Returning: The Book of Hosea and the Heart of God
There is a legend that the shortest sermon ever preached happened a few hundred years ago in a puritan church in the middle of New England. The pastor made his way to the pulpit, sighed deeply, looked out upon the congregation and sternly and soberly shouted; “Repent!”. Amidst the whispered echo of that one word sermon came a lone muffled cry, then another, and another, until the entire room was filled with weeping and groaning and sighing.
Can you imagine that scene? Can you imagine sitting there as your pastor stands behind a monument of a pulpit glaring down at the congregation with furrowed brow? When you hear the word repent, do you instantly think “oh thank God! Life, an invitation to life!”? Or, does an ominous sense of dread or guilt and or shame or fear flood in? Or perhaps a defiant “who are you to tell me what to do?”
A number of years ago our church did a multi-week series on money. That’s another powerful word that brings up a lot of emotions. Especially in a church. We used a line over and over again through the series to try and tame the word. “We’re gonna talk so much about money that we’re gonna take the awkward out of it.” And you know what? We did. Sort of. By God’s grace we found out together that God doesn’t confront us about money (or anything for that matter) in order to make us feel bad, but that we might find life that is truly life. That’s the point of repentance. To find life that is truly life.
We are adopting that same attitude as we journey through the book of Hosea. A book that will call us out, put a spotlight on our all too frequent indifference, flippancy, rebellion, pragmatism, hallowness, and more, before our God. A book that will summon us to ‘repent’. But, or to use another wonderful three letter word in Hosea, ‘yet’, a book that more than anything will show us the heart of God for struggling saints that sometimes are better at sinning than sainting.
Here’s the plan, we’re gonna talk so much about repentance that we’re gonna take the awkward out of it. We need to normalize repentance. We need to see it not as a one time thing, or an infrequent practice, nor something to fear, but the everyday, life-giving, human-flourishing God honoring activity of a Christian.
Repent! Or as the book of Hosea names it, “return.”