In the Old Testament book of Hosea we read: “When the Lord first spoke through Hosea, the
Lord said to Hosea, ‘Go, take to yourself a wife of whoredom and have children
of whoredom, for the land commits great whoredom by forsaking the Lord.’ So he
went and took Gomer, the daughter of Diblaim, and she conceived and bore him a
son.” (1:2-3)
Christians would not expect to read
this passage from Hosea during the Advent or Christmas season. But this passage
speaks to the reason Christ came into the world. Christmas season is an
exhibition of God’s way of dealing with the world and the sin that so enslaves
mankind. It is no surprise to God that people sink as low as they do into
addiction, pornography, war, abuse, homosexuality, embezzlement, and the likes.
God is not caught off guard by terrorists, pedophiles and mass murderers. The
Christmas Story is about the beginning of God’s work in this scandal ridden
world. The birth of baby Jesus occurs in a town far away in time but identical
to us today in terms of need, poverty, war and sin. Nothing has changed. Sin
still infects the people around us.
The scandal is not that a preacher
would choose this passage for a Christmas message. The scandal is that there
exists a God who so loves us that He would stoop down and meet us where we are
in the midst of our sin and depravity. God is a scandalous God. His love is
scandalous to the senses of the immoral minds of those whose lives are an
affront to their Creator.
God’s ways are not our ways. As
Christians, as God’s children our love is to be equally as scandalous. We are
to love the immoral, depraved and sinful people who ignore God. Our ministry is
to bring light into the darkness of their world. The world’s expectation for us
is that we would join with them. God’s expectation for us is that we would love
them. To love them is to enter into a relationship with them. Our duty is to
exhibit a scandalous love and to love the unlovable. It will be a scandal if we
act in the opposite of the world’s expectation.
