NOTES for Hos 6:1-2

We are all inclined to remember God when things are bad for us. We do not always wait for grand external misfortunes; sometimes a bad mood is enough. While everything is going well, we live our own life, but as soon as some trouble appears in this life, we say: "Here is a problem; come in and heal this." We expect the Lord to heal us and bind up our wounds. At times we even quite sincerely suppose that we would like to live before His face. Alas, the Lord, who knows human hearts, states that our godliness is like morning mist and like dew that soon disappears. And how could it be otherwise if the goal of this godliness is to find a solution to our problems? If we are attached to our sins more than to God, then all our fasts and prayers are the same useless burnt offerings. Prayer that comes from the heart cannot fail to transform the heart. And if nothing changes in our life, it makes sense to think: perhaps we simply do not want God to enter every corner of the heart? Perhaps we let Him in only when we cannot manage on our own, and after feeling better, close the door with the words, "Thank You, Lord, now I will handle it myself"? If we truly strive to know the Lord, we will have to open our eyes, see the dazzling light of God's judgment, and understand that He expects from us not words, but conversion: a change of life.

Today's reading continues the theme of God's judgment. It begins by mentioning the turning to God of those who had not thought of Him before and were ready to rely on anything at all except Him (vv. 1-3). But on closer inspection, this turning, as we see, proved rather superficial (vv. 3-5). In principle the situation described can be considered typical: many remember God only when it becomes clear to them that no one and nothing else is able to help. And when help is received, they just as easily forget God, hoping that they will never again have to find themselves in such a position, that what happened to them was something exceptional, the kind of thing that happens to a person once in a lifetime, and even then not to everyone, but only to those especially unlucky.

But such an attitude toward God is usually characteristic of unbelieving people, or of people who do not think about God, those who in days of prosperity hardly remember Him. In Hosea's preaching, however, the matter concerns believers, or at any rate those who considered themselves such. They, at least, should in no way have forgotten God; they should not have waited for a critical situation in order to remember Him.

Why, then, do these religious people in practice behave the same way as unbelievers? The prophet's reminder of the priorities of spiritual life can serve as an answer to the question (v. 6). Hosea, of course, is not speaking here against sacrifice as such. He only reminds them that if there is no mercy in that capacious sense in which the prophet uses the corresponding Hebrew word, sacrifice loses its spiritual meaning. For originally sacrifice was nothing other than a form of communion with God, a shared meal of God and people, which is impossible without mercy, and therefore without the fullness of trust in the Most High. Spiritual life presupposes relationship above all, whether a person's relationship with God or with neighbor. If there is no trust in God, sacrifice ceases to be a spiritual event and becomes only a religious obligation, which, like any religious obligation, can be performed purely mechanically.

Moreover, sacrifice understood in this way easily turned into a kind of tribute that the people paid to God, expecting in return something which, as it seemed to them, they now had the right to demand according to the covenant they had made, and above all, of course, earthly prosperity. And when it disappeared, interest in God disappeared with it, in the God who could not or would not provide such prosperity. Then began the search for something or someone that could guarantee this prosperity independently of God, on whom, as it seemed to the seekers, one could not rely. Thus distrust of God destroys relationship with Him and leads a person first to religious formalism, and then to open paganism.

God reveals His heart: "I desire mercy, not sacrifice." This may be the summit of the revelation given through the prophet Hosea. Sacrifices, good works, keeping the commandments - all of this has meaning only if behind it stands our love not for ourselves, but for another: for God, for another person... Not a "striving for great achievements," not "doing one's duty," but love that "does not seek its own" (1 Cor. 13:5) and that leaves no room for lawlessness.

"Let us know the Lord," says Hosea, and immediately corrects himself: let us strive to know Him. Can we truly know Him here, in earthly life? But if we drop our hands and say that this knowledge is inaccessible to us and unnecessary, then we leave Him not a single chance to tell us something about Himself, to reveal Himself to us... And His revelation is like the morning dawn: around us is night, but now we turn to Him, open our heart to Him, and say, "Yes, I am in darkness, but I know that You are light"... and gradually the sky grows bright, and now in the east a flame is kindled: His dawn.

Wrath is poured out on all who have fallen into sin, but especially on those placed at the head of the people: kings and priests. Everyone will be called to account for his deeds, but the leaders of the people, called to preserve the Higher Truth, will be called to account especially, because more has been given to them. The description of the consequences of sins and lawlessness is severe.

But precisely here, after all the warnings, we again hear words of hope, a prophecy of the Lord's mercy and a promise of the coming Resurrection. The fact that the prophecy speaks of resurrection on the third day makes it possible for us to see in these words one of the first prophecies of the coming Resurrection of Christ, although here it is speaking about people, about the raising of the people from sin and darkness. But there is no contradiction here, because the Son of God became incarnate precisely in order to share our earthly path with us and give us hope of being raised together with Him.

And it is precisely here that what are perhaps the central words of the book of Hosea sound: I desire mercy, not sacrifice. These words, long familiar and well memorized, still continue to surprise us today if we look at them with fresh eyes. How can this be? Are all our efforts, our labors, everything we have sacrificed, really all in vain?

Yes, all our efforts can turn out to be empty and futile if we sacrificed with a hard heart, remaining merciless toward those around us, and all the more if we turn our relationship with the Lord into a transaction.