The Message Behind the Mask

We who present "The Mask - A play of one act after another" are not professional actors. We are a community of ordinary people — shopkeepers, schoolteachers, waitresses, carpenters, cooks, office workers, etc. The reason that we travel at our own expense to bring this show to you is that we are convinced of the reality of its message. It is a story of hope — that there could actually be a place on earth where human beings don’t need to wear a mask, but can just be themselves.

Once we lived deeply unsatisfied lives. For us, just being ourselves was not a happy thought. For one thing, we were sure to face rejection from others if we tried. It had already happened often enough. And so we all, to a greater or lesser degree, had developed an image we could hide behind. Besides, if we understood it right, the way we really were wasn’t all that pleasant, anyway. So who would want to know us? Most of us didn’t even know ourselves. It was all pretty confusing and frustrating.

But that’s life for a lot of people in the old social order. It’s considered normal not to be satisfied with your identity. Discontent is the driving force behind the ever-changing hairstyles and clothing styles of this world. Musicians, politicians, youth, seniors — practically everyone changes some aspect of his “personality,” either to stand out or to fit in. Apart from this restless drive to have an “image,” there would be no fads, no psychiatric hospitals, and certainly no tobacco industry. It is a profound spiritual reality.
This pervading dissatisfaction is as old as the world itself. The spiritual ruler of this world was once an angelic being of a very high order. But when he turned his attention to his own glory, he grew discontent with his position and fantasized that he would one day seize control of the universe from the Creator. His transformation is recorded in the ancient Hebrew prophets:

You were anointed as a guardian cherub, for so I ordained you. You were on the holy mount of God; you walked among the fiery stones. You were blameless in your ways from the day you were created till wickedness was found in you. Your heart became proud on account of your beauty, and you corrupted your wisdom because of your splendor. So I threw you to the earth; I made a spectacle of you before kings. (Ezekiel 28:14,15,17)

How you have fallen from heaven, O morning star, son of the dawn! You have been cast down to the earth, you who once laid low the nations! You said in your heart, “I will ascend to heaven; I will raise my throne above the stars of God; I will sit enthroned on the mount of assembly, on the utmost heights of the sacred mountain. I will ascend above the tops of the clouds; I will make myself like the Most High.” (Isaiah 14:12-14)

The ancient religious concept of the “fall of Satan” is not just a myth about some winged creature plummeting to the ground. It actually tells how this powerful spirit became preoccupied with himself and developed a secret desire to have first place in the universe. The same is true of the “fall of man.” It is not just a story about Eve eating an apple. It is actually an account of the scheme by which Satan passed on his own corruption to our original parents thousands of years ago:

The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, but God did say,’You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.’”
“You will not surely die,” the serpent said to the woman. “For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” (Genesis 3:2-5)

Desiring to be more than who we were created to be, we ate the forbidden fruit, and ironically wound up being less than what our Creator had intended. This is the foundation of the present world order. All pretense and deception stems from Satan’s original fantasy that he could be “like the Most High.” Every mask that is worn today shows this inherited discontent with being the way we really are. But the wearing of masks is the earmark of the old social order. And the present world and its social order are passing away.

A new social order is coming. The next age will be based on love, not self-exaltation. Love is preoccupied with others and desires to see them prosper. Love lavishes all that it has on others in order to enrich them. Love is hardly even aware of itself, because it is fascinated with the objects of its attention and affection. Love loves to love, and loving is all it lives for.

Love came to earth 2000 years ago in the man Yahshua of Nazareth, a Hebrew carpenter. His life made such an impact on the world that countless religious groups since that time have acknowledged Him in one way or another — as a philosopher, a prophet, a spirit that merely appeared to have physical form, and just about everything in between. But even though multitudes honor Him, very few understand the message that He proclaimed.

Messiah Yahshua’s teaching, which He called the “Good News of the Kingdom of Heaven,” is nothing less than a bold and uncompromising demand to forsake self-interest. It is a clear call to abandon all ties with the old social order of strife and pretense that so vividly demonstrates Satan’s grip on humanity. The Master Yahshua hated pretense. He reserved His sternest judgments for those who claimed to have spiritual insight when they were actually full of self-concern and devoid of love. He called them hypocrites, which means “actors.”

So, as we said in the beginning, we’re not really actors — at least we certainly hope not. We are dramatizing this story in order to share with you the good news that the “Kingdom of Heaven” our Master spoke of is coming soon. A new age is at hand, one in which the Satanic pressure to be discontent or to hide behind a false image will be gone from the earth. No longer will anyone have to strive to “be somebody,” but all will dwell securely under our Master’s care, appreciated as the marvelous beings they were created to be.

Even now, we live in a foretaste of the coming age of love and peace. The new social order that will one day fill the earth is already beginning to be established. We are being delivered from self-concern and learning not to hide behind a mask. And all this is possible because of our Master Yahshua.

Although He has been portrayed as a spooky, and untouchable, god-man, we know Him as a real, down-to-earth human being in whom the Divine Spirit lived. By a miracle, this man was born without the inherited self-interest that has corrupted the rest of us. Because of His purity, the fullness of God was pleased to dwell in Him. And because He maintained that purity, He was able through His death to pay for the sins of the whole world.

This means that we can be cleansed of all of our guilt. This means that we can have all the junk in our lives dealt with, so that we can be pure, also, just like Him. This means that the Spirit of God can be pleased to dwell in us, too, empowering us to love, empowering us to cast aside pretense and be content with how our Creator made us. And the result of all this is that the new social order that our Master came to establish is once again beginning to emerge on the earth.

We are grateful to have friends. Without true friends a person can’t even begin to figure out where his mask ends and his real face begins.

Find out about The Mask Play

Read The Mask for an introduction.

REAL — about the One who brought the solution to a life of wearing a mask.