From Parts Unknown

On the front end, let me say that I hope this devotional will help the people that sit around me at church understand that I’m not constantly whipping out my phone to text my friends right in the middle of a sermon or immediately after a prayer.  Sometimes when someone says something in church, my brain will flash this idea for a perfect illustration for a devotional.  When those brief glimpses of insight happen, I have to Notepad it (yes, I just used that as a verb) immediately or it’s lost forever.  That happened yesterday morning at church – and to show exactly how my brain works – Preacherman had just finished reading the 2 Corinthians 5:11-21 passage that has been the focus of our reconciliation lessons.  Specifically, he had just read 2 Corinthians 5:17  Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!  And where did my brain go?  Well, to Memphis Rasslin’, of course.  AND IMMEDIATELY!!  So I whipped out my phone and jotted this note:  “Loser leaves town. Mask. New wrestler. World tries to rip mask off.”  For those that didn’t make that same connection, I’ll elaborate a bit.

Back in the glory days of Memphis Rasslin’, there were these “loser leaves town” matches.  Sometimes the good guy would lose, and then come back the very next week…with a mask and calling himself “the Masked Marshmallow” or whatever.  Despite the fact that he had the same open-heart surgery scar down his chest and the “I love my momma” eagle tattoo hidden in his gross back hair, he claimed to be a NEW wrestler.  With the “loser left town’s” voice, he would pound his chest and claim to NOT be that loser that left town, but a the NEW wrestler come to clean up this town…The Lone Ranger or whatever.  Then the head promoter dude would come out and proclaim that if they could prove that the Masked Menace was really Loser Left Town, then he would be out for good.  So naturally, every wrestler that had a grudge against Loser Left Town would always come running in try to pull off the mask to show who he really was.

Are we tracking yet?  See now why I had the connection?  In Christ we are a new creation!  The old has lost the match and gone, and a new is here!!  But The World doesn’t buy it.  The World doesn’t believe it for one minute.  The World (which, as a personified entity refers to itself in the third person like good bad guy wrestlers do) says, “The World knows that you’re still the loser under that mask!  You’re not some New Creation, so The World is going to pull your mask off of you and expose you to be the fraud you are!”  So you find yourself in the fight of your life trying to keep your mask on.  You struggle against the world and say, “you can’t take off my mask…I’m not the old guy, I’m a new guy!”  But The World calls in its cronies from the back, and The World and its group of henchmen gang up on you.  You’re getting beaten down right in the middle of the ring in front of the whole crowd.  You keep wondering if help is going to come running out to save you – but you’re overwhelmed by the hoards of bad guys kicking you down and pulling at your mask and can’t get a breath to call for help.  Finally, when you’ve fought all you can fight, The World knocks you out…and then finally thinking it’s won, grabs your mask and pulls it off!  The World has pulled off the New Mask of the New Creation.  And the whole arena will see who you really are.

Listen for the Whisper that tells you that it’s not a mask.  It’s a cute story, and a fun little illustration about how we feel sometimes with The World beating on us, attacking us, and trying to question our new identity.  Where the illustration falls apart, though, is that in the story (and in our minds), we’re alone and trying to save our mask, and nobody ever comes running from the back to save us.  But in reality, the fight was won before we ever picked up the mask.  Jesus Christ was slain on Calvary and conquered the world and all the evil in it long before you put on the mask.  The World and all his henchmen don’t stand a chance and never did.  Which brings us to the other flaw in the illustration…true Christianity is not a mask.  When we enter the ring as The New Creation, we really ARE a New Creation!  “Go ahead, The World, pull this mask off…because like in the old Scooby Doo cartoons, sometimes it’s not a mask.”  The World can pull and pull at you for all its worth.  It’ll never get the mask off, because there’s no mask to pull off.  You’re not the Masked Christian. That other loser really left town.  You are the New Creation!  Can I get an Amen?

~Dwayne

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