Afterward, the people of Israel will return and seek the Lord their God and David their king. They will come with awe to the Lord and to his goodness in the last days. Hosea 3:5
For what seemed like decades, the venerable cartoonist Charles Schultz inaugu- rated the football season with a variation on the same Peanuts comic strip. The innocent and usually naive Charlie Brown was all set to put his leg into a placekick. The obnoxious Lucy was holding the football, promising Charlie in new and convincing ways every year that he could depend on her to hold it firmly in place. Unfortunately, as Charlie ran toward the pigskin, Lucy yanked the ball back. Charlie, the mighty kicker, wound up on his backside, year after year after year. Poor Charlie.
You and I would have given up on Lucy a long time ago. I’m sure of it. No words, no argument, no amount of pleading for one more chance would have been enough to send us running toward that football again.
God told Hosea to take a harlot for his wife. I can only imagine his conversations with her regarding her sordid past. “I know the life you’ve lived,” Hosea must have said to Gomer. “But if you’re going to be my wife and bear my children, you’re going to have to give up that life. No more walking the streets. No more trying to satisfy scores of hungry suitors. I forgive you for the past, but from now on, I’m your only lover. Deal? Deal.”
But like Lucy and the football, Gomer couldn’t resist. In spite of Hosea’s pleadings, the seduction of her past life was more than she could resist. “Where’s Mom?” Hosea’s children must have asked. Where’s Mom, indeed. Hosea had had enough of this. “I’m tired of being the laughingstock of my neighbors,” he must have griped to God.
But as God has a tendency to do, Hosea’s heavenly Father had other plans: “Go again; show love to a woman who is loved by another man,” the Almighty told this broken man in verse 1.
“Forgive her again?” Hosea must have argued. “Yes,” was God’s response, “And not only do I want you to forgive her, but I want you to bring your hard-earned money to the sidewalk where she’s selling herself, and I want you to buy her back.”
Can you feel Hosea’s heart pounding in his chest? The outrageous notion that he was to show this hardened prostitute his loving tenderness once again was almost more than he could bear. But Hosea fulfills his unbelievable assignment. He goes to the marketplace, finds his wayward wife, buys her back, and promises, “You are to live with me many days” (v. 3).
Who needs your forgiveness? “But,” you may say, “I’ve forgiven him before. I’ve given him one more chance, and he has wronged me again.”
Simon Peter, in his inimitable fashion, asked Jesus the following question, “How many times should a man forgive?” Then as an afterthought, thinking that he’d pick a nice big number, he added, “Seven times?” Jesus responded, “Seventy times seven” (Mt 18:21–22). “But, Jesus,” Peter must have muttered under his breath, “what if they don’t deserve it?”
Have you heard the story about Hosea and Gomer, Peter? It’s unbelievable.
So this is our story. It’s the account of God’s grace, poured out to us time after time. It’s a picture of how our sinfulness should render us useless. Unforgiveable. But like Hosea, God comes to you and me, offering His love and forgiveness. His mercy. His pardon. A completely clean slate—over and over again.