Love Like the Morning Mist

​2nd Sunday after Pentecost – A (Proper 5)                                         LSB #’s 981:1-3, 7; 664, 711
Text – Hosea 6:4
 
What can I do with you, Ephraim?  What can I do with you, Judah?  Your love is like the morning mist, like the early dew that disappears.
 
LOVE LIKE THE MORNING MIST
 
 
The football team of Wake Forest University had just suffered a lopsided loss.  After the game, a player’s father, who usually had some positive statement to make, threw his arms around his son & said excitedly, “You guys looked great...”   The son couldn’t believe his ears.   He wondered what game he’d been watching.   After a pause, his father said, “…in the huddle.” 
This morning – you & I are in the huddle.   We look pretty good.   We sound pretty good   as we sing God’s praises & make our confession of faith.   Leaving here, we go into the world   to the ‘game’ of life & confront the other team: the temptations of the world, the devil & our own sinful nature.   We may look great now.    How about tomorrow? 
In fact, how will we look   two hours from now, once the morning is over?     Will our trust in Christ vanish like the morning mist?     When push comes to shove will we keep a record of wrongs rather than turn those hurts over to Jesus?   Will we be plotting revenge over some offense rather than relying upon faith in our Savior to work all things to God’s glory? 
It’s not difficult to ‘talk’ about Jesus, but it is a struggle to actually turn to Him in every situation.   It’s difficult even remembering to do that, let alone resisting our emotions when they tell us to do things that are not constructive or God pleasing.   Our emotions often are the culprit   when we’ve lost sight of what Jesus would have us do. 
At other times, we flat out don’t want anything to do with how Jesus expects us to live
or act.   Love like the morning mist may look pretty if you’re taking pictures,   but it doesn’t last     except in the memories captured by that photo.    And love that is only a memory   is not a very satisfying love.   It may be enough to make you look good in the huddle, but it’s tough to do battle against the forces of sin with love that has no more substance than the morning mist. 
God painted a graphic picture of the way in which Israel loved Yahweh, by commanding Hosea the prophet to marry a prostitute.  That’s someone who’s love epitomizes the morning mist.  As God’s Word applies to all people, of all times, that graphic picture applies to you & me as well.   Our love for God is also like that of a prostitute. 
Love like the morning mist is here one minute, gone the next!   It’s a superficial & shallow love.   The 1st thing that comes along takes our attention away from God.   For example, where I grew up it struck me as ironic how,   on major holidays like Thanksgiving, Christmas & Easter, many of the women could not be in church.     They had too much cooking to do. 
Is food more important   than God?    The answer is an easy, “No!” when it’s someone else’s life that you’re talking about.  But when it’s your own life it’s a lot more difficult to answer questions like that with honesty.    Each of us should be able to name something that makes our love for God disappear   like the morning mist. 
If you can’t think of something   then you’re naively unaware of the battle you face each day.   As we leave the huddle we are going to confront the other team: the temptations of the world,   the devil & our own sinful nature.   To not be aware of them   is to have already lost the battle.   To not be aware of the danger we face is to love God like the morning mist. 
Parents who love their children discipline them & true discipline isn’t only about punishment.   It’s about teaching the child to be aware of their own desires; desires which make their love for God disappear   like the morning mist.   Those desires have the power to make our lives miserable, because they always lead away from eternal life, & towards eternal death.   
Each of us can give examples    where we’ve followed such desires   & come to regret it. 
In the 1st verse read from Hosea, he writes of God’s perspective, “Then I will go back to my place until they admit their guilt.  And they will seek my face; in their misery they will earnestly seek me.”  (5:15 NIV)   Sin, of itself, brings misery,   but God also sends misery as discipline for our sin.   He sends misery in order to teach us what we do not want to learn. 
In verse five our heavenly Father speaks again, “Therefore I cut you in pieces with my prophets, I killed you with the words of my mouth; my judgments flashed like lightning upon you.”  (6:5 NIV)   God’s Law, the things He commands us to do to please Him, is meant to prepare us for the Gospel.  His discipline highlights the gracious message of His love. 
We chafe under His chastisement, but His children also know there is no other god to whom they can turn for the cure.  “Come, let us return to the Lord.   He has torn us to pieces but He will heal us; He has injured us but He will bind up our wounds.”  (Hosea 6:1 NIV) 
Have you had cause for feeling miserable lately?   In that, have you been listening to God’s teaching?  Instead of making excuses, instead of spending time looking to place the blame elsewhere, why not look at yourself?   The view is just a mirror away.   You can use the Ten Commandments for that mirror.  You’ll see that your love for God is like the morning mist. 
As you greeted this day, this new opportunity to be alive & to enjoy all the blessings that God has given you, did you greet this new morning with thanksgiving?     Or, did your love for God not even appear in that picture?     Hosea wrote, “Your love is like the morning mist, like the early dew that disappears.”   
Some of us love God so much   that we’ll only come to church when the right kind of music is being played,   or when the right preacher is in the pulpit.    Our love for God is so awesome isn’t it?      Let’s be honest,   a lot of days,   our love for God never appears in the 1st place.    That means there’s nothing to disappear.   At best our love is like a mist burned off by the sun of our worldly interests & our material, earthly concerns.  As we look to the week ahead with another seven opportunities to greet each morning, will our love again evaporate like the dew?     The answer is, “Yes,” even if our love shows up in the 1st place. 
The teaching that is most distinctive about Hosea’s prophecy is his portrayal of the God who loves   when all possibility of loving has rightly ended.   Hosea portrays the God who loves again, & again, & again.  Yahweh is like a husband who forgives the unforgivable, like a husband who keeps taking back the prostitute bride. 
Some don’t like that kind of god.   He can appear as a god too easily taken advantage of, a god not much different than the prostitute herself.    Other people want a god who chooses them because they’re better than others.    “When the Pharisees saw this, they said to His disciples, ‘Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors & ‘sinners’?’”  (Matthew 9:11 ESV) 
The Pharisees didn’t like the kind of God that Jesus showed them, that weak & powerless God who was not able, even, to come down from the cross.   At least, Jesus wasn’t able to come down if He was going to pay for the sins of the whole world.     How about you?    Is a god who forgives sinners   too weak a god for you?    Is that a god whom you cannot love? 
Are you looking for a god who will enforce the Law; one who will stick to His guns & paint every issue in uncomplicated colors of black & white?    Then you need only look to the cross of Jesus Christ.  That’s where God enforced the Law.  That is where He stuck to His guns.  There He painted every issue in the uncomplicated colors of black & white. 
At Golgotha, His own Son experienced hell & He did so that sinners might get into heaven – sinners being the kind of people who get under your skin & irritate you when your love has disappeared like the morning mist.    Thank God that His love never disappears.  The book of Hebrews warns us, “…Today, if you hear His voice, do not harden your hearts...”  (3:15 ESV)   There is plenty of evil & sin in our world.  If Satan has his way he’ll show you how to harden your hearts as a defense against them.   But in hardening your hearts you shut out God’s love as well.  It is a harsh reality & unnerving to realize that we cannot protect ourselves from sin or from evil.  Because of mankind’s sin, pain & suffering are part of this world. 
In order to be God’s children, in order to love others as we love ourselves, the risk of getting hurt is certain.   Loving sinners always brings that along as part of the package.  If we harden our hearts, we also prevent God’s love from entering them, & we leave God no choice but to destroy us.   Hosea 6:5 reveals God’s response:
“Therefore I cut you in pieces with my prophets, I killed you with the words of my mouth; my judgments flashed like lightning upon you.”  God kills us for the specific purpose of bringing us back to life, to a new life, a life in Christ & not a life in ourselves.  He said:
“Then I will go back to my place until they admit their guilt.  And they will seek my face; in their misery they will earnestly seek me.”  (Hosea 5:15 NIV)   God’s children respond, “Come, let us return to the Lord.  He has torn us to pieces but He will heal us;   He has injured us but He will bind up our wounds.”   (Hosea 6:1 NIV)  
That sounds awkward, difficult even, to trust that the very God who tears you to pieces will also heal your wounds.   That’s what faith is in Jesus Christ as Lord & Savior.   So few find the straight & narrow way because it makes no sense to the sinful mind.   The straight & narrow is painful because it involves real death on our part – death to a self-centered worldview. 
Faith believes these words, in spite of everything else it sees, “As surely as the sun rises, the Lord will appear; He will come to us like the winter rains, like the spring rains that water the earth.”  (Hosea 6:3b NIV)    The Word of God brings life.  Holy Communion brings life.  Baptism brings life.  All of them strengthen us that we might live lives full of love for God & for our neighbor.   There are tangible results, already in this life, to being a Christian,    but you can’t measure them as a scientist measures the percentage of humidity in the morning mist.   In the Gospel reading from Matthew Jesus tells the Pharisees, “Go & learn what this means: ‘I desire mercy, & not sacrifice.’  For I came not to call the righteous, but sinners.”  (9:13 ESV) 
If you realize that your love for God   & for others   is like the morning mist,    then you are recognizing that you are a sinner.   Know that Christ is calling you today to His home.   If you hear His voice, do not harden your hearts to His indescribable love. 
Jesus might not always look good to us in the huddle, but He is the eternal Victor by virtue of His death & by His resurrection from death.  Amen.
 
 
No distrust made [Abraham] waver concerning the promise of God, but he grew strong in his faith as he gave glory to God, fully convinced that God was able to do what He had promised.  That is why his faith was “counted to him as righteousness.”  But the words “it was counted to him” were not written for his sake alone, but for ours also.  It will be counted to us who believe in Him who raised from the dead Jesus our Lord, who was delivered up for our trespasses & raised for our justification.  Amen.  (Romans 4:20-24 ESV)