Mask
This Saturday night is the second highest holy night of the year for every child in America, Halloween! (Christmas Eve is still 1st!) I think my first experience with God came the first time I went “trick or treating”. I dressed up like my favorite action hero, I walked up to my neighbor’s house, I held open one of my mother’s old pillow cases, I shouted “trick or treat” and these dear Christian people give me candy! And for the first time in my life, I thought to myself, “There must be a loving God somewhere!” These days, I don’t go “trick or treating” anymore, I just hand out the candy on Halloween. But I still like costume parties. Have you ever been to a costume party? When I was in seminary we would have costume parties at Halloween. Some of my classmates would come up with some pretty creative costumes. One of my class mates came to our party in a black catholic priest clergy shirt with the white collar….and a ballerina’s tutu with pink tights. I took one look at him, and said, “I said, “So how’s the therapy going?”…He said, ‘I’m not in therapy.” I said, “It’s never too late to start.” Then I asked him, “Who are you supposed to be?” he said, “Don’t you recognize me? I’m Rev. Desmond Tutu!” (It was actually a pretty good costume for a part y at a seminary…LOL!). On another occasion, years ago, right here in Hamilton, we had a vampire in our church. That’s right a Vampire! It was a girl Vampire. One Sunday a very nice looking, nicely dressed young woman came into our church and sat in the back row. I had never seen her before. She was a first time visitor. At the conclusion of the service I walked to the back of the church to greet everyone. I greeted her and said, “good morning, my name is John – most people here call me Pastor John” She smiled politely and said, “Hi, my name is Rachel and I’m a vampire” I quickly took my hand back. She smiled again and said, “Actually, I am one of the actresses in the movie they are filming here in Hamilton about vampires called “Immortally Yours.” As I reflected on these two instances, I realized that sometimes in life we pretend to be something or someone we really aren’t. In fact we are pretty good at wearing masks so that no one can see the real person we are. We are afraid to let our true selves be seen. We are afraid of what others might really think of us if they really knew who we are. The good news is that God loves us just the way we are. There is nothing we can hide or cover from Him. And that’s okay, because we are safe with God. We can be ourselves “warts and all”, and God still loves us. With God we don’t have to try to be someone we aren’t. So take off the pink tights, put those fangs away, and say, “Lord, here I am and I’m just going to be myself with you from now on.”
Scripture: Matthew 11:28 “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.”
Prayer: Lord, thank you that you love me just the way I am. Amen.
Pastor John
(513)-867-5411
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