Thoughts for the Day

‘Come, let us return to the Lord;
for it is he who has torn, and he will heal us;
he has struck down, and he will bind us up.
After two days he will revive us;
on the third day he will raise us up,
that we may live before him.
Let us know, let us press on to know the Lord;
his appearing is as sure as the dawn;
he will come to us like the showers,
like the spring rains that

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 away early.
Therefore I have hewn them by the prophets,
I have killed them by the words of my mouth,
and my judgement goes forth as the light.
For I desire steadfast love and not sacrifice,
the knowledge of God rather than burnt-offerings.

(Lectionary, New Revised Standard Version)

Thoughts

Hosea was a contemporary of the Prophet Isaiah, writing some 800 years before Christ. But Hosea unlike Isaiah was a northerner. His message was largely for the Kingdom of Israel (though he mentions Judah), which was made up of the 10 tribes that had broken away after the harsh leadership of King Solomon's son. Hosea became a prophet at the end of the reign of the nation’s last powerful king, Jeroboam II, and prophesied for 40 years until just before Samaria fell to Assyria in 722 BCE. He proclaims that a generation has grown up to whom God is a stranger, and that they have turned to pagan gods.

So what do Hosea's words say to us 2,800 years later? In today's passage we see that suffering has caused the people to turn back to God but there is no real deep change in the way they live. It rather feels like a child responding to an angry parent, saying to themself "Oh he will forget his anger in a couple of days!" For a start there is no mention of repentance, and we see that their love for God evaporates as quickly as dew in the hot sun.

The principle though remains the same today. God does not require us to focus on superficial things. The people in Hosea’s time had brought offerings for sacrifice but they never brought themselves as living sacrifices (Romans 12.1). They missed what God really wanted: a deep, close relationship with Him. Today, in Britain, I think of churches cutting outreach and mission spending; of the steady increase in classroom pupil numbers in schools; of the way we play at trying to stop the damage we're doing to the earth; and the lack of care for the poor around the world. There are over 2.6 billion Christians in the world but for change to occur it requires each one of us to change. It starts with you and me, today!

Lord God,
may change start with me this day.
Help me to identify something I may do
to redress the wrongs that are done in the world.
Help me to change some attitude or behaviour in myself
which I know is unacceptable to You.
Show me how to become a living sacrifice,
drawing closer to You each day.
Amen.