Un-Masked

"Jesus asked His disciples, 'Who do people say that the Son of Man is?'  They replied, ' Some say John the Baptist, others Elijah, still others Jeremiah or one of the prophets.' He said to them, ' But who do you say that I am?'  Simon Peter said in reply, 'You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.' Jesus said to him in reply, 'Blessed are you, Simon, son of Jonah. For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my heavenly Father. And I say to you, you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of the netherworld shall not prevail against it. I will give you the keys to the kingdom of heaven.' -- [Matthew 16: 13-20].

Make no mistake, when Jesus asks His disciples who He is,  Jesus Himself knows exactly who He is! But Jesus is testing His disciples, to see if they have a clear idea of who their Master is?

When Peter declares, 'You are the Christ', then Jesus names Peter as well, saying, 'You are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church.'

Unquestionably, when we come to know the Christ, then He knows US as well, from the inside, from the heart! He knows our place in this world. He knows our place in the Kingdom.

But how many of us truly know who we are, behind all those layers of masks and defenses? And how many of us truly know Jesus?

Rock lyricist and singer Jack White has a new CD out these days. One song, "Alone in My Home", speaks to the  considerable blockades that we erect to keep ourselves untouchable. His refrain is, "I'm becoming a ghost; Becoming a ghost so nobody can know me."

This was my own way of operating, in my cruel and harsh childhood home. As I was not fed, I hoarded candy in my room, just in case, and I pretended not to care that I was hungry. Gradually, I stopped eating much at all.

My mother told me that the reason why I was verbally abused and physically struck was because I got angry, and cried. So I stopped feeling anything.

Over the years, I shut down completely. My strategy was, ' No one touches me and I touch no one.'

Tragically, something in our soul dies when we become a ghost. . . .

All this time, I suppose that God has tried to reach me-- many times. But I don't think that I was aware of His signs, because I was too preoccupied, keeping myself carefully hidden away.

Well into adulthood, my world came crashing down around me, from all the unexamined traumas and wounds. I ran in a panic to the pastor of our church. I told him that God was gone! I was so shut-down, I could not even feel God any longer.

The pastor told me to start talking to God, daily. To my astonishment, God replied immediately!

There was a price to this conversation with God. Every time I entered the quiet place where I spoke to God and I sat down, the tears began to flow. All of the pain and the fears, that I had held in for my whole life, came spilling out.

I was becoming Un-Masked.

I ran back to the pastor to tell him how afraid I was. He said, 'Sooner or later, you are going to have to come out into the open.' That statement left me totally terrified.

To this day, every time I enter my church, every time I receive the Eucharist , I am Un-Masked and I get tears in my eyes. I thought this meant that there was something wrong with me. I thought these tears meant that I was mortally wounded, so deformed that I could never heal.

Instead, I think this is how it is supposed to be. The tears are the visible sign of my layers of armor falling away. With God, I no longer have to pretend to be inhumanly strong. God can hold me up.

And so I ask you-- WHO are you, behind your shielding masks?

We can put up all the defenses that we want. We can define ourselves by our profession. By our ethnicity. By our country of citizenship. By whether we are parents, or widowed or single, or married. By our age. By our socio-economic status. By our bank account or the kind of home we live in. By our gender. By our education level. By what kind of car that we drive.

Do you see that these are all wholly secular things!? They matter immensely to the world.

But, I am starting to see that in the end, all of these things do NOT matter. Jesus does not want our cholesterol level, our skin color, our credit score, our designer shoes, our highlighted hair, our professional titles, our roster of Facebook friends, our ritzy address, or anything else that passes for worldly status.

Jesus wants us to recognize HIM.

And He wants to recognize US.  He wants our Heart. Our Soul. He wants us stripped bare, Un-Masked. The way we will appear when we end our lives, stripped of clothes, possessions, an address, a job, etc.

Except--- Jesus does not want to wait until we approach the Kingdom of Heaven. He does not have that kind of time. WE do not have that kind of time.

He wants us NOW.


(c) Spiritual Devotional 2014. All Rights Reserved.

[Related Postings, "Who Are You?', August 22, 2011].