Auspicious Mark

 

Set me as a seal upon your heart, as a seal upon your arm, for love is strong as death, jealousy is fierce as the grave. Its flashes are flashes of fire, the very flame of the Lord.   --Song of Solomon 8:6.

I have never been to an Indian wedding, but I have heard that Hindu brides make elaborate markings on their bodies in preparation for the wedding.  Getting a henna tattoo, or mendhi adorned on her palms and feet means much more than basic tradition: it is marked as the symbol of solah shringar, which means, "the auspicious mark."

If you have ever been to a traditional wedding setting in India or seen one, you would notice how henna plays a significant role in their marital bliss. The night before the wedding, a Mehndi ceremony takes place. All the guests from both families gather in the home of where the bride and the groom will live, in all dressed in an attire called the “binalli” while the bride puts on a red veil. According to their belief, the darker the henna the more love develops in their marriage. Either a Mehndi artist or a relative applies intricate designs on the bride’s palms and feet while the names of the groom are somewhere hidden in the mehndi designs. (Guardian Nigeria, 27 September, 2020)

No one knows for sure when this Hindu tradition started, but it may have its roots in ancient Middle Eastern religions.  In fact, the prophet Isaiah alludes to it in our text today:

Sing for joy, O heavens, and exult, O earth; break forth, O mountains, into singing!  FOr the Lord has comforted His people and will have compassion on His afflicted.  But Zion said, "The Lord has forsaken me; my Lord has forgotten me." 

Can a woman forget her nursing child, that she should have no compassion on the son of her womb?  Even these may forget, yet I will not forget you.  Behold I have engraved you on the palms of my hands; your walls are continually before me.  --Isaiah 49:13-16

The majority of commentaries I consulted said that this idea of "engraving" on the hand refers to tattooing.  This indelible marking means that every time He raises His hand to do anything, the image and name of His people are visible to Him.  Perhaps this gives new meaning to John 10:28-30:  "I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand.  My Father, who has given them to Me, is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father's hand.  I and the Father are one."

His grasp on us, His people, is not tenuous.  His hold on us is not like an earthly father lifting a child with his hands, with some danger (although ever so slight) of dropping them.  Isaiah tells us that His grip on us is even stronger than a human mother cradling her child to her breast.  There is yet danger of that mother dropping her child, or even forgetting the child, putting her out of mind.  Yet God will not forget us.

Another commentary, MacLaren's Expositions, says this:

When Israel came out of Egypt, the Passover was instituted as ‘a memorial unto all generations,’ or, as the same idea is otherwise expressed, ‘it shall be for a sign unto thee upon thine hand.’ Here God represents Himself as doing for Israel what He had bid Israel do for Him. They were, as it were, to write the supreme act of deliverance in the Exodus upon their hands, that it might never be forgotten. He writes Zion on His hands for the same purpose.

If you are a Christian, it should be obvious to all that you are set apart, that you are different.  Your name is written in the Lamb's book of life, and His Name is written on your heart.  Revelation 2:17 says, "He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.  To the one who conquers I will give some of the hidden manna, and I will give him a white stone, with a new name written on the stone that no one knows except the one who receives it."  This is a reference to Moses, to whom God gave the manna, and to the stones which Moses carried on which the Law of God was written.  Just as God wrote on the stone tablets with His own hand, He promises to write your new name on a stone that only you and He know.  The relationship He seeks is that intimate, and that lasting, for no one can break the stone, or erase the name written on it by God's own hand, just as no one can scrub the name He has tattooed on the palm of His hand.  Your name.  My name. 

Auspicious mark, indeed.