Christ Lutheran Church
Cleveland, Ohio
June 7, 2026
by: Rev. Dean Kavouras

Pentecost 2A
Hosea And Jesus

I will go away and return to my place until they acknowledge their offenses and seek my face: in their desperate straits they will desire me. Come! Let us turn again to the LORD for he has torn us apart but he will heal us. He has grievously wounded us but he will bind our wounds. Hosea 5:15-6:2 (DKV)

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Our readings today are a perfect demonstration of what Lutherans call Law and Gospel.

The word Law has several meanings in the Bible, but when we use the word Law theologically, we mean the sum total of God’s commands laid upon humanity – as well as the penalties that attach to each violation.

By the word “Gospel” Lutherans mean the very opposite. We mean all the promises that God makes to heal sinners from their deadly disease because of his boundless for love us. Not based on our own merit or worthiness: but by grace alone, through faith, in the cross of Jesus.

To that end Hosea preaches the Law to Old Testament Israel and slices them into ribbons. But in today’s gospel Jesus picks up the pieces and puts them back together again.

The first thing we find here is the LORD sitting down to dinner with the thorniest members of society. People who were cruel and unusual and who took what they wanted from whom they could. They had no sense of right and wrong, no love for God, or for their neighbor, but only for themselves.

He did not do this to confirm them in their sin, but because it is the sick who need physician; and the men in today’s gospel were sick. Not with “mental illness” as the culture insists is the cause of every crime. But with moral illness. Stage 4 moral depravity.

When the Light of the world appeared at the tax office that day to call callous and crooked Matthew to be his disciple – everything turned on a dime. And when he came to Matthew’s house for dinner he was not starting a “pilot program” to reform the wicked. But he came to impart the “Light of Life” to them, which He himself is. In Jesus they saw something that they had never seen before: they saw God in Human Flesh “walking with them in the cool of the day.”

Now let us turn the clock back 800 years to the time of the Prophet Hosea.

For the record the name Hosea and Jesus are the same name. The former is the Hebrew version, the latter Greek, but both names mean: the LORD saves; and save they did by preaching the Law and the Gospel.

The LORD called Hosea to be a prophet in the Northern Kingdom of Israel which had become the epitome of wickedness; it was Hosea’s assignment to dissuade Israel from the death spiral it was caught up in.

The same death-spiral that culture is caught up in today, the one that even many churches have joined. Synagogues of Satan that encourage and justify sin rather than dissuade it, and heal it.

The LORD was as angry as angry can be with the people he had rescued, cared for and blessed beyond measure in every way imaginable. Religiously, politically, economically, socially – no people ever had it better

But they did not thank him for it, worship him or extend Divine Mercy to one another.

Quite the contrary they perpetrated every possible act of unfaithfulness towards their LORD; and turned “man’s cruelty to man” into an art form. The powerful tormented the weak to the max, and the weak did whatever they could to strike back against the powerful and against one another. There were no “white hats’ here. No kewpie dolls. But a case of: every man for himself just like today.

Debauchery was the national sport. They committed adultery against the Husband who had rescued them from Egypt. They no longer Communed with him in Divine Service at the Temple but had assignations with the pagan gods who lived next door. Who put no moral restraints on them, but fulfilled their every felt need … for a small sum of money paid up front. This was Hosea’s first Call from the seminary.

In an attempt to bore through heads of rock, and hearts of titanium the LORD took drastic action. He commanded Hosea to marry a prostitute named Gomer, and have children with her as a living object lesson that demonstrated what the LORD’s people had become. $2 hussies who were drunk, high and stupid day and night.

And to add insult to injury Hosea and Gomer had three children whom the LORD told them to name as follows:

Jezreel, which means “the LORD scatters” because soon the LORD was going to run them out of the Promised Land and scatter them throughout the world, as punishment for their sins.

Lo Ruhamah which means “not pitied” because the LORD would no longer have pity on this ship of fools.

Lo Ammi which means: “not my people,” because the LORD would now divorce them and give them over to their new lovers.

But Hosea was not done! God put razor sharp words on his tongue in one last attempt to scare them straight. But it did not happen! That is how blind sin makes us.

Now fast forward again 800 years to our Lord Jesus Christ, God in the flesh, dining with a brood of vipers but with this difference. While their ancestors did not listen to Hosea, these people listened to Jesus. Indeed they were delighted by him because they were terminally ill with sin – and they recognized that this Holy Physician could cleanse them of their disease and make them pure.

Hosea broke them, but Jesus put them back together. Matthew did not only become an apostle but also the evangelist who penned the first book of the New Testament – the Gospel according to St. Matthew. And Oh how we need to hear this tax-collector turned saint, since we are each little tax collectors in our own way. Collecting what we can from our God, and from one another with no regard.

Remember that God’s people can also revert to the mean. We too, apart from the most attentive grace, could turn into Old Testament Israel. The culture crouches at our door with its message: “you only live once.” Oh if only they knew what they do not know.

Like with ancient Israel religious people don’t usually apostatize overnight. But slowly at first, and then all at once. Let us consider ourselves. Are we conscious of God? Do we pray rather than worry? Because a man who is too busy to pray, is too busy. Do we seek to love one another or are we too self-centered to put ourselves out for our neighbor. Worst of all, have we “grieved the Holy Spirit.” That’s the worst. And if we have, can we come back from it? Or is it too late?

Matthew did and so can we.

Remember that Matthew was part of the chosen people; who had drifted away until he no longer knew who he was. We all know people like that; perhaps we once were like that ourselves.

But now we have been restored to “the Shepherd and Bishop of our souls.” Who invites us to his House. This house. And to his Table. This Table. Where we eat and drink with him in the “marriage feast of the Lamb that has no end.” Amen