You will all remember the history from your Old Testament lectures - Israel, the northern kingdom, in the eighth century BC, had become economically prosperous. Jeroboam II was the king, and he had managed to push the boundaries of his state northwards and eastwards. In the south, the kingdom of Judah was led by its new young king, Uzziah, and he, too, by a series of armed raids, pushed his political sphere of influence south into the Negeb and eastwards into the plain. Israel in the north and Judah in the south were at peace with one another, and the trade routes therefore opened up. It was a time of remarkable prosperity. After decades of confusion and assassinations and political chaos, there was stability. The population increased, industry flourished.

It was onto this stage that two prophets strode - men of charisma and power - Amos and Hosea. Amos lashed out at the social injustices he saw all around him, the poor being entirely at the mercy of the rich. Hosea lashed out at his country's religious apostasy; the people had abandoned Yahweh and were worshipping Baal.

Then the political scene, which had seemed so stable, deteriorated and then went from bad to worse. After the death of Jeroboam II, there was a power struggle in which at least five different kings tried to gain the throne of Israel. Anarchy inside the state was matched by a growing threat from outside - the rise of Assyria. Within a few years the Assyrians had smashed their way into Israel, deporting large numbers of people. And Judah, the southern kingdom, had become a vassal state; Ahaz, its king, had to strip the Temple of its valuables to try to pay the taxes and tribute owed to the Assyrians.

In the north and south it was now a considerable mess, politically, culturally and spiritually. Read Hosea in this context and you can see how lashing his words were:

The princes of Judah have become like those who remove the landmark;

upon them I will pour out my wrath like water.

Ephraim is oppressed, crushed in judgment,

because he was determined to go after vanity.

Therefore I am like a moth to Ephraim, and like dry rot to the house of Judah.

When Ephraim saw his sickness, and Judah his wound,

then Ephraim went to Assyria, and sent to the great king.

But he is not able to cure you or heal your wound.

For I will be like a lion to Ephraim, and like a young lion to the house of Judah.

I, even I, will rend and go away, I will carry off, and none shall rescue.

[Hosea 5:10-14]

And that lashing rebuke is followed by the lesson we heard read a few moments ago:

Come, let us return to the Lord …

But that apparent act of repentance is met by another Hosean tirade:

What shall I do with you, O Ephraim? What shall I do with you, O Judah?

Your love is like a morning cloud, like the dew that goes early away.

Therefore I have hewn them by the prophets, I have slain them by the words

of my mouth, and my judgment goes forth as the light.

For I desire steadfast love and not sacrifice, the knowledge of God,

rather than burnt offerings. [Hosea 6:4-6]

And yet, and yet … in spite of all the anger, all the fury, all the wrath spoken by Hosea, there come moments of limpid calm and beauty:

When Israel was a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt I called my son.

The more I called them, the more they went from me;

they kept sacrificing to the Baals, and burning incense to idols.

Yet it was I who taught Ephraim to walk, I took them up in my arms;

but they did not know that I healed them.

I led them with cords of compassion, with the bands of love,

and I became to them as one who eases the yoke on their jaws,

and I bent down to them and fed them. [Hosea 11:1-4]

But then these are followed by even more angry outbursts:

I am the Lord your God from the land of Egypt;

you know no God but me, and besides me there is no saviour.

It was I who knew you in the wilderness, in the land of drought;

but when they had fed to the full, they were filled, and their heart was lifted up;

therefore they forgot me.

So I will be to them like a lion, like a leopard I will lurk beside the way.

I will fall upon them like a bear robbed of her cubs, I will tear open their breast,

and there will I devour them like a lion, as a wild beast would rend them.

I will destroy you, O Israel; who can help you? [Hosea 13:4-9]

The storm rages on and on - with images of intense ferocity - and only at the end is peace restored:

I will heal their faithlessness; I will love them freely,

for my anger has turned from them.

I will be as the dew to Israel; he shall blossom as the lily,

he shall strike root as the poplar;

his shoots shall spread out; his beauty shall be like the olive,

and his fragrance like Lebanon.

They shall return and dwell beneath my shadow, they shall flourish as a garden;

they shall blossom as the vine, their fragrance shall be like the wine of Lebanon.

[Hosea 14:4-7]

Well, it's not very comforting reading. And I confess that I find myself perplexed, for Hosea is obviously an unbelievably angry man, a man who will use all available means to get his message across. Imagine the anger of Hosea, seen through the eyes of his children - who, to score political and religious points, are named by him Not Pitied and Not My People. Imagine his anger seen through the eyes of his wife - there's no suggestion that she is anything other than a convenient pawn in his prophetic onslaught.

I suspect that Hosea is not someone who would find Anglicanism very conducive. But here he is, bang slap in the middle of the scriptures, barging his unruly, tempestuous way into this service; throwing his theological weight around, in a storm of fury - all elbows and fists and bulging eyes - and he won't go away.

If he were on our PCC, he would be a menace, someone to whom we might offer pastoral counselling maybe - and no doubt his long-suffering wife and children would be mightily relieved if we did so.

But what is he doing here, on Maundy Thursday, of all days? The simple answer is that the lectionary has given him house room - and phrases like 'after two days he will revive us; on the third day he will raise us up,' clearly have, for us, a resurrection echo. But let it be noted, they can only have that meaning if we take them out of their ferocious and political context. A second answer is that he is strutting and banging around amongst us because we always need to be called back to our central purpose. We lose focus; we lose faith; we muddle around - and forget what the very heart of our work is. Israel had wilfully abandoned its covenant relationship with God, hence Hosea's anger. The moral: we are always in danger of doing the same.

And, of course, that's true - and yet, even as I write/speak this explanation, it feels like an episcopal sermonic copout, a way of avoiding the struggle, a means to tie things up neatly. Whereas Hosea isn't like that - he is, quite simply, uncontainable. He is theological 'brute force'. I can try, I suppose, to neutralise him by thinking that his concept of God, the outraged, petulant, vengeful father is but a mirror of Hosea's own dark side (ask his children, ask his children) - and there may be much truth in that - but then, don't we all, to a greater or lesser extent, use God as a mirror for our own projections? But what Hosea does, for all his woundedness and anger, is to acknowledge, not only in his head but in his very guts, that the covenant relationship with God matters. It matters for the individual, it matters for society; it matters so much, it's enraging.

It is not because of his blood-boiling anger that he is here with us on Maundy Thursday, not because of the beauty - the serene beauty of his understanding of God's mercy - but because he struggles with such force to understand, to comprehend, to give voice to God's covenant relationship. In Anglican-speak, this is not 'Evensong' on a late summer's evening, this is pit-of-the-stomach theology found somewhere between the confession and the unflinching gaze on Christ's passion in the eucharistic prayer.

Well, you and I, as priests, know the cost of trying to wrestle with the covenant, of trying to struggle with the spiritual and metaphysical truths about God. You and I as priests and Readers, preachers, know that our temptation is to subside into cliché, to offer warm assurance. But isn't our call more stark than that? Aren't we required to put our very selves on the line? Aren't we required to wrestle and struggle and battle with God and with our world? Aren't we required in word and sacrament, in prayer and personal encounter, to come face to face with a suffering and triumphant God? Aren't we required in our very brokenness and failure, simply to trust God's covenant with us? - and to place the future in His hands.

We live in very curious and troubled times, when to be a priest is an energy-sapping business, when to try to speak God's word as priest or Reader requires faithfulness and honesty beyond our capacity. And yet … and yet, there is God's covenant - God's promise, which is the source of hope.

We wait this side of Good Friday at a moment of intense beauty (all that poignancy of the Last Supper, all that existential reality of servanthood) - and a moment of darkness. There is no escape. This is how it is. Except that in the darkness, there is that one word covenant to describe the Reality behind all reality; and with each other we wait in hope upon God's eternal promise - and just on the edge of sight, we see, coming towards us, the One who is, himself, 'Covenant'. He chose the broken Peter, he chose Mary Magdalene, he chose the doubter, Thomas. If he chose them, then his choice of us is also explicable; and we can and do wait upon his healing love for our - and for our world's - salvation.