That Promise

 

DEVOTION

THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO MARK

THAT PROMISE

Mark 6:21-29

21 Finally the opportune time came. On his birthday Herod gave a banquet for his high officials and military commanders and the leading men of Galilee. 22 When the daughter of Herodias came in and danced, she pleased Herod and his dinner guests. The king said to the girl, "Ask me for anything you want, and I'll give it to you." 23 And he promised her with an oath, "Whatever you ask I will give you, up to half my kingdom." 24 She went out and said to her mother, "What shall I ask for?" "The head of John the Baptist," she answered. 25 At once the girl hurried in to the king with the request: "I want you to give me right now the head of John the Baptist on a platter." 26 The king was greatly distressed, but because of his oaths and his dinner guests, he did not want to refuse her. 27 So he immediately sent an executioner with orders to bring John's head. The man went, beheaded John in the prison, 28 and brought back his head on a platter. He presented it to the girl, and she gave it to her mother. 29 On hearing of this, John's disciples came and took his body and laid it in a tomb.

NIV

There is no need to regurgitate this story, for it is well explained and we get the point. Because of his pleasure with a young woman’s dance, which we could only imagine was extremely seductive in nature, he made a promise, an oath, however, he was not prepared for her response. Here is the problem, the lesson we should learn from this narrative. Never make a promise that we cannot or are not willing to fulfill. In fact, it is far better to never make a promise, especially to God. Although Moses was given the Law and it included the making of oaths, and that a man was bound by his word. Jesus recalled that law when he instructed the people not to take an oath, not to swear by anything, and he listed many things which they would have used to swear by, even their own head. But Jesus said that we cannot even make one hair on our head white of black, so how can we swear by our head. No, Jesus told us to just let our yes mean yes, and our no mean no. What this also teaches us is to never ask anyone to promise us anything, for we are just setting them up to be disobedient to the Lord, when he said that we should not make an oath or promise. The only one who does promise and is always faithful to His promise is the Lord. As far as us mere mortals, we cannot be faithful to our promises, as hard as we want to, we will certainly fail. Maybe not always. But sooner or later we will fail to uphold some promise. Even when it comes to our vows to each other on our wedding days, we have seen believers end up in divorce, thus not keeping those vows, although some of us have sustained our marriage until death do us part, there are promises made throughout those years that we have failed to fulfill. So let us simply keep our yes as yes, and our no as no, and we will be far better off as far as following the words of our Lord, instead of that promise.