I once read a story about a newlywed couple, and how their marriage and lives are an incredible metaphor for God’s love.  True love for a broken people.

It’s the story of a man of God, a God-chaser named José.  José married his first love, and they soon had a child together.  But as time passed, this newlywed wife became restless.  The honeymoon was over; now their marriage had moved into more of a routine and was no longer blossoming with newness.  The day-in/day-out sacrifice of mother children was taking its toll, and her mind began to escape back to her past.

See, before she’d married José, she’d spent time in a sexual gutter.  And now, that gutter was looking pretty good.  José knew about her past, but he loved her in spite of it, and he loved her still when she began to slip back into her old behavior.  She began to seek fulfillment in the illicit and fleeting affection of an adulterous bed.

Soon she had another baby, and then another, neither of which were fathered by José.  But the extra children didn’t stop her – her wanderings in the night became more frequent.  Each night after tucking her children into bed, she would slip out the back door and into the gutter, ready to sell herself to the highest bidder.

José was essentially alone, left to be a father to children that weren’t biologically his, but he lovingly took up the task.  In the mornings, he prepared them for the day, and many times as the boys finished breakfast, their mother would stumble through the door, exhausted from a night of hedonistic seduction.  Soon, she quit coming home altogether.

As a husband, I can’t imagine this.  How could he allow her unfaithfulness to continue?  How could he allow her to peruse the streets, a lustful lion seeking prey?  If it’d been me, I would have put my foot down and taken control.  Wouldn’t you?  Her prostitution and need for illicit gain only led her into slavery; she could not escape from the shackles of selfishness that kept her in the gutter.  The chains of compromise gripped her so tightly she no longer considered the value of a husband and loving children.

She walked the streets each night to prostitute herself, to climb onto the auctioning block so men could bid for her affection. José sought God and saw her behavior as an invitation to the gutter, so, confused but obedient, José responded to God’s call and made his way to the Red Light District.  He didn’t know what he was going to do there or what to expect, and when he finally arrived, what he saw crushed him.  Imagine the pain and embarrassment he must have felt, seeing those me bid for his wife.

The man of God stood side by side with men of the world as they groped and placed bids for his beloved.  And then he did a strange thing.

He placed a bid.

I know.  It doesn’t make sense.  Why would he bid to purchase what already belonged to him – especially with the way she’d treated him and their children?  To the gutter-blinded mind, it makes absolutely no sense, but from God’s perspective, looking into the gutter, it’s just what was called for.

As the men beside him sought a one-night stand, José sought his bride’s faithful hand.  “Ministry” in this environment would confuse the religious.  This is not the type of outreach they teach in Bible college.  But there were religious people there, people like [those who beat their Bibles and flaunt their judging proof-verses].  Folks from the local church, observing the drama unfolding, unaware of what was at stake.  Hostile, yet hidden behind the righteous indignations, the church people hurled condemning insults toward José.

Imagine the humiliation he endured as the religious scorned him for placing his bid.  They thought it was a one-night stand, but they were wrong.  It was gutter love.

That’s what many religious people do.  They stand on the sidelines, critical of situations that don’t fit into their box of understanding.  The religious criticized everything Jesus did.  Whether Jesus was on the road with Zacchaeus or in the temple with the Pharisees, they criticized and accused, seeking the worst.  Instead, they found perfection.  They couldn’t believe a hay-filled manger in a smelly barn or a cruel timber on a garbage dump could produce a Messiah.  They did not think these places could be the dwelling place of a Savior.  The gutter simply did not fit into their box.

José stood nearly defeated and outbid.  Wanting to finalize the transaction, he placed one last bid – all he had with him – [Eighty-five dollars*].  The religious voices were dry from yelling.  Raspy, ear-piercing, hate-filled voices filled the marketplace with judgment.  The surrounding onlookers had to be shocked that a godly man was bidding on a whore.  Of course, they didn’t know it was his bride.

Prematurely aged by the gutter, the once-attractive young lady of earlier years had become worn and faded.  But José wasn’t bidding on her looks; he was bidding on her position.  And he won.  He bought his own wife at the auction of whores – for [Eighty-five*] bucks.  He sacrificed his pride and his money to bring her home – not as a slave, not as a prostitute, but as his wife, the lady of the house.

José’s story can be repeated many times over.  It applies to the Christian and the non-Christian, to the Jew and the Muslim … to you and me.  But while José’s act was truly an example of the deepest kind of unconditional love, it was nothing new.  God’s always been involved with taking his love to the gutter, to the point of sending Jesus to the gutter of a garbage dump in order to create a bridge for mankind to get back to God.

Through Jesus on the cross, God bought back His most magnificent handiwork, an unfaithful creation that had sold out to the streets of selfishness.  I am unfaithful.  You are unfaithful.  Every person that has breather has been unfaithful.  Each action I make contrary to God’s plan for my life is an unfaithful act.  Every time I go after money, power, my motive my agenda, or self-fulfilling pleasures, I am unfaithful to God.  Choosing to live in the gutter rather than to rescue people from the gutter makes me an unfaithful partner with God.

Each time I choose me, myself and I – my agenda, my plan, may way – I throw myself into the arms and care of other gods, specifically, the god of self.  The Bible refers often to this as “prostitution against God.”  (Check the old Testament – God frequently uses prostitution or adultery as a metaphor for the children of Israel when they’ve turned away from Him.)  Some think it’s the worst sin in the Bible – worse than drugs, social injustice, homosexuality, or homicide.  Of course, it isn’t:  No sin is worse than the next sin.  Yet sin is sin, so there is no difference between the red-light dweller and the penthouse suite owner.  There is no difference between the streetwalker and the religious person who condemns her.  It’s easily identifiable.  I recognize it’s the sin I commit the most and the sin I’m usually the last to confess.

The Bible insists again and again on the mercy of God.  He is a God who is always waiting for me to recognize that I missed the mark.  And when I make it right with Him by deciding to change and repent, He is ready to clean the slate, or, using José’s story as an analogy, purchase me out of my unfaithfulness.

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As José stood in the crowd watching other men battle for his wife, God must have revealed the reason he was there.  No man in his right mind could have done what he did.  If I were him, I probably would have argued with God.  “What?!  You want me to do what?  This woman is in a covenant with me!  Why should I buy back what already belongs to me?”

But José got it.  “Lord, I see now.  This is what you did for me.  You loved me, even though I already belonged.”  To the church member, the choir member, the Sunday School teacher:  We already belonged to Him.  Yet because of our wanderings, because of our unfaithfulness, He had to buy us back.  He brought redemption to us, and He paid for it Himself.

God bought us back.  Not for a measly [Eighty-five*] dollars, either, but with His own blood.  He bought me off the bidding block and took me back into His home, not as a slave, but as a child of God, as one capable of receiving His inheritance!  Now found innocent and faithful, you and I are brought into His presence as He prepares a feast for us.  (Read the story of the prodigal son to get a great picture of how God the Father feels when His unfaithful kids come home:  Luke 15:11-32.)  How incredibly great is the love of God!

God is the God of José … I mean Hosea.  And it wasn’t [Eighty-five*] dollars; it was fifteen shekels and some barley.  It wasn’t last week or last year or last decade; it was nearly three thousand years ago, and it’s right there in the Bible – Hosea 2:5 and 3:2.  But regardless of the era, the plot remains the same:  Unfaithful people who are desperate for the love a merciful, redeeming God will always find it.  God is a God who loves the gutter, and He wants us to do the same.

The journey to the gutter pays great rewards in the form of transformed lives.  We just have to get there.

Written by Craig Gross in his book, The Gutter (pg 64-70).  The book is largely about social justice and loving the lowest.  He uses the term ‘gutter’ a lot (to the point where it gets annoying), but uses it to describe each of our deepest sins, not just people who are outwardly screaming sin.  There are many creative liberties to Hosea’s story.

http://books.google.com/books?id=grX8-Yl9X2IC&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_summary_r&cad=0#PPA65,M1

* = Eighty-five dollars is about the amount Hosea paid for his wife – fifteen shekels of silver is about six ounces.  The price varies. Craig Gross says fifteen dollars in the book to make the numbers written in our translations to match.

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So, yeah FP16.  This is what I picture as being married to Jesus.  This is why I gave myself a zero on the following-the-law-o-meter.  Any thoughts?