Only He can save from shame.
He turns the Valley of Trouble into a Doorway of Hope.
He goes so far.
The Valley of Achor (Valley of Trouble), where an Israelite soldier snuck away forbidden gold and was stoned to death for it; Jezreel (God Sows), where an Israelite king offered payment for a coveted vineyard and his queen oversaw the stoning to death of an innocent man –
on this same ground, in this same wilderness, God promises to give back to Israel her vineyards and gold and her hope. I am about to beguile her and will lead her to the wilderness and speak to her very heart. And I will give her from there her vineyards and the Valley of Achor an opening to hope…
God will woo Israel back to the wilderness and plant his beloved again in Jezreel and there show her love.
So that the name he revealed to Moses – steadfast-love-and-truth would be unbroken still – I will betroth you to me forever. In right and in justice, in kindness and in mercy. In faithfulness.
Who would imagine that by speaking to her very heart, this God would answer:
answer to the skies,
which answer to the earth,
which answers to the grain, the new wine, the olive oil
which answer to Jezreel.
Many years ago, Moses taught the nation of Israel a song which they were not to forget. It begins “HEAR, O heavens; HEAR, O earth” as God held heaven and earth as witnesses between him and his people. Witnesses to the covenant, to the tender days of plenty in the midst of the wilderness. Witnesses to the kicking of fattened Israel, to the wild rebellion of the covenant people. Witnesses to the vengeance of God. And now heaven and earth are called back to answer in a new avowal of betrothal, of love, of tenderness.
Who would imagine God’s wooing to be for blood-soaked earth, adulterous hearts, and war? So that where blood flowed from violent covetousness, causing thorns and cursing the earth; new wine and oil would flow instead from steadfast compassion, causing war to end and abundance and dance to rise…
Who can forget that the Valley of Achor is close by where Rahab hung her scarlet rope out of Jericho’s wall, Rahab the harlot who entered the kingly line of the Messiah?
How frightening is the freedom this God gives his people; how surprising the steadfastness of his love! They chose blood, chose adultery, yet this God does not stop short of recreating all things so that
Miriam’s victory dance would once more fill the mouth of a whoring woman, a woman stripped equally of luxury and lovers, clothes and covers but wooed
into the wilderness, into hope, into abundance, into the redemption of Jezreel… and she shall sing out there as in the days of her youth, as on the day she came up from the land of Egypt.
Battle is broken as the even beasts enter oaths of peace – we hearken back to the Flood in these words and re-enter the Garden
a Garden where the forsaken and forsakers, the stony-hearted and shamed, blossom,
where heaven and earth answer and are answered
and the doorway of hope opens into the redemption of all the earth.
Today’s post is drawn from the book of Hosea, chapter 2.
A broken tulip 
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