Monthly Letter from the Pastor

March 2023

Letter from the Pastor

March

Letter from the Pastor

And I will have mercy on No mercy, and I will say to Not My People, ‘You are my people’; and he shall say, ‘You are my God.” – Hosea 2:23

One of the things that I have realized recently is that there are a lot of weird names out there. People are very creative when it comes to naming their kids these days. But sometimes they can be a little crazy, like Elon Musk naming his child X AE A-12 (don’t ask me how to pronounce it and apparently don’t ask Elon either). Weird names abound, but I really don’t know if there are any weirder names than what Hosea and Gomer named two of their children: No Mercy and Not My People. Those names would be hard to put on a resume or an application.

These two children bore these weird names, not because they had eccentric billionaire dads like Elon Musk, but because God wanted to illustrate to Israel (and to us) the depth of his love and mercy. These two children were named No Mercy and Not My People because of the disbedience and sinfulness of the people of Israel. They were to have no mercy and were no longer the people of God. But even though they continually sought out their own self interest or committed heinous acts of injustice or sacrificed to other gods, God loved them and gave them mercy. We all bare the same names: No Mercy and Not My People and yet God loves us and sent Jesus so that God could have mercy on us and say to us, “You are My People!”