When something is too much and flowers aren't enough

 This week's verses are Hosea 5:6-7:

Although they bring their flocks and herds
to seek the favor of the Lord,
They will not find him—
he has withdrawn himself from them!
They have committed treason against the Lord,
because they bore illegitimate children.
Soon the new moon festival will devour them and their fields.

 These verses are part of the prophesies from the prophet Hosea. God spoke into his life in a kind of "performance art" style, asking him to marry a prostitute and then using the broken family that resulted as a way to talk about Israel's unfaithfulness. Here he's talking about Israel's religiosity serving as a cover for their depravity.

We don't often think of God as having emotions in as real of a sense as we do. In Hosea's life, he gives us a glimpse of what our sin and idolatry feels like to him. He sits down with us and says "OK basically it's like you've finally married the love of your life and invested to make sure you can have a future together and then she turns out to be an unstable prostitute. It's all been a lie. She breaks your heart and runs off with the first guy she meets and ends up pregnant. And you have to watch it all happen. And then she does it again." Ouch!

God is saying through Hosea that even if Israel sacrifices entire herds of cattle and flocks of sheep, it won't make up for the infidelity. He's made up his mind to put some distance between them. The reason is that Israel has been conspicuously unfaithful. Not just unfaithful but the kind of unfaithful that not only cheats but ends up getting pregnant with someone else's child in the context of the marriage. You can't hide that. And no amount of gift-giving and sweet talk is going to make it go away.

So not only has Israel acted like Hosea's almost-ex-but-not-quite prostitute wife, but they've even further insulted God by acting like his favor can be as cheaply bought! He basically tells them "next time you leave, you're not coming back. You're done." The new moon festival was one of the pagan things they had involved themselves in outside of their covenant with God. It is treason.

Do we act like that sometimes? When we do bad things, or we look for validation somewhere other than the cross, do we try to make up for it religiously? "It's OK, I'll start going to church again. That should be enough." Do we make some meaningless sacrifices to try to buy our way out of the mess we are comfortable in? Are flowers a legitimate way to get away with domestic violence?

When we've gone too far and born the fruit of our mistakes, or when we've left a mark we can't erase, religiosity is not what God is looking for. We can't just put on a Christian act. We have to start making different choices. And we have to rely on God's grace. Instead of just acting like Christians, we have to be Christians.

Imagine that you are that spouse who has made poor decisions and crossed the line that can't be uncrossed. Even if there was something you could do to make them take you back, doing it would probably make you lose respect for someone who could be so easily bought. Your only hope is in their grace, and assuming that forgiveness happens, you still have to work to make sure you don't just go out and do the same thing next week. That's what repentance is like. You've dodged a bullet and now you're going to start paying attention. Right?