On the 12th day of Christmas my true love gave to me a man who really got me (Hosea 3).

I once dated a guy who didn’t get me. He was beautiful but didn’t get me. He was suave but didn’t get me. And I so wanted him to get me because he was beautiful and suave and well dressed, but his middle class life came from his daddy’s blind pigs and other dealings to make ends meet. He said he couldn’t compete with my professor daddy; he just wasn’t that type of intellectual, responsible guy. He had a job but mostly lived off what his daddy left him, and I gathered that I was just something cute to do.

But before I came to this point I wanted him to know that it didn’t matter that my life was built on college education and his on street knowledge; that our love for jazz and films and care for family was enough, that he was enough for me. I don’t remember how I said this. I just remember that he heard my background loud in his foreground and that was too much for him. I went to church then but wasn’t saved then and when I did it was because I met a man who got me.

For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin (Hebrews 4:15).

This is Jesus Christ, the god-man, who understands perfectly how I feel. No degrees or pedigree or other side of the tracks keeps Him from relating to me. This is the picture we see in Hosea, when the prophet Hosea marries then redeems the prostitute Gomer from her whoredoms. God the Father had Hosea marry Gomer as a picture of Him being married to the Israelites who followed after idols.

And the LORD said to me, “Go again, love a woman who is loved by another man and is an adulteress, even as the LORD loves the children of Israel, though they turn to other gods and love cakes of raisins.” So I bought her for fifteen shekels of silver and a homer and a lethech of barley. And I said to her, “You must dwell as mine for many days. You shall not play the whore, or belong to another man; so will I also be to you.” For the children of Israel shall dwell many days without king or prince, without sacrifice or pillar, without ephod or household gods. Afterward the children of Israel shall return and seek the LORD their God, and David their king, and they shall come in fear to the LORD and to his goodness in the latter days.—Hosea 3

In Hosea, we not only see a picture of God redeeming His people Israel but also Jesus redeeming us through His work on the cross. “But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8). We didn’t have to clean ourselves up or play our backgrounds down for us to be with Him. He accepted us just as we were, and, because He understands us, lovingly equips and prompts us to be all that He created us to be (Ephesians 4:7-16, Philippians 2:13).

Copyright 2010 by Rhonda J. Smith