Hosea 6: The Broken-Hearted
Thursday, June 6, 2019
We frequently look at this prophecy written by one betrayed in the most intimate of ways. We will need this lesson because in our lives we will often find suffering at the hands of those we trust. This prophet speaks to us from the depths of sorrow in authenticity about his own intense suffering as a result of the infidelity of his wife, the harlot Gomer.
Chapter 6 begins with a verse that stands out to us because it speaks to our broken-ness as people: broken covenants, broken vows, broken oaths, broken words, broken spirits, broken hearts. But the beauty of this prophecy and of this first verse is this: for as much as we are broken, we might heal others . . . and in so carrying and living out Christ’s message, we might ourselves be healed.
In the morning reading in Phyllis Tickle’s The Divine Hours: Prayers for Springtime, we find an important reading: Mark 3:13-19. Jesus has cured many people of their physical broken-ness and now the throngs are pressing in upon him in such a way that He told his disciples to have a boat ready for him because of the crowd, so that they would not crush him. This is where we come into the story. Jesus ascends a mountain – usually a sign of moving toward God in scripture – and then he calls forth those whom he wanted. And these came to him. He appoints them as apostles that they might be with him and he might send them forth to preach and to have authority to drive out demons. Among these twelve is the Iscariot . . . Judas. Even God allows betrayers to enter his camp, knowing that they will break his heart.
What an amazing God is this who comes to live among us to suffer as we do; yet this is exactly the good news that we have yearned to hear. How will our broken hearts be mended? How will broken oaths be healed and broken friendships fixed? We step forward, called out of the crowd as apostles, to be sent into the world with God’s authority to drive out demons and to heal. And how do we obtain this authority? By participating – with Christ – in his suffering and death upon the cross. This is what Hosea comes to understand through his own agony as he watches his wife dangle herself before any man who will take her. This is what we can understand as we suffer at the hands of those we thought we knew . . . those in whom we trusted . . . those with whom we shared our inmost thoughts, desires and fears.
When we look at some of the images in Hosea 6 we see the depth of betrayal. Verse 4: Your piety is like a morning cloud, like the dew that early passes away. Verse 9: As brigands ambush a man, so do bands of priests slay on the way to Shechem, committing monstrous crimes.
And so we pray that broken hearts be healed, that we become messengers of the good news that Christ has come to heal. We ask for the gift of willingness to enter God’s vineyard, that we allow our suffering to be converted into the authority of an apostle . . . so that we might in turn drive out demons in Christ’s name.
Good and gracious God the Creator, God the Saver, God the Holy Spirit that lives within us: Keep us close to you in all we suffer that we might be with you as your apostles. Teach us your way of love that we might go forth as your apostles. Continue to speak to us of your story that we might preach it as your apostles. Grant us the patience to rest in your word that it might give us authority as your apostles. Give us the power to drive out and away all the demons that settle into us without our knowing. We ask this in Christ’s name. Amen.
A re-post from May 23, 2012.
Image from: http://www.officialpsds.com/Glass-Shatered-From-A-Broken-Heart-PSD59964.html
Tickle, Phyllis. THE DIVINE HOURS: PRAYERS FOR SPRINGTIME. New York: Doubleday, 2001. Print.
Rewritten from May 3, 2009 Noontime Reflection.
The Noontimes 