Kethuvim

Seeing as how Halloween is upon us, I've been thinking some about masks. A mask, by definition, is something that we wear so that our real identity can be hidden. The masks I'm talking about should not be confused with "The Mask," a nightmarishly awful Jim Carrey movie from the 90s. But I digress. A mask is used to reveal identity, this is why thieves often wear them to hide their true selves from the cameras and/or employess that are robbing.

Well, I've been thinking about masks a great deal this week because of church. This past Sunday, I preached a sermon on breathing and talked about all of the crap that we carry around with us. We were not created to carry around all of this junk that we carry with us. God desires us to breathe that stuff out to him, so that we can breathe him in. At the end ofthe sermon, I asked people to come forward to be prayed with if they needed it. My thinking being that if they would come forward, someone could bear their burden with them (I think that's in the Bible somewhere), therefore making it easier to breathe out. Guess what happened? No one came forward. This problem is that I know for a fact that we have some people in our church dealing with some heavy stuff. Stuff that they can't handle alone. Stuff that they need to breathe out. So after the service, someone came to me and asked me to pray for something. My wife then told me on the way home that someone told her that they wanted to go forward but were embarrassed.

Who are we trying to fool? Everyone in churches are so self-sufficient and closed off, that nothing ever gets revealed in the open. We're so afraid that someone may see us for who we are; a messy person. I would be willing to bet that 90% of the people sitting in the church had something they needed prayer for. Maybe it was a secret sin, maybe it was depression, an addiction, whatever. It's no wonder American Christians are so screwed up. We're all a mess, but we put on a facade of perfection. If we can't be open at church with our brothers and sisters, then we're in serious trouble. We have to regain this ability to be open with each other.

Jesus had a term for people who wear masks...hypocrite. The word "hypocrite" is derived from a Greek theater term that spoke of "painted faces" or "actors." Jesus couldn't stand actors. He couldn't stand people that were polished on the outside, and dead on the inside. He realized that life was found in the heart and wearing masks and pretending that everything was ok, didn't lead to life.

It's time to put away the masks and be real. Our lives depend on it.