Anatomy of a Tragedy

The Bible reading this morning comes from the book of Hosea, chapter 2, verses 1 to 13.

Say of your brothers, my people, and of your sisters, my loved one, Rebuke your mother, rebuke her, for she is not my wife, and I am not her husband.

Let me remove the adulterous look from her face and the unfaithfulness from between her breasts.

Otherwise, I will strip her naked and make her as bare on the day she was born.

I will make her like a desert, turn her into a parched land and slay her with thirst.

I will not show my love to her children, because they are the children of adultery.

Their mother has been unfaithful and has conceived them in disgrace.

She said, I will go after my lovers, who give me my food and my water, my wool and my linen, my oil and my drink.

Therefore, I will block her path with thorn bushes.

I will wall her in so that she can not find her way.

She will chase after her lovers, but not catch them.

She will look for them, but not find them.

Then she will say, I will go back to my husband as at first.

For then I was better off than now.

She has not acknowledged that I was the one who gave her the grain, the new wine and oil, who lavished on her the silver and gold, for which they used for barl.

Therefore, I will take away my grain when it ripens, and my new wine when it is ready.

I will take back my wool and my linen, intended to cover her nakedness.

So now I will expose her lewdness before the eyes of her lovers.

No one will take her out of my hands.

I will stop her celebrations, her yearly festivals, her new moons, her Sabbath days, all her appointed feasts.

I will ruin her vines and her fig trees, which she said were her pay from her lovers.

I will make them a thicket and wild animals will devour them.

I will punish her for the day she burned incense to the barles, decked herself with rings and jewellery, and went after her lovers, but me she forgot, declares the Lord.

Amen.

We have six participants in the preaching farm this year, and all of them are thankful that's not their passage.

But it's my passage.

So let's ask the Lord for help.

Dear Lord God, we thank you for your word, and we want to come under all of it.

And today looks like a challenging portion of your word, and yet it will point us to you and truth and your glory, and it will remind us of what you require of us.

And so we pray that would happen.

Do our work in our hearts, in our church today, in Jesus' name, amen.

So imagine it's Friday night, you're at home because you are not a youth leader.

Youth leaders are down here doing ministry, but you're at home and it's time to watch a movie.

So there are four options.

What are you going to watch?

I'm going to ask you for a show of hands.

Comedy, drama, thriller, tragedy.

Who won that Friday night?

This Friday night coming.

Who's watching a comedy?

Lots of us, okay.

Who would pick a drama?

Maybe even more.

A thriller.

Who would be like, give me a tragedy?

There's not one hand.

Oh, one hand.

Great.

Tragedy.

This morning, we have a tragedy to look into.

It's prophetic writing from the Book of Hosea, but it's telling a story from history, which is nothing short of a tragedy.

Here's a definition of a tragedy in literature or film.

A serious and often somber narrative in which the main character is brought to ruin or suffers extreme sorrow, especially as a consequence of a tragic moral failing or overwhelming circumstance.

The story of a tragedy typically follows a rise and fall trajectory, ending in lost death or brokenness, and is designed to provoke reflection, empathy, and emotional release.

A tragedy often is when something could have been amazing.

It could have been beautiful.

It could have been wonderful.

But it didn't.

It's twisted this future.

It's lost.

It's broken.

When love is betrayed, when trust is thrown away, when blessing is misunderstood.

Much of the Book of Hosea is a tragedy.

It does have an incredibly bright ending, but it is a tragedy.

And so today's passage is right in the middle of describing some of these tragic circumstances.

So there is good that can come out of this time that we have.

It is a reminder that our choices do lead us down different paths, and the choices can lead to catastrophic consequences.

And that's what happened to the 10 tribes in the north.

We're in the second week of a series.

Our June series is in the Old Testament Book of Hosea.

And last week, we saw an overview.

We considered the fact that the world is filled with broken promises, and yet God is faithful.

These promises that get broken lead to consequences, and they aren't much fun, and they weren't for the people of Israel, but God is faithful.

So this week, in chapter 2, we're digging into some of the consequences of disobedience.

And we'll see that Hosea is a story of the tragedy of false attribution, the tragedy of frustrated pursuit, and the tragedy of forgotten love.

So it's a little bit heavy, but I think it's going to be helpful for us.

Firstly, let's think about the tragedy of false attribution.

Verse 5, she said, I will go after my lovers who give me my food and my water.

Verse 8, she has not acknowledged that I, this is God speaking, that I was the one who gave her the grain, the new wine and oil, who lavished on her the silver and gold.

Yahweh, Israel's God, has made covenant promises to look after his people, and he has done everything that he promised.

The problem was that Israel was attributing the blessing of God to the man-made gods of the Canaanites.

They were saying, it's Baal and the other gods that are looking after us.

And I think it's a helpful phrase, false attribution.

When we attribute the blessing of God, the goodness and kindness and generosity of God, to something else, maybe ourselves or another god, Hosea chapter 2 fills out the picture.

Israel, like an unfaithful marriage partner, has given herself to these other gods, because they are attributing the blessings to them.

In verse 1, we read, Say of your brothers, my people, and of your sisters, my loved one, Rebuke your mother, Rebuke her, for she is not my wife.

God speaking.

And I am not her husband.

If you look into the Hebrew language in these verses, it's the language of a courtroom.

It's legal speak.

God is saying, in a formal way, she is not my wife, even though legally, formally she is.

But she has so broken the relationship, the covenant vows we have taken, she is not my wife legally.

And I am stating in a courtroom, I am not her husband.

I will not treat her like my covenant promise demanded.

Verse three, I will strip her naked and make her as bare as on the day she was born.

I will make her like a desert, turn her into a parched land and slay her with thirst.

So he's talking about in this metaphoric way of husband and wife, his people, Israel, have been so unfaithful.

He is going to do things to them to expose their shame.

Where else in the Bible do we see humans being naked and knowing they are shamed?

He's taking them way back to the Garden of Eden, isn't he?

He's saying, I'm going to strip you naked so that you see how guilty you are, how shamed you are.

I'm going to make Israel like a desert.

Now, the promise was a land flowing with milk and honey, wasn't it?

He's actually giving a curse of uncreation, of deforming the creation back to a desert, all in judgment because of their false attribution.

Have you experienced the tragedy of false attribution?

I think all of us have.

We achieve things in life, and it's so easy to just think, I did that by my own strength.

I did get to where I've got on my own power.

I am the captain of my destiny.

It's so easy to do that.

It's so easy to attribute peace and comfort to false gods, isn't it?

We might call it self-medication through some level of addiction even to habits, where we tell ourselves, if I can just achieve this or do this or whatever, fill in the blank, I will get what I need.

And who is it that promises rest and peace?

God.

So we falsely attribute where we will find peace to the wrong gods, and we allow a good thing to become a god thing.

It's just so common in humanity.

And we live out the tragedy of Romans 1, 18, which says, they exchanged the glory of the living god for idols made by man, attributing the goodness and generosity of god to idols or to ourselves.

The tragedy is that Israel was simply invited to live in the blessing of God.

It wasn't always going to go well, but clearly, Deuteronomy and Exodus say, if you obey me, I promise you, I will bless you.

And then as you're blessed, you will be even more motivated to obey.

It was a beautiful, cyclical process designed by God of blessing and obedience and more blessing.

Oh, what could have been for Israel, amen?

Oh, what could have been, but no, there was a tragedy unveiling, unfolding, over hundreds of years, leading up to this judgment in 722 BC.

Remember, they have had hundreds of years of disobedience, hundreds of years.

We were working it out at our Bible study.

I think it was 230 years of disobedient kings.

Isn't that a long time?

God is patiently waiting.

The tragedy of frustrated pursuit is the next tragedy we see in our text.

God says, I will block her path with thorn bushes.

I will wall her in, my people, so that she cannot find her way.

She will chase after her lovers but not catch them.

She will look for them but not find them.

God is saying that He is going to lovingly intervene in the history of Israel and intentionally thwart their plans.

He's going to put thorn bushes in their way.

So what this is saying is that the history of Israel in the North, as it unfolds, is not just sort of happening because of blind fate.

God is actually bringing pain.

He's causing problems with their crops, and the curse of disease and impoverishment that is happening to them, he's saying, it's going to be me who does that.

I'm going to frustrate your pursuit of other gods because I love you.

Last week, I spoke about my interest in the sport of strong men.

And last week, I watched a video of a guy called Luke Richardson, an English man.

He's a really down-to-earth guy, and you'll see in this video, he's a very honest person.

He has had this terrible run of bad luck.

When he first came on the scene, he was 22, I think, and they called him Luke the Future Richardson.

They have these names, they'll give people, because he was so good as a young man.

But his career thwarted by injury after injury after injury.

Six times, he's torn his bicep right off.

He won Europe's Strongest Man last year, and he came to World's Strongest Man, the biggest competition, in the first event, he ripped his bicep off.

It was terrible.

And then he'll take half a year to rehab, and he's got to pay for it all himself.

So, this is a video of him being honest.

It's tragic.

And I watched this video, and I'm like, Luke, mate, you need Jesus.

Because he listened to his words.

This is a man, just a normal human being like any of us, who's trying to find meaning in life.

And he has this haunting line where he says, even when I win, it's not enough.

Even when I win, it's not enough.

You can just hear the cry of a human being saying, I need something that fulfills my heart.

And I wonder if it's a picture of God thwarting plans, so that in that frustration, we will be pointed to him.

Thanks, Janet.

The contrast of the two is probably the most brutal.

Sometimes I wish that life was a bit more...

straight, not up and down.

I've experienced some really unbelievable highs in my life, and some very unbelievable lows, is one of which I'm currently going through right now.

But the problem is, is that the highs never feel like highs.

And that's something that I've struggled with for as long as I've been having highs, from having a young lad, from having 19, competing in powerlifting and doing all the stuff that I did there.

It's never enough.

And it worries me that it isn't ever enough.

Like, when's enough with this?

I sit here now, I know I'm going to try again.

I think.

I'm going to give myself enough time to ensure that that's the decision that I want to do.

But winning Europe's to me and the comps last year felt like a bit of a finish line to this era of my life that's been plagued with just what has felt like non-stop battles against circumstances that I don't believe at times I've deserved to be brought upon myself other than just through unfortunate luck, which I guess is a thing as well.

But unfortunate luck.

A lot of people think that it's like, oh, have you thought of this?

And it's like, of course I've thought of it.

I think of it every day.

If I thought about quitting every day, I don't, because that's not who I am.

But then, maybe, yeah, it's who I am.

I wanted to quit more than Strongman this last two weeks.

I wanted to quit in existence.

Because yeah, when I come back and I win yurks, it doesn't feel like a win.

The wins don't feel like wins because the win is a bare minimum.

It's the minimum expectation that needs to be met in order to not feel terrible about myself.

Anyone feel that?

That's a sad story.

And yeah, I've been praying for Luke, that God would bring along into his life a person that would tell him about the hope we have in Jesus.

That goes beyond the win of strongman.

Restoration through disorientation.

Don't you think that's a powerful way to describe what God does in our lives?

He allows, He frustrates our pursuit sometimes, to disorientate us, that we would look to Him to be restored.

Amen?

Restoration through disorientation.

The tragedy of frustrated pursuit does not have to be a tragedy.

If we can just stop and wonder, might God's fingerprints be in this thwarting of my plans?

Maybe it's His love.

Not always.

It might be just a mistake we've made, and we're reaping the consequence.

But clearly the prodigal son was profoundly disorientated, wasn't he, in the pig style.

And it took that process of the frustration of his pursuits to bring him to the place where he would turn to God and reach out for His grace.

Thirdly, we have the tragedy of forgotten love, verse 13.

This is the most poignant, I think, line in the whole text.

Israel, she adorned herself with rings and jewelry, and went after her lovers.

But me, she forgot.

It seems strange to you how God uses language here as though he has real emotions.

Surely, he's above emotions, isn't he?

Like he's God, he knows everything.

He doesn't stress about anything.

But he interacts with his people.

He stoops down, doesn't he?

And he connects with us and he feels.

And that's certainly what Ephesians 4 says.

Do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God with whom you were sealed for the day of redemption.

It seems like God can be grieved.

It seems like God has emotions and he can be forgotten.

And when this happens, he's grieved.

And Yahweh says through Hosea, I'm no longer interested in your festivals, Israel.

Of course, he designed the festivals for the people of Israel to experience an intimate connection with their covenant God.

It was the design of God.

Verse 11, I will stop all her celebrations, her yearly festivals, her new moons, her Sabbath days, all her appointed festivals.

I will ruin her vines and her fig trees, which she said were her pay from her lovers, false attribution.

I will make them a thicket, and wild animals will devour them.

God waited so long for them to come back, for Israel, his bride, to come back.

Of course, this is because it's his character.

Exodus 34, verse 6, The Lord, the Lord, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness.

He waited patiently, but then a fierce separation came.

722, the judgment, using Assyria, took the ten tribes off into exile.

Because God was genuinely heartbroken, genuinely heartbroken.

Do you know what that's like?

To feel heartbroken.

Very courageously, Stephen, one of our staff, is going to come up and have a chat with us.

You just have to grab one of those mics there, mate.

Thank you for coming up.

You're welcome.

Stephen, you got married young.

Tell us about what happened there.

Yeah.

For those of you who don't know, I'm 37 years old, but I grew up in country Victoria, and when I was 20 years old, I got married.

To my high school sweetheart, we actually met in the same neighbourhood before high school, and we're together all throughout high school, so we grew up together.

The dream was to have a family and to grow old together.

And how did it work out?

What happened?

Well, that didn't happen.

Yeah, so, after our, no, before our second year, wedding anniversary, she left.

Left our home, left the city, and to be with someone else.

Yeah.

That's awful.

I'm so sorry.

That sounds like a heartbreaking experience.

How did it feel for you when your wife was, in a sense, unfaithful to you?

Yeah, I think I've had many years to reflect on many different things, and I think we all have brokenness.

So some of my brokenness would have contributed to the reality that we experienced, but that was the last thing I expected would happen, and that's the last thing you would ever think or hope for.

So early days, there was a lot of emotions, anger, frustration, disappointment.

But this story, you know, I wanted love and compassion to win.

But early days, it was heartbreaking.

And I found it interesting that you were saying that this book, Hosea, spoke to you so powerfully in the midst of your pain and just wanting to win her back.

Yes, there was moments of a wilderness experience or felt like there was things that was blocking her path.

And there was definite moments where there was hope.

It seemed like there was a possibility of restoration.

So was this this book, Hosea, from the Bible, from the Word.

I was leaning heavily on God, on reading his Word.

At that time, I was living in a Christian guy's household.

My family was amazing, church was amazing.

But someone recommended to me a story called Redeeming Love by Francine Rivers, which is a creative inspired story based on Hosea.

And so I'm not a big reader, but I read through that book.

And so there was many tears and prayers throughout that.

But I felt like I was living in this kind of parallel life to Hosea.

And yeah, like I said, the hope was for restoration.

The story goes on.

If you haven't read the story, Hosea keeps sort of chasing his wife, who is unfaithful.

That's a picture of Israel.

And so you're hoping for that.

What happened in the end?

It ended in divorce after about five years of pursuing, of challenging situations, ups and downs.

I moved to the cities she'd moved to and made many attempts for it to work out.

There was a journey that I went through, through legalism, just trying to do more, do more to please God, that hopefully the outcome would change.

But over a period of time, I think in my brokenness and emptiness, it's just, I moved away from that legalism and really came to a place where I was receiving God's amazing grace, His love, focusing on His forgiveness for me.

And yeah, there was definitely healing in that for me after a period of time.

But yeah, it was a long journey.

And one of the things I've been reflecting on is it helps me see the Bible in a...

put myself in their shoes when some of these Bible characters went through something for a month, or months, or years, because that was a significant period of my life, like the first half of my life, yeah.

Yeah, it's a really powerful experience you've had connecting you with the Bible story, isn't it?

Like, the ending isn't really what you were hoping for, but God in His kindness and generosity to you has given you a wonderful wife, and your life is so different now.

But back then, I really wanted to ask Stephen to share, mainly not to talk so much about his wonderful wife, Kathleen, but just to point out, sometimes things don't work out, do they?

And we know this stuff.

In that pocket of time, you were living a tragedy.

And then, but yet, God's faithfulness was so evident to you, wasn't it, as you say?

Exactly.

Would you thank Stephen for his courage?

The Garden of Eden, excuse me, we were talking about the garden before.

It's really the picture, isn't it, of the deep, the deepest relationship, walking hand in hand basically, together, man and woman, with their God, in a place that was designed for wonderful blessing, and for them to be absolutely fulfilled.

But we know the story.

The deceiver came in, in the form of a snake, and he tempted, and he deceived, and he led Adam and Eve to disobey God.

And sin brought the fracture of relationship, humanity with God, humanity with each other, humanity with their environment.

If you go back to Genesis 3, I encourage you this week to have a look, and think, tragedy.

Wouldn't you agree?

I mean, it's beyond...

I've sat in it and just read it and thought, this is beyond the ability of a human being to comprehend the scope and magnitude of that decision, isn't it?

The collective carnage of sin on planet Earth from the deception of the enemy, it is a tragedy.

But right in the midst of that tragedy was the pro te evangelium, the first good news.

The seed of the woman will crush the serpent's head.

And that's our God.

No matter what tragedy you have lived through, or maybe you're in right now, I want to encourage you, like I'd love Luke Richardson to find out.

There is a God who loves unconditionally and faithfully, and he'll never let you down.

He's reaching out to you in the midst of wherever you find yourself.

And the reason that he can do that is the curse of sin that we bring upon ourselves through disobedience has been carried once and for all by Jesus.

Hallelujah.

Galatians 3, Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us, for it is written, curse it is everyone who is hung on a pole.

Yes, we deserve to be judged.

We deserve the consequences of our sin.

But Jesus has died in our place.

What a tragedy it is when we're thinking about tragedies, for a human being to not realize their sin has been paid for.

Amen.

There is no greater tragedy.

We can talk about all sorts of tough stuff that could happen, but there's nothing more tragic than a human being, maybe than you, not realizing, yes, you're a sinner, you've made mistakes, you're living in the consequences of those mistakes.

But God, Romans 5, 8, God demonstrates his own love for us in this.

While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

May we not forget that.

The people of Israel forgot God.

They have chased after other lovers.

They have tried to find meaning in all sorts of false and dead-end locations.

But God is constantly waiting, saying, come back to me, I have made a way.

You know, sometimes on a Friday night, that movie, that heavy one, that one person out of 200 was willing to watch, sometimes it's worth a watch because it just reminds us of our human condition, doesn't it?

It's why tragedies exist.

They remind us, you know what, life is not easy.

And sometimes we make terrible mistakes and we twist up what could have been beautiful, and we make a mess of it.

And when we watch tragedies, I think we're reminded, that's me, don't we?

I've made mistakes, but I know a God in the greatest story ever told who sent His Son to save me and to save you and to save the world.

And when we respond by faith in what Jesus has done on the cross, life, death, and resurrection, the Bible says we will be saved.

And as Stephen testified, we will find hope for tomorrow.

Amen?

We will find hope for tomorrow.

Can I pray?

And the band are going to come and lead us in an extended time of worship.

We have a little bit more time today.

Lord God, thank you for the hope that is found in every tragic story that might be told in human history.

The tragedy and the judgment is not the end while we're still alive.

You have made a way in Jesus for us to be saved.

And we give you all the praise for that.

And I pray for those here in this room and listening online who are living in tragedy.

May they find hope in you.

In the name of Jesus.

Amen.

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