus’ sacrificial work; The gift of the Holy Spirit is ours. In baptism, we declare to the world that we have died to sin and self; our orientation and identity in life is now found in Jesus Christ. Baptized Christians must now walk their talk—and thus show their love and loyalty to the Lord our God.

Secondly, though God will not be mocked—thus punishing rebellious, unrepentant sinners—God will remain faithful to his covenant promise. You see, God’s promise included the nations of the world. It was through Israel that God’s blessings would come to the nations. Even though God rejected his rebellious people Israel (as mirrored in the name of that third son called “Lo Ammi”—“Not my people”—yet, God re-emphasized his covenant saying: “Yet the Israelites will be like the sand on the seashore which cannot be measured or counted. In the place were it was said to them ‘You are not my people,’ they will be called ‘sons of the living God.’”

This promise is fulfilled in Jesus Christ. Through faith in him, we are sons and daughters of Abraham; through faith in Christ, we are adopted into the family of God. God is faithful. Thank God for his love and compassion. Do not spurn his love. Rather, embrace it. And show or mirror your love for him by means of obedience, humility, and loyalty. In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.