Tuesday, October 21, 2008

Masks

My disgrace is before me all day long, and my face is covered with shame (Psalm 44:15).

Dressing up in a costume is a Halloween tradition, for adults as well as children. Many people get a thrill from disguising themselves and playing a role; why is that? I think that people like hiding their identity behind a mask because it allows them to do things they ordinarily wouldn’t do. A shy man in a pirate costume can flaunt his masculinity, while a woman in a witch’s outfit can shed her inhibitions and act seductively.

It is a natural thing for us to wear masks—it’s just that most of the time, other people don’t realize that we’ve disguised ourselves. We don’t express what we truly feel for fear of ridicule or rejection, so we put on a happy face to hide what’s really going on inside of us. We’ve learned to behave this way because each of us has an ugly face that has frightened others and gotten us into trouble. That ugly face is our real face, the face pitted and scarred by sin. Our real face is often repulsive. Its eyes turn green with jealousy. Its ears are pointed so that they can hear everything that would better be kept a secret. Its nose is out of joint over long-held grudges. Its mouth is a rotting maw of blackness, just waiting to say something hurtful or untrue. Years of unpleasant experiences have demonstrated that our true face scares others away, so we have carefully crafted for ourselves a beautiful false face, a mask that we wear for other people so that they will like the person that they think we are. Yet we live in constant fear that the mask will slip, a friend or lover will get a glimpse of our true self, and we’ll never see them again.

Our Lord Jesus is not fooled by the masks we wear. He can look right into our hearts and see our true selves. This is a good thing. Unless the deformity we try to hide is exposed, it cannot be corrected. Jesus is our Great Physician; He takes away our masks so that He can perform reconstructive surgery on us. He makes us face the ugly truth about ourselves and offers to forgive us. When we admit our need for His help, He gives us a transfusion of His own holy blood poured out for us on the cross, and by it He removes the taint of sin that has disfigured us. Purified by Jesus’ work, the sickly pallor of our appearance is replaced by the healthy glow of renewed life. With Jesus as our physician, we can face others honestly, without resorting to a mask; with Jesus we can stop pretending and just be who we really are—forgiven children of our Father in heaven.

Blog Top Sites
Blog Directory & Search engine
Blog Directory