NOTES for Mar 6:14-29
When King Herod heard about Jesus, he immediately remembered John the Baptist. It seems to him that the great prophet has "risen from the dead" and is again walking through Judea, preaching repentance. What Herod learned about Jesus' identity somehow touched his hardened heart. Evidently there was something in the Lord's words that was addressed personally to him, something that forced him to look again at the crime he had once committed.
The evangelist Mark notes especially that while John the Baptist was alive, Herod "did many things, listening to him, and heard him gladly." Therefore the execution of John became for the king a departure from the ideals he had formerly held; it was a kind of apostasy.
When we open the Gospel, we often encounter words of the Lord that are addressed precisely to us. Behind two lines an entire life situation rises before us, sometimes a very painful one for us. And just as Herod did, we have a choice between correcting it, rethinking our life in God, or going farther down the path of apostasy.