What will you do on the day of your appointed festivals, on the feast days of the LORD? – Hosea 9:5

Today’s Scripture Reading (January 17, 2014): Hosea 9

In 600 C.E., the city of Cahokia (what we call it, we have no idea what the original inhabitants called the city) began its existence in what is now south western Illinois. The Cahokians were the largest and most influential of the Mississippian native groups. At its height, Cahokia would have covered more than six square miles, and contained more people than any other American City until the late 18^th Century. For about 800 years, Cahokia ruled the American landscape. And then the city and its inhabitants disappeared – long before any European settler touched down on North American soil.

Cahokia is on a list of mysterious cultures that have simply disappeared from the pages of history. In the case of Cahokia, we have very little to tell us about what kind of a civilization it was. We have no writing from the Cahokians, they have left us no pottery shards and no weapons or really any evidence of any wars that the civilization might have fought. It simply left us over a hundred mounds within the city complex - and a lot of questions.

But the mystery of the cities disappearance may not be much of mystery. The stress that maintaining a city the size of Cahokia would have placed on the environment would have been considerable. It is likely that 800 years would have caused the destruction of the surrounding forest and that hunting for food would have depleted the available wildlife. The result would have been that the city no longer had access to the necessary resources needed to keep the city alive. As a result, the civilization of Cahokia most likely just moved on and merged in with other native civilizations.

Often what keeps a civilization alive during the rough times is the distinctive culture that the civilization carries with it – even in the tough times. For modern day Israel, a dedication to the fundamentals of Judaism, a religion specific to the civilization, has kept the civilization alive even though the nation has spent most of the last two millennia in exile.

Hosea’s words are once again directed at the Northern Kingdom of Israel. He points at the practices of the nation. They had left the rituals of Judaism behind. So Hosea asks the people of the Northern Kingdom the question – when you enter into the hard times, when you go into exile, what will you do? How will you celebrate the Holy Days, or the Special Feasts of God that you are ignoring now? And as a result of your ignorance, what is it that will happen to you?

History records that Hosea’s concerns were not without cause. The Assyrians would attack the Northern Kingdom of Israel and carry off the people of the civilization into exile. The same thing would happen just over a century later to the Southern Kingdom of Judah. But Judah even in exile remembered the Holy Days and Festivals dedicated to their God. But the Northern Kingdom had no such religious history to fall back on and to remember. The result from history is that the ones that remembered survived, while the ones that forgot exited the pages of history – never to return.  

Tomorrow’s Scripture Reading: Hosea 10