I was 12 years old when The Omen came out in theaters. I was too young to watch it in theaters, but I had heard rumblings about the antichrist before.
The older kids who really knew things let me in on the secret of how to find the mark — the triple 6.
“It’s hard to find. You would never be able to tell”, the older girl next door told me. She squinted her eyes and revealed, “The mark was on his scalp, underneath his hair!” I’m sure my jaw hit the floor. The idea that evil could be disguised neatly under a funny cowlick or a low ponytail; it seemed so insidious!
But marks through history from the Bible are very visible. There is nothing hidden in Aaron’s proclamation of who he belongs to:
“Make a plate of pure gold and engrave on it as on a seal: HOLY TO THE LORD. Fasten a blue cord to it to attach it to the turban; it is to be on the front of the turban. It will be on Aaron’s forehead, and he will bear the guilt involved in the sacred gifts the Israelites consecrate, whatever their gifts may be. It will be on Aaron’s forehead continually so that they will be acceptable to the LORD. Exodus 28:36-38 NIV
This spiritual alignment is front and center in the Shema (“Hear [O Israel]”, inspiring Orthodox Jews to wear the small boxes called tefillin on their head and arm:
Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one. Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates. Deuteronomy 6:4-9 NIV
And in Ezekiel, a tav*, which in ancient Hebrew resembled an “x” or a cross, marked those with a heartfelt alignment with God about what Israel had become:
…. Then the LORD called to the man clothed in linen who had the writing kit at his side and said to him, “Go throughout the city of Jerusalem and put a mark on the foreheads of those who grieve and lament over all the detestable things that are done in it.” Ezekiel 9:1-4 NIV
*Tav is the last letter of the Hebrew Alphabet. Meaning mark, sign, omen, or seal, it is the symbol of truth, perfection, and completion.
It represents the restoration Tikkun תיקון of all of existence. It is a return to the essence and purpose of one’s life.
It should not surprise us then that a worldly counterfeit of that alignment would also bear a mark. To 1st Century Christians that frightening mark identified an oppressive system that required loyalty to the emperor as both a king and a god. It locked people into its economy, into its incentives.
It also forced all people, great and small, rich and poor, free and slave, to receive a mark on their right hands or on their foreheads, so that they could not buy or sell unless they had the mark, which is the name of the beast or the number of its name. Revelation 13:16-17 NIV
To us in a more modern context, the mark requires us to demonstrate our own allegiance clearly, for all to see. Who do we belong to? What are our incentives? We want to be marked as Christ’s own forever — but, do the trappings of the daily world require us to bow our heads to principles that resemble complicity more than faithfulness?
Here is a song to meditate on, reminding us of who we do belong to: Set Apart // Worship Central
by Carie Grant
