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BY PASTOR GLENN PEASE
There is an old story called the magic mask.
It is about a powerful lord who ruled over a great domain who became so hard and cruel that ugly lines deepened into his face.
On a tour of his country one day he saw a surprisingly beautiful girl, and he longed to take her as his wife.
But he was appalled as he looked into the mirror and saw the hard and cruel lines in his face.
He could never win her love with such a face, and so he called for a magician to make him a mask of thin wax that would make him look kind and loving.
The artist agreed to do it if he promised to pray daily to the God of love to change his heart and make him loving toward his subjects.
He said he would and the mask was made.
The lovely girl became his wife, and they enjoyed a remarkable period of peace and prosperity.
He became a truly loving ruler, and the people marveled at the change in him.
He finally became so bothered by his deception of the wife he loved so dearly that he begged the magician to remove the magic mask.
It was with fear and trembling that he then went to the mirror.
But to his delight he did not need the mask any longer because the ugly lines on his face were gone.
His changed heart and spirit had changed his face, and he had a loving face even without the mask.
We all have to wear a mask at times to hide the ugliness of our negative spirit.
If we let people see all that we are all of the time, it would not be a pretty sight, and so we mask ourselves and put on a good front that is pleasant and acceptable.
In contrast to many Halloween masks that are put on to scare people with their grotesque faces, we put on a mask to protect people from the real scariness in us.
Only God can see us totally naked in our soul and still love us.
We need to mask some of who we are to be acceptable on the human level.
So wearing a mask of some sort is very common.
The proof of this is that Jesus Himself, the sinless Son of God, wore a mask.
Jesus hid His identity as long as He could, and did so in a very conspicuous manner.
The first thing we need to do to get to the bottom of this mystery of the Master's mask is to establish that there is, in fact, a mystery.
Let's begin by looking at-
1. THE REALITY OF THE MASK.
The first hint we have of this mask is the encounter Jesus has with the demonized man in the synagogue.
When the evil spirit in this man cried out at Jesus, "I know who you are-the Holy One of God," Jesus did not say, "Speak up, this is just the kind of publicity I need right now."
Instead, He said, "Be quiet!"
Other translations have it, "Shut up!"
He stopped this positive testimony to His identity, and cast the evil spirit out.
Now if this was just an isolated incident we could ignore it and not try to read anything into it of significance.
But this was just the beginning of a pattern Jesus followed.
Notice verse 34: "And Jesus healed many of various diseases.
He also drove out many demons, but He would not let the demons speak because they knew who He was."
I can see if He would not let them speak because they didn't know what they were talking about, but it says He would not let them because they did know what they were talking about.
The demons could identify Jesus, and so He stopped them, for He was not ready to take off His mask and be known for who He was.
Even two such mysterious incidents could be over looked as a possible idiosyncrasy of Mark, but when we see Jesus going out of His way many times to protect His identity, then we have to face up to the reality of His mask.
Look at verses 43-45.
Jesus had just cured a man of leprosy.
It was a marvelous miracle, and one that could bring a lot of publicity.
But note the response of Jesus.
"Jesus sent him away at once with a strong warning."
Note, it was not a polite suggestion, it was a strong warning.
And the warning was, "See that you don't tell this to anyone."
You would think that whatever His reason for trying to keep His identity a secret, that those whom He healed would be grateful enough to cooperate with Him.
But one of the paradoxes of the Gospel account is these very people that Jesus warned and begged to keep His secret were the biggest blabber mouths in His life.
This man went out and spread the word and the result was Jesus could no longer enter a town openly.
He had to stay out in lonely places it says.
His life was negatively affected by this very man who received new life from Him. Jesus did him life's biggest favor, and in return he made life miserable for Jesus.
But the mystery is, why did Jesus want to keep His identity a secret so bad that He worked at it overtime?
We will try to solve this mystery after we demonstrate beyond a shadow of a doubt the reality of the mystery of the Master's mask.
We have only looked at the first chapter.
What if we can show that Jesus kept up this battle to hide His identity over and over again?
Let's look at chapter 3:11-12.
"When ever the evil spirits saw Him they fell down before Him and cried out, you are the Son of God.
But He gave them strict orders not to tell who He was."
Jesus was perpetually trying to keep evil spirits from telling who He was.
Evil spirits were especially a threat because they knew His identity perfectly.
The mask did not fool them at all.
His whole incarnate body did not hide from them the reality that He was the eternal Son of God.
He had to use His authority as Lord over the spirits to keep their mouths shut and maintain His secret.
People were guessing all sorts of things about Jesus.
Some said He was John the Baptist, Jeremiah, or one of the prophets.
In spite of all the blabber mouth spirits Jesus was succeeding to fool everybody with His mask.
Jesus has just raised a little girl from the dead, and all who saw it were astonished and we read in 5:43, "Jesus gave them strict orders not to let anyone know about this.."
In this case Jesus was able to suppress His wonder working power.
It is one of the few occasions where He succeeded to get the cooperation of others.
But look at 7:36, where after He healed a deaf man, it says, "Jesus commanded them not to tell anyone.
But the more He did so, the more they kept talking about it."
Jesus had a terrible time trying to keep His mask on.
But in spite of almost consistent disobedience to His wishes, He was able to keep people guessing.
They did not really know who Jesus was.
Elijah or one of the prophets were popular guesses, but then one day Jesus asked Peter who do you think I am?
Peter gave his great confession in Mark 8:29: "You are the Christ."
Peter was the first to acknowledge that Jesus was the Messiah.
He saw beneath the mask of this wonder worker, and knew this was the Messiah.
You would think Jesus would then end His masquerade, but not so.
In the very next verse Mark 8:30 we read, "Jesus warned them not to tell anyone about Him."
This was no game with Jesus.
He has been very seriously avoiding exposure of His true identity through His whole ministry.
One of the greatest mysteries of the life of our Lord is that He was the primary hindrance to people knowing He was the long awaited Messiah.
Don't blame the devil for this or his demons.
Don't blame the Pharisees or the fickle masses.
The facts are clear: Jesus wore a mask and prevented the knowledge that He was the Messiah from spreading.
What few people did come to that conclusion, He warned to keep quiet.
All the demons that would have proclaimed it, He silenced.
The number one cause why Jesus was never received by Israel as their Messiah was Jesus Himself.
His disciples were instructed to keep it quiet.
Now if this is not a mystery to beat all mysteries, I don't know what a mystery is.
There can be no question about the reality of the Master's mask.
But now we need to seek an answer to this mystery, and look at-
II.
THE REASON FOR THE MASK.
It is real all right, but why in the world would the Messiah Himself be the primary suppresser of the good news that the Messiah had arrived?
He was the answer to millions of prayers, and now that all these prayers were finally answered, Jesus would not let the people know by taking off His mask and proclaiming, "Look!
It's me, the Messiah!"
He never did that, and it was all clearly a part of a pre-conceived plan.
It was His intention that only a few would ever see behind His mask and know without a doubt that He was the Messiah.
He only took Peter, James, and John up to the Mt. of Transfiguration where they saw Jesus glow with the light of deity, and talk with Moses and Elijah, and hear the voice of God saying, "This is my Son whom I love.
Listen to Him." None but these three had such clear evidence of who Jesus was, but they were not allowed to share this unique experience with anyone.
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