I've grown curious about Abraham Lincoln in the last several years. I've been slowly reading Doris Kearns Goodwin's book Team of Rivals which chronicles Lincoln's rise to the presidency, through which he eventually welcomed earlier political competitors into cabinet positions. Out of the furnace of his campaigns, he recognized the gifts of those he defeated and those who defeated him. It gave him a thick skin for sure, one he would need as he led the nation into civil war for the distant dream of a stronger nation. It wasn't the best that Lincoln ever would have wanted to give his country. Torn to shreds by newspapers, mocked by friend and enemy alike, his service took its toll on him and his family, even as it took its toll on the nation. This is what interests me: the Civil War was violent, bloody, nobody really came out of it with anything even closely resembling total victory. The costs were just too high. But the high costs now seem worth it. It was bad, but we now see it as good.
Reading Hosea 13, I'm struck by this line about Israel's kingdom: "Where now is your king that he may save you? Where in all your cities are your rulers, of whom you said, "Give me a king and rulers"? I gave you a king in my anger, and took him away in my wrath." What strikes me is this: that God gave Israel a king in anger. God's anger is brought on by Israel's rejection of his authority. (1 Samuel 8:7) Choosing their own king means they are choosing against God. Yet, in this anger, God gives it to them. Over time, as one bad king led to another (see 1 and 2 Kings), the day comes when God's wrath falls on Israel, leading them into exile, taking their kingdom away. This is all summed up neatly in God's phrase in Hosea 13: "I gave you a king in my anger, and took him away in my wrath."
I like the Civil War narrative better: it was bad, but we now see it as good, it was costly, but it was worth it. I don't like the narrative of Israel's kingdom as much: it was bad when I gave it to you, and it was worse when I took it away. That just can't be all there is to it! And of course, this is the way we tend to look at the whole Old Testament narrative: "God created the world, the world fell into sin, God created Israel, and then things got worse...and worse...and worse...........and worse...until God himself said, "That's it! I'm coming down there." What's this narrative missing?
It's missing the same sense of cost that we all understand about the Civil War. Lincoln suffered. Union soldiers suffered. Confederates suffered. African-Americans suffered. Out of all the enmity and strife and fighting of that time, and the loss of life in the war being as stunning as it was, we all stand back and say, "it is enough." The cost has been paid. Who bears the cost of all this in the Old Testament? God does. God's children kill each other. God's children give their worship to false gods. God's children are known more for disobeying their God, than for being a light shining the righteous, holy, merciful character of their God. God bears the cost of all this. God suffers.
"They have rejected me," he says in 1 Samuel. They did, but God didn't reject them. God's kingdom moves in unseen, hidden ways while the corrupt kingdom degenerates more and more. Even the death of Jesus, as climactic and central and new as it is, has much more in common with the sacrificial, abiding, weak, suffering way of God's love as depicted in Hosea than we typically acknowledge. God's role in the Old Testament is not as the idle, distant, "get your act together" God. He is the God as portrayed in Hosea, the wounded, unyieldingly faithful lover, whose only Son will pay the ultimate cost. And all those who see with the eyes of faith will say, "it is enough."
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