Solid Ground Community Church

An E-votion

I like comic books. I think they’re awesome!

In the world of comic books there are two publishing giants- Marvel and DC. Each company has its icons and big names. Marvel, for instance, produces comics like Spiderman and the X-Men. DC puts out staples like Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman.

The neat thing about both companies is that they both tell stories about superheroes but do so in completely different ways. Marvel’s stories tend to focus on the people behind the masks, costumes, and powers; i.e. how they deal with their every day lives. In the Marvel universe, the hero is the person under the mask, and the costume is just a persona they put on for the public.

DC is just the opposite. For them, the superhero persona is who the character actually is, and their secret identity is the mask. So, for instance, Batman’s real personality is shown when he’s dressed up as Batman, and his fake personality is shown when he goes around as Bruce Wayne. That is to say that Batman is Batman and Bruce Wayne is the mask.

Which group do you identify with more? The public mask or the private one?

Whether we realize it or not, most of us wear masks too. They can be public and/or private. Where do you spot your masks?

Are you a different person in public than you are in private? Maybe you find yourself with a group of people, and you lie about things because you think that that will make them be impressed and like you more. It’s a mask. It’s not real. It’s not you.

Maybe your mask is more of a private one. Perhaps rather than confronting areas of your life that need to change you ignore them and choose to live with a jaded image of yourself. It’s a mask. It’s not real. It’s not you.

While masks serve their functions for comic book superheroes, we as Christians can’t afford to have duel identities. The Apostle John puts it this way,

5This is the message we have heard from him [Jesus] and declare to you: God is light; in him there is no darkness at all. 6If we claim to have fellowship with him yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live by the truth. 7But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin.
8If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. 9If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. 10If we claim we have not sinned, we make him out to be a liar and his word has no place in our lives. (1 John 1:5-10)

Catch what John is saying. On the one hand, if we put on masks by not being truthful, we are going against God. If God is light, we walk in darkness when we do things that go against His nature.

On the other hand, if we lie to ourselves and pretend that sinful areas of our lives are okay, we call God a liar and go against Him. That’s not a mask we can afford to have either.

So what do we do? Well, in the words of Tony Stark, we declare, “I am Iron Man.” In English that means that we be truthful. We fess up where we need to. If we have habits of lying to others, we stop and be honest with them. If we are prone to turning a blind eye to our sins, we confess them to God and ask for help.

The good news is that it’s never too late for us to unmask. God’s power is always there to change us and make us into new people. We can always receive forgiveness and the ability to change, because that is what God wants for us. All we have to do is ask.