Hosea 1:2-3, 3:1-5
Luke 1:39-56
“Christmas Is Not Your Birthday: Scandalous Love”
Based on a book by Mike Slaughter
I think everyone wants to know that he or she is important to someone.
Remember how kids used to pass notes back and forth in Middle School?
“I like you. Do you like me? Check yes, no, or maybe.”
The reason we want to be liked is because God created us for intimate, authentic relationships.
Sadly, we are all very capable of compromising our most fundamental beliefs in order to be with other people…in order to fit in.
That’s one reason why people stay in abusive relationships.
That’s the number one reason why children turn to drugs and gangs.
Have you ever found yourself thinking: “This is not who I am. I have become comfortably numb”?
It is so hard to “fit in.”
So many of us just feel we are not as good as the rest of humanity.
If we feel this way—we are wrong, but it is so easy to feel this way.
That is one of the main reasons the Church is so important!!!
No matter who you are; no matter how much money you make; no matter what you look like—as a member of Christ’s Church you have just as much say as anyone else.
Your voice is just as important.
Your life is just as precious.
You are part of the family.
You fit in!!!
Because, Jesus Christ and His Church is about the unconditional love of God.
A colleague writes: “Some of us are late bloomers.
When I graduated from high school I was five foot eleven and weighed something like a hundred and twenty pounds.
Someone told me I looked like a fetus wearing Nikes!!!
There was nobody special knocking at my door.”
Have you ever experienced rejection?
All of us will at some point in our lives.
Is it any wonder that we learn early on in life to portray ourselves as being someone other than who we really are and create layers of emotional defenses to protect ourselves from pain?
Worse yet, our self-esteem problems often carry over into our relationship with God.
Most of us have no problem believing in God, but struggle with being secure in God’s belief in us.
Have you ever wondered, “How can God believe in me or love me?”
Remember, it was Adam and Eve who ran and hid from God when God came looking for them, not the other way around!
Christmas is the pronouncement and the celebration that God comes to be with us.
God is the One Who pursues a relationship with us!
Christmas is about God’s love affair with humankind!!!
And an awesome illustration of this comes from, of all places, the Book of Hosea.
The Israelites had become lukewarm in their faith and strayed, as God’s people often do during prosperous times.
Israel had wandered from the Lord, Who had brought them out of slavery and made them God’s own unique covenant people.
It was kind of like Israel was breaking her marriage vows.
And that’s why Hosea compared Israel’s behavior to adultery.
Later, Jesus made a similar analogy when He spoke about our struggle between materialism and faith by basically saying: “You can’t have two lovers! You will always favor one over the other.”
In the Book of Hosea, the Lord said, “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.’
So he married Gomer daughter of Diblaim, and she conceived and bore him a son.”
Can you imagine marrying someone you knew would be unfaithful to you and then spending the rest of your life wondering if your children were really your own?
Who would ever knowingly set themselves up for a life like that?
But, in a sense, this is what God has done with us.
Hosea represents God’s relentless pursuing love, and Gomer, represents you, me and everyone!
We have been created to find life and meaning through our devotion to God, but we so often sell ourselves out to the consumerist materialism of greed.
And this is, perhaps, never more obvious than the way we celebrate Jesus’ birth.
Imagine Gomer saying, “Happy birthday Hosea!
To celebrate your birthday, I’m going to party with my other friends!”
What God wants from us, for Jesus’ birthday and every day, is love demonstrated by how we treat one another and those in need!
Jesus made His feelings on this crystal clear when He said, “I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me” and “whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.”
Hosea’s expression of God’s scandalous love is really what the meaning of the incarnation—God becoming a human being—is all about.
God tells Hosea: “Go, show your love to your wife again, though she is loved by another and is an adulterous. Love her as the Lord loves the Israelites.”
Now put yourself in Hosea’s shoes—emotionally—for a second.
Your spouse has committed multiple adulteries, shows no interest for you, and has never even asked you to come bail her out of her self-imposed slavery.
Who in their right mind would go and purchase her back?
“Make her the mother of my children again?
No way!
Love her as God loves Israel?
Are you kidding?”
Let’s be honest, this is beyond the scope of human imagination!!!
Yet, this scandalous biblical story testifies to the outrageous, love of God!!!
This is the story of Christmas: God loves us and wants us even while we remain under the influence of other lovers such as greed, selfishness, addiction, and deceit.
God has come to buy us back for evil; from Satan, from hell—with Jesus’ blood shed on the Cross, no less!
The magnitude of this kind of love is beyond comprehension…
…how could God love us this much?
But beauty is in the eye of the beholder…
…and to God—we are all beautiful…
…even if we have been playing the whore with greed, sin, and selfish ambition.
In our Gospel Lesson for this morning, Mary had every reason to feel pretty low about herself.
She was a young teen, unmarried and pregnant.
Imagine all the layers of economic and social complexities that this would carry with it!!!
And don’t forget the possible legal ramifications: death by stoning.
The Greek word used in Mary’s song to describe her life situation means “low in situation, humble, poor, depressed.”
But Mary hung on through all of this to the promise of God, holding tightly to the angel’s words: “Greetings, you who are highly favored! The Lord is with you.”
And so, from the depths of her being we hear Mary’s hope and faith when she sings, “My soul glorifies the Lord.”
Can we say that this morning, no matter what may be going on in our lives?
The story of Christmas shows us so clearly how God’s ways are not our ways.
Many folks might just blow off people like Mary, people whose lives are filled with humiliation and scandal, but God works miracles in unexpected places and in unexpected ways!!!
God loves us no matter what our lives are like!!!
And God desires and God can do great things through us!!!
God works good out of seemingly bad situations!
Let’s always remember that!!!
Do you trust God with your life?
Do you believe God loves you and wants your love in return, no matter what kind of mess your life has been?
This is the scandalous love we testify and witness to when we profess our faith in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior!!!
Mary’s “soul” glorified “the Lord.”
That means that in the presence of other people, Mary made God’s love visible.
Is our presence as a church in this community and as individuals making God visible to the people that we come in contact with?
Do people know Jesus better because they know you?
It has been said that the worst kind of fool is the person who believes that God exists, but lives life without taking God’s love and God’s Word seriously, and applying it to their lives and interactions with others.
It is way too easy to honor God with our mouths while we worship at the altar of our own desires.
So many have put themselves in the place of God, but Jesus reminds us that we can have only one true love!!!
So who or what will it be?
God or Satan?
Jesus or Money?
You know, there is going to be a major role reversal when Jesus comes back.
The Bible says that God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.
When Jesus returns, those who have been despised and insulted will be exalted, and those who have been rich and self-consumed will end up poor!
You know, we can live into God’s scandalous love when we see ourselves and other people through the lens of this reversal!
Rather than condemning ourselves and others, we are to offer love, support and encouragement.
When Mary faced the shocking and confusing news of her pregnancy, she immediately sought out wise and godly counsel from her older cousin Elizabeth.
There is no doubt that Mary would be hit with plenty of criticism and ostracism from the community.
She didn’t need any more negativity; she needed encouragement.
And the first words Mary heard from her cousin’s mouth were “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the child you will bear!”
As a church, let’s encourage one another in God’s love and purpose for our lives.
Let’s be promise-bearers for one another!!!!
Let’s remind each other of God’s miraculous, scandalous way of reversing the tide…
…just like Elizabeth did when she said, essentially, “Don’t quit, Mary. In time, people will honor God’s name because of you.
They may be putting you down right now, but someday your name will be held in high esteem!”
We all need encouragement like that.
In the Book of Hosea, we never find out whether Gomer gave up her infidelity for good and lived with Hosea as a loving wife.
The last we hear is that Hosea bought her back for fifteen shekels, some barley, and some wine.
He told his wife that she had to stay with him for a certain number of days, to symbolize Israel’s time in exile.
Hosea had no way of knowing whether his wife would love him in return, but his prophecy in Chapter 3:5 gives us some hope: “Afterward the Israelites will return and seek the Lord their God…They will come trembling to the Lord and to his blessings in the last days.”
It’s said that broken people more easily recognize their need for a Savior.
Are you feeling broken this morning?
Do you feel as if you are wandering in this world alone?
Do you think you have sinned too much to be loved?
If so, know that God is offering you forgiveness.
God is pursuing a relationship with you.
And even though we don’t deserve it, God shows us mercy.
God has sent us God’s Son to show us the way home.
Jesus came to this earth as a tiny baby in humble, scandalous circumstances in order to save us…
…and thus to restore our broken lives and broken hearts!
This is the love we celebrate at Christmas!!!
And this is the love we are called to show to God and to others in return!!!
May it be so.
Amen.
