Halloween is over and little children have generally stopped dressing up like supeheroes, princesses and ghosts. But despite the untimeliness we still need to put on masks. Not masks worn to frighten, but masks to cover our sins. At our core we are sinful people. We were conceived in iniquity into a world filled with iniquity and we need to put on a mask.
Recently I was watching Conan O'brien's self-titled show "Conan" the day after it aired (I don't stay up that late anymore) and in a segment of the show Conan pulled out masks for himself and his sidekick Andy Richter. The masks were suppose to resemble Conan himself, but because the company that produced the masks did not have the right to produce masks named after Conan they were instead called "The Ex-talk Show Host" masks. Conan feigned anger that they could be so cruel to name the masks that way given his recent and public exit from being the host of the Tonight Show. But the truth is that is exactly what he had been up until that night: an ex-talk show host.
Too often we have a hard time coming to grips with who we really are. But the fact is that apart from Christ we are blind and naked. We bring nothing into this world and if we were left to our own devices we would bring nothing out of it. That is why we need to put on a mask; not a mask of Conan, but of Christ.
Christ's righteousness should wrap our sinful sores like mummified corpses. If we daily choose to put on Christ so that others can see Him when they look at us, then I believe that by faith we will be changed into His likeness and someday when we take the mask off there really won't be anything to take off because we will be like him.
"When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child; but when I became a man, I put away childish things. For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part, but then I shall know just as I also am known." 1 Corinthians 13:11,12
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