The prophets were used to hard assignments. It seems they almost always had to warn a nation of God’s anger, or rebuke a king or queen, or tell God’s people they were in big trouble. Being God’s messenger usually meant delivering an unpopular message.

But even with all the hard assignments God handed the prophets, I bet Hosea was still surprised to get his homework. When the Lord first started speaking to Hosea, he told him to do a strange thing. “I want you to go find yourself a bad wife.” At any other time that would have been the wrong thing for Hosea to do, but God had a plan. He wanted Hosea to marry an unfaithful wife because God was like a husband married to an unfaithful people.

So Hosea married an unfaithful woman with a funny name: Gomer. And when Hosea and Gomer had children, their children got funny names too. Actually, they sound funny to us, but they were certainly not funny names to the people of Israel. The first son was named God Sows, because Israel was going to reap rotten fruit from the sowing of her rotten deeds. The daughter was named No Mercy, and the next son was named Not My People, because, well, the Israelites had been so disobedient that they didn’t deserve God’s mercy and they didn’t deserve to be God’s people.

The people had been unfaithful to the Lord by worshiping false gods and following the way of the nations around them. Israel was like a wife who leaves her loving husband and looks for a new boyfriend every week. God had a right to be angry. The people had no right to be loved.

But by now, you should know that the big point of the Biggest Story is that we have a loving God who loves unlovely people. God wasn’t finished with Israel even when Israel wanted to be finished with him.

Which brings us back to Hosea. Gomer didn’t keep her promises to Hosea. She didn’t love him alone. She chased after boyfriends until she ended up all alone. Gomer ended up a slave ready to be sold to the highest bidder.

That’s when the Lord told Hosea to find his wife and show her the love she didn’t deserve. “She may have deserted you,” the Lord told Hosea, “but don’t you go deserting her. Buy her from the auction block and bring her home.”

And that’s what Hosea did. He bought back his bride at great cost to himself. Sounds a lot like God, doesn’t it? God showed his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

God shows mercy to people who should have no mercy. He calls us his people when we should not be his people. The Lord is a better husband than Hosea, even when we are a bunch of Gomers.