Daily Devotion for Lent 2015, Day 14

Daily Devotion for Lent

Thursday, March 5, 2015, Day 14

Mark 6:1-29 (NRSV)

Herod has come to the point where he is seeing ghosts.

When they ask him who Jesus might be, he thinks that it is John the Baptizer, raised from the dead.  He thinks it is John, coming back to haunt him.

When our sin occupies so much of our thoughts, we really do become slaves to it.

Herod's response about John reminds me of Shakespeare's "Macbeth" where Lady Macbeth is sleepwalking.  She continually rubs at her hands and then blurts out the famous line, "Out damned spot, out I say!"  She also states that "Hell is murky!" as if she is already there.

Close up of a statue of Lady Macbeth wringing her hands.

Her guilt is from the conspired murder as a result of her ambition.  However, it came with a price.

Herod was evidently tricked into his murder but is this any less lawful?

This falls under the advice, "Don't make any promises you can't keep."

While it is easy to dog pile on Herod, what are compromises that we have made for ease of schedule or personal advantage?

Are there things that we do that we slip into without really considering them?

Prayer from St. Augustine of Hippo:

O God our Father, hear me, 
who am trembling in this darkness, 
and stretch forth thy hand unto me; 
hold forth thy light before me; 
recall me from my wanderings; 
and, thou being my guide, 
may I be restored to myself and to thee.  
Amen.


Prayer from Saint Augustine of Hippo, Africa, 5th Century

Photo from By Immanuel Giel (Own work) [CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons