"Go again, love a woman who is loved by another man and is an adulteress, even as the Lord loves the children of Israel, though they turn to other gods and love cakes of raisins." -Hosea 3:1
You stooped to love. You stooped so. far. down.
To love the unlovable, touch the untouchable, and then become one of us.
Will we?
Now part of the stooping Body, will we follow the example of the Head? He stooped beneath a tree.
Will we break over the unbreakable, weep over the laughable, and treasure what our world calls trash?
We were trash. Corpses rotting in self-dependency, self-righteousness, and self-indulgence - fit only for a garbage pit. But He saw us fit for redemption.
He bought us with highest price from our slavery and set us free. We wear the mark of redemption-life.
He redeemed His Body to redeem. We carry the life and death of His Body - the redemption of souls and the redemption of creation. We cannot redeem souls - only He can.
What does He leave for us?
"Go again, love... an adulteress."
He leaves us to redeem in creation what He is redeeming in spirit. To set the heavenly realm and the lowest places of the earth on a collision course. To preach the gospel of good news and free the captives, binding up the wounds of the brokenhearted.
The small ones who are forced to sell their bodies day after day, hour after hour, can only understand the Spirit of redemption when it is reflected in the Body of redemption. When her body is set free, so too can her spirit be.
The smaller ones who live running - from danger, from hunger, from love - must be chased, pursued, and brought home. Their bellies must be filled, their rags replaced, and their wounds treated. The redemption of their bodies can bring them to understand what redemption of the soul is all about. And the redemption of the soul will bring ultimate, eternal redemption of the body.
The smallest ones who die before seeing the world need to live. Preservation of life is preservation of soul until the Spirit moves to redeem.
How can they know Love when they've not seen nor felt love?
He says we are His Body - His hands and feet. He means that. Literally.
We are His chosen redemptive agent in a crumbling world. But we're not binding, freeing, or proclaiming. Why?
We don't really believe Him. We don't really believe He will come through in the end to make all things right. We don't want to deny ourselves just to discover that He didn't come through.
O, us of such little faith!
Lord, I at least want to believe you for all that you are! Help my unbelief! Heal my broken places, bind up my doubt and mistrust, free me from my cynicism.
Redeem so that I can redeem.
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