Masks. Yet another word that has entered our frequent use this year. Another article now a household item. For some professionals, masks are always essential protection, of course. For children, masks can be the fun of dressing up. But for most of us, masks spoke of falsehood or distrust – the ‘masked gunman’. Even veiled faces may invoke unease.
So I could understand when served in a shop by someone who knows me, 
when their normal friendly manner was replaced by notable caution the first time I was masked. After all, how could they see my smile? How would they know my intent? Might even the vicar really be the devil in disguise? We will all be learning new skills now, to communicate from behind our face coverings, and see beyond the masks.
Adam and Eve knew all about covering up (in a different way!). Afraid, they hid their true selves. The psychologists say that we all wear masks, and we probably recognise this truth. We portray to others images of ourselves we like them to see. Our inner masks may be so habitual we don’t even realise we are wearing them.
Jesus rowed against this current. Where Adam and Eve covered themselves, he allowed others to uncover him by taking his clothes en route to the Cross. Paintings of the crucifixion usually take a discrete approach to his nakedness. The reality is shearing. I cannot truly contemplate the total vulnerability that he chose to take on, at every level.
I seem to have plunged a long way from face-masks! Yet there is a connection. Jesus reveals that vulnerability is bearable, if we are rooted within ourselves in a love that affirms and holds us, as Christ was. And he reveals that vulnerability is necessary to truly love and serve others – though thankfully rarely to the same degree as him.
Face-masks give important medical protection. But in personal exchanges, both parties ironically can feel vulnerable: the viewer can’t fully ‘read’ the wearer, and the wearer can’t be their normal self. Being vulnerable is difficult. Yet as Christ shows, vulnerability can be a strength. As with so much else through the pandemic, good things can spring from the changes thrust upon us.
