A Lesson In Shame

A Lesson in Shame—Hosea 3:1-3 Jack Klumpenhower 1/18/2013 Surveys asking people what they most fear often reveal that public speaking tops the list. I don’t mind public speaking myself, but I understand the fear. I think it’s actually a fear of being shamed. There’s nothing worse than the thought that people might laugh at you or enjoy making you a point of ridicule. Since shame is so universally feared, let’s see what the prophet Hosea said about it. The subject came up when he confronted God’s people about their spiritual adultery. They were worshiping idols and embracing cults that glorified drunken violence and pushed young women into ritualized sex acts. To show how disgusting this was, God took the unusual step of telling Hosea to marry a woman who was prone to adultery and prostitution. His wife symbolized the people of Israel, who were unfaithful to God even though he’d brought them out of Egypt and made them his people. Hosea and his wife Sure enough, Hosea’s wife eventually left him for other men. Hosea tells us what God said to do about it: Then the Lord said to me, “Go and love your wife again, even though she commits adultery with another lover. This will illustrate that the Lord still loves Israel, even though the people have turned to other gods and love to worship them.” So I bought her back for fifteen pieces of silver and five bushels of barley and a measure of wine. Then I said to her, ‘You must live in my house for many days and stop your prostitution.’” (Hosea 3:1-3, NLT) So Hosea’s troubled marriage is also a picture of God’s love for his people. Not only did God choose his people knowing that they would be unfaithful, he also determined to keep loving them and win them back even after they turned to idols. It’s telling that Hosea had to pay to retrieve his wife. At the time, fifteen pieces of silver was the going rate for a slave. It shows how shamefully she’d behaved and how scornfully the community regarded her. The law permitted Hosea to have her stoned. Instead, he paid to bring back the woman who’d made a fool of him. Perhaps she was sold at the slave market. If she had been, Hosea would have gone into the public market—as the whole town snickered at him—to bid for his own wife as she was put on display for the buyers. Hosea shared her shame. Considering how we all feel about shame, that’s astounding love! He suffered humiliation to bring her back into his home, teach her how to live better, and restore her dignity. God and us God’s love for his people finds its deepest expression in Jesus. You and I should not for a minute imagine that our own commitment to disgusting forms of selfishness is less than the Israelites’. We too have spurned God. We too deserve eternal shame. But what did Jesus do? He came and got us. He paid for us, not with silver but with his blood. He took on our dishonor and suffered what we deserved: “He endured the cross, disregarding its shame” (Hebrews 12:2, NLT). And because of this, “anyone who trusts in him will never be disgraced” (Romans 10:11, NLT). We who believe in him have our shame removed and are brought into his home, so to speak. We’re given back our good name and taught to live as befits now-holy people. Why dwell on all this? Well, Hosea hoped it would touch the people’s hearts, moving them to both trust God’s forgiveness and serve him better. Hosea told them, “Come back to your God. Act with love and justice, and always depend on him” (Hosea 12:6, NLT). That would be a good response for us too, don’t you think? NOTE: I like the twelve shorter books of prophecy, sometimes called the “minor prophets,” that close out the Old Testament. They provide bite-sized chunks of teaching for God’s people. My plan is to introduce us to these prophets by writing about one passage from each of them over the next twelve months. This is the first of those articles. Jack Klumpenhower is a writer and children’s ministry worker living in Colorado.