Do you wear a mask?

This past Sunday I preached on the Baptism of Jesus Christ (Luke 3:15-17, 21-22). In Jesus' baptism the people were finally able to see that Jesus was indeed the Son of God. Although they may have had doubts before, they saw a dove descend upon Jesus and may have heard God's voice claiming Jesus as his beloved Son.

So this phenomenon got me thinking about what kind of illustration I could use to bring it home and I decided upon a mask. One of my best friends, Megan, pointed me to this powerful poem:

Please Hear What I'm Not Saying


Don't be fooled by me.

Don't be fooled by the face I wear

For I wear a mask, a thousand masks,

Masks that I'm afraid to take off

And none of them is me.
Pretending is an art that's second nature with me,

but don't be fooled,

for God's sake don't be fooled.

I give you the impression that I'm secure,

that all is sunny and unruffled with me,

within as well as without,

that confidence is my name and coolness my game,

that the water's calm and I'm in command

and that I need no one,

but don't believe me.

My surface may be smooth but

my surface is my mask,

ever-varying and ever-concealing.

Beneath lies no complacence.

Beneath lies confusion, and fear, and aloneness.

But I hide this. I don't want anybody to know it.

I panic at the thought of my weakness exposed.

That's why I frantically create a mask to hide behind,

a nonchalant sophisticated facade,

to help me pretend,

to shield me from the glance that knows.

But such a glance is precisely my salvation,

my only hope, and I know it.

That is, if it is followed by acceptance,

If it is followed by love.

It's the only thing that can liberate me from myself

from my own self-built prison walls

from the barriers that I so painstakingly erect.

It's the only thing that will assure me

of what I can't assure myself,

that I'm really worth something.

But I don't tell you this. I don't dare to. I'm afraid to.

I'm afraid you'll think less of me,

that you'll laugh, and your laugh would kill me.

I'm afraid that deep-down I'm nothing

and that you will see this and reject me.

So I play my game, my desperate, pretending game

With a façade of assurance without

And a trembling child within.

So begins the glittering but empty parade of Masks,

And my life becomes a front.

I tell you everything that's really nothing,

and nothing of what's everything,

of what's crying within me.

So when I'm going through my routine

do not be fooled by what I'm saying.

Please listen carefully and try to hear what I'm not saying,

what I'd like to be able to say,

what for survival I need to say,

but what I can't say.

I don't like hiding.

I don't like playing superficial phony games.

I want to stop playing them.

I want to be genuine and spontaneous and me

but you've got to help me.

You've got to hold out your hand

even when that's the last thing I seem to want.

Only you can wipe away from my eyes

the blank stare of the breathing dead.

Only you can call me into aliveness.

Each time you're kind, and gentle, and encouraging,

each time you try to understand because you really care,

my heart begins to grow wings --

very small wings,

but wings!

With your power to touch me into feeling

you can breathe life into me.

I want you to know that.

I want you to know how important you are to me,

how you can be a creator--an honest-to-God creator --

of the person that is me

if you choose to.

You alone can break down the wall behind which I tremble,

you alone can remove my mask,

you alone can release me from the shadow-world of panic,

from my lonely prison,

if you choose to.

Please choose to.

Do not pass me by.

It will not be easy for you.

A long conviction of worthlessness builds strong walls.

The nearer you approach me

the blinder I may strike back.

It's irrational, but despite what the books may say about man

often I am irrational.

I fight against the very thing I cry out for.

But I am told that love is stronger than strong walls

and in this lies my hope.

Please try to beat down those walls

with firm hands but with gentle hands

for a child is very sensitive.

Who am I, you may wonder?

I am someone you know very well.

For I am every man you meet

and I am every woman you meet.

By Charles C. Finn


This poem summarizes the life of every person. We all want to be known and we all want to be loved. But we don't let people get to know us. We hide our true selves from the world and lie awake late at night wondering why no one tries to break through our hardened walls.

We all wear masks. We are so afraid of letting people in because we don't want to be hurt. We think if people really knew who we were then they would not love us.

Jesus did not wear a mask. He was human and divine and he was not afraid to be both these things in many situations. Jesus didn't care what other people would think. So he hung out with prostitutes, and tax collectors, and Gentiles. He got dirty and cried in public and made time for people that no one wanted to hang out with.

Jesus makes it possible for us to take off our masks and experience God's love through faith and the power of the Holy Spirit. When Jesus was baptized we recognized His true identity, and so when we are baptized we place our identity in Jesus Christ and the things above. Not on the things of this world.

We must not only take off our masks before God, but before other people. We must learn to confess our sins to our trusted brothers and sisters in Christ. A funny thing happens when we tell other people we are not perfect...they begin to tell us that they are not either and then together we figure out how to do life together in mutual respect and Christian accountability. Amazing things happen when you really ask someone how they are...they might actually tell you.

My hope for my church is that we can all take off our masks from time to time, accept the love of God and others, and let God and one another in.

Rev. J