Masked.

I’ve learned by looking at lots of masks that they all seem to be hiding something. It’s as if you put on something new. Whether or not this is particularly “good” or “bad” is up to the mask-bearer. Particularly I see similarities between Napoleon’s Death Mask and mine. Napoleon’s mask really shows someone who is dead, and you can see it in the facial expressions, the eye, and even the tilt of the head.

In accordance with Pre-Modern times, my mask is representative of a Festival of Renewal. As I leave my mask behind, the old has gone and the new has come: renewal. According to Post-Modern Times there’s relevance in the fact that the mask holds no weight. There is nothing behind it. It is lying there and has been left, abandoned, removed. There is no longer a wearer.

 Who am I really and who I am ideally? Ideally, I am becoming more like Jesus each and every day. That means that I am becoming more whole in the unique and individual person God created me to be. I don’t think real and ideal apply in the same way that they did with my portraits to my mask. I think real and ideal in my mind- when thinking of my mask- have to do with justification and sanctification. Justification comes when that mask is removed. When I leave it behind, I die to myself, and take up my cross. That is real, and happens once when I “Proclaim with my mouth “Jesus is Lord”, and believe in my heart God raised him from the dead you will be saved. Romans 10:9. “ I have been saved, that is real. This mask being left behind is real. But it is the belief part of this that is ideal. Because I am so broken and sinful, I choose to be my own God- to believe that I my ways will get the best results. This is ideal, that each day I don’t look for other masks to pick up and cover up the person God created me to be, I can easily dilute this.

I think culture tells us each day to go in the closet and decide which mask we will wear that day. My mask is absolutely counter to that. But isn’t that what the bible is? I think that Brueggemann’s theses are absolutely correct when it comes to this script we were handed at birth and is constantly being added to as we walk throughout society. The bible tells us we will be counter-cultural. We will have different scripts, and many, sometimes even ourselves included, will not understand them at all. But that is why it’s not about bringing glory to ourselves.