2010 ABS Junior/Senior Banquet Speech

Masquerade

I have the privilege of teaching 11th grade bible every year. 11th grade was my favorite year in school and one of my favorite in life… which is good because I’ve been stuck in 11th grade for 16 years now.
It’s a tremendous time of experiencing new freedom, rich life experiences and great personal growth. The class this year is taking full advantage! You have to admire their can-do, never-give-up attitude. Just finding a date to the banquet that you’re not related to takes some doing, but several managed to accomplish it! Of course, there’s a similar problem state wide, but a new law recently passed in Alabama should help: When a couple gets divorced, they're still brother and sister.

I love the theme for tonight: Masquerade
I wanted to come as Dr. Olson. I had the perfect mask – I just made a few slight alterations to a Fred Flintstone mask -- but I couldn’t figure out how to make myself 5 inches shorter. It’s hard to fake short!
I thought about coming as Coach Duke. Mr. Duke our Assistant Principle has taken on many additional responsibilities over the last few years. The other day I was walking down the hall between classes and there he was, leaning his head against a locker and saying, “How did you get yourself into this?” Concerned, I asked if I could do anything to help. He said, “I’ll be fine as soon as I get Will Brown out of this locker.”

I wonder if the theme for the banquet wasn’t inspired by the Phantom of the Opera:
Masquerade! Paper faces on parade...
Masquerade! Hide your face, so the world will never find you!
Masquerade! Every face a different shade...
Masquerade! Look around - there's another mask behind you!

We all learn to act or play a role, and that is something that can serve us well. When I was little we’d pretend to be superman or batman, or soldiers, or cowboys and Indians. A role may not come natural to us, but we learn from the experience. – to play a role on a sports team. In basketball, a shooter learns to play the role of passer, a passer to play the role of a rebounder, etc.
In our spiritual lives, acting is not good: Hypocrite is from the Greek word hypocrite. It’s one of those words in the Bible where the translators just got lazy. If it were actually translated, it would be “actor”.
○ Jesus said that hypocrites “are like whitewashed tombs which indeed appear beautiful outwardly, but inside are full of dead men's bone Matthew 23:27
○ Lay aside “hypocrisy…as newborn babes…” (1 Peter 2:1)

As we look at the masks around us tonight, we are looking at life. People sometimes wear masks to hide their identity, or their perceived faults and imperfections.
There are two things to remember about the masquerade of life:

(1) Learn to look beneath the masks of others.
Our masks deceive us (the wearers) into thinking we are something we are not, or making us wonder who we really are -- Like the lyrics of "Shattered" -- "All that I feel is the realness I'm faking" (Shattered by O.A.R.)

In the Phantom of the Opera, the Phantom wears a mask to hide his marred face. [This was not portrayed as terribly hideous in the movie; at one point we see the Phantom’s mask come off, and I found myself saying, “Oh look, he has a pimple!”] But he thought himself vile and hideous. Often, our real selves are not that bad; they are in fact better than the foolish mask we wear. But the Phantom could not see that. Only Christine Daae could see beneath the mask, into the soul of the Phantom and see something beautiful. And when she kissed his face, he saw it too.

(2) Take off your mask and look to Jesus.
There used to be a tradition at masquerade parties that at the stroke of midnight everyone dropped their masks and revealed their true identity. As you mature, I hope that your masquerade comes to an end and that you too have the wisdom to drop the masks.

Our goal here in this life is to wind up looking like someone else, but not someone we invent.
“But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord.” -- 2 Corinthians 3:18

Heaven is like a come-as-you-are Masquerade Party, and the only ones who are admitted entrance, look like Jesus.