Returning (Hosea 6)

Have you read George Orwell’s masterful novel 1984? It very presciently describes a society in which every moment of everybody's life is captured on a screen and monitored by the state - not at all so far-fetched today as it might have seemed when it was written in 1948.

The central character, Winston Smith, seeks to rebel against the state, against Big Brother; but he is betrayed and arrested by the state security apparatus. When tortured in the infamous Room 101 and forced to face his worst fears, he realises that for him, once pain reaches a certain level, all he can think about is how to stop the pain. Sadly, the pain breaks him, he loses all his ideals and becomes subservient to Big Brother.

We all live with some degree of pain, occasional or chronic, physical or emotional; and it will be like that until the new heaven and new earth come into being (Revelation 21:4). What do you do when your pain becomes too intense to handle? Who do you turn to? Israel in Hosea’s time was carrying a lot of pain, as we saw in chapter 5 last week. They tried the ‘obvious’ solution, turning to the powerful king of Assyria; but he was unable to help them. So now in this chapter they try turning to the Lord.

They knew that the Lord is a God full of mercy and compassion - his anger lasts only a moment, but his favour lasts a lifetime (Psalm 30:5). So they felt pretty confident to turn to him: He has torn us to pieces, but he will heal us; he has injured us but he will bind up our wounds (verse 1), they say. We too can have confidence to turn to the Lord when we are in pain (see, for example, Hebrews 4:15-16). But in turning to him, Israel held three fundamental misconceptions; and we can learn a lot from them, so that we avoid falling into the same trap as them.

Firstly, there was no consistency in Israel’s returning to the Lord. He tells them plaintively, Your love is like the morning mist, like the early dew that disappears (verse 4). They are like Winston Smith: all they can think about is getting rid of their pain. They turn to the Lord only so that he can take away their pain. Once it has gone, they can carry on life as normal. When we earnestly pray to the Lord for healing, is it just the healing, the freedom from pain, that we want? Or are we willing to allow him to speak into our lives? Are we like the nine lepers who were healed by Jesus and then just got on with life? Or are we like the one leper who came back after being healed and worshipped Jesus (Luke 17:12-19)?

Secondly, Israel thought sacrifice was what the thing that the Lord wanted; but he tells them that what he really desires is mercy (verse 6). This concept is so important that Jesus is twice recorded as quoting it (Matthew 9:13, 12:7). Have you ever tried to bargain with God? If you do this for me, if you give me this healing, I will sacrifice something for you, do something that I think you will like. It doesn’t work. He sees through the superficiality of our motives. We are much more likely to attract his attention if we ask him for mercy and show mercy to those around us, and to ourselves as well.

Thirdly, Israel was not really interested in a relationship with God: verse 6 says he wants knowledge of God - the Hebrew word is not confined to intellectual knowledge, but involves relational knowledge. Instead of getting to know God, they wanted to make lots of burnt offerings and carry on with their wicked lifestyle (verses 7-10). Ritual was more important to them than relationship.

Often when I am earnestly seeking God for resolution of some pain or some difficulty, he directs my attention to something completely different in my life. I tell him, No, that’s not what I’m asking you for. And he replies, But yes, that is what I am interested in. Our focus is so often on him changing our circumstances; but he wants to change our hearts.

Jesus has taken up our weaknesses and carried our pains (Isaiah 53:4). He issues the generous invitation, Come to me all you are weary and burdened (and pain is very wearying), and I will give you rest (Matthew 11:28). So we can turn to him with confidence when we are in pain or difficulty. But he is not the divine handyman, who we call on to fix our problem, give him some money, then send him away. He wants to get to know us, and us to know him; and he wants to walk through the pains and difficulties of life with us. Will we let him?