About three weeks ago I was shopping in Trader Joe’s and had taken my place in a check-out line the required six feet behind the shopper in front of me. I looked around, and every person I saw except one was hidden behind a mask. Only people’s eyes revealed anything about the persons who stood behind their carts and counters. I caught one woman’s eyes and smiled—and I realized I had to exaggerate my smile because she might not even know I was extending a moment of human kindness to her. Half my face was hidden—and like everyone around me, my identity was partially cloaked.
After going through my wrist injury and surgery over the past two weeks, I was even more deeply impacted by the dehumanizing effects of social distancing. At no point in the process of doctor’s visits and the pre and post surgical encounters did I ever see my doctor’s full face—nor he mine. I said to Richard yesterday after having my stitches removed and a cast applied that, if I were to meet my doctor in public unmasked, I doubt I would recognize him. It’s even more doubtful that he would recognize me.
As I sat in the cast room Tuesday while the tech wrapped my arm in a hardening blue sleeve, I realized that I felt almost unable to speak. The mask over my mouth seemed to erase my normal ability to ask questions and interact. In fact, I realized again that cultures that cover their women in public are doing more than protecting them from men’s eyes. By covering them, women lose their individuality; no one can tell who they are much less recognize details about their personalities.
Somehow that mask over my mouth and nose made me realize how little it takes to erase people’s identities. These masks are barriers not only to our exhaled aerosols but also to our responses to one another.
As I pondered the dehumanizing effect of that mask on my face, I thought of two things. First, I wondered why my reaction to it is so intense. I’m not sure I know the full answer to that question, but I realize that I can’t allow the required public mask to stop me from relating to people in normal ways. Second, I thought of Paul’s words in 2 Corinthians 3.
In this chapter where Paul describes the contrast between the old covenant of letters in stone that kill and the new covenant of the Holy Spirit, he uses the imagery of a veil to illustrate the differences between the two. Paul calls the old covenant a ministry of death, yet it came with glory—a fading glory. The new covenant, he says, came with even more glory—a glory that does not fade but which grows more and more glorious.
Then Paul uses the illustration of which my hated mask reminded me: Moses’ veil-covered face that hid the fading glory of his encounters with God. Paul says this:
But if the ministry of death, in letters engraved on stones, came with glory, so that the sons of Israel could not look intently at the face of Moses because of the glory of his face, fading as it was, how will the ministry of the Spirit fail to be even more with glory? For if the ministry of condemnation has glory, much more does the ministry of righteousness abound in glory. For indeed what had glory, in this case has no glory because of the glory that surpasses it. For if that which fades away was with glory, much more that which remains is in glory.
Moses knew about masks. He used to go into the tent of meeting in the wilderness to meet with God, and when he came out, his face would shine with His reflected glory. Moses would cover his face so the brightness would not disturb the people—but even more than that, we learn from Paul that Moses actually masked his face so that people would not see the glory fading!
Moses’ veil hid what was actually happening to him. He kept the people from seeing that his face was changing after his encounters with God. The unsustainable glory of being in God’s presence was masked from the people who did not share those personal encounters. The old covenant did not provide consistent personal time with God; it provided only shadows and types, and the fading glory on Moses’ face was a visible reminder that the old covenant was not permanent—and not sufficient.
Paul ends 2 Corinthians 3 with a glorious explanation of our inheritance from our Lord Jesus:
Therefore having such a hope, we use great boldness in our speech, and are not like Moses, who used to put a veil over his face so that the sons of Israel would not look intently at the end of what was fading away. But their minds were hardened; for until this very day at the reading of the old covenant the same veil remains unlifted, because it is removed in Christ. But to this day whenever Moses is read, a veil lies over their heart; but whenever a person turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away.
Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. 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 from the Lord, the Spirit (2 Cor. 3:12–18).
On one level masks protect; Moses’ mask protected the people from the glory that shone from his face after meeting with God. Our Covid-masks protect us from sharing our aerosolized breath with those around us.
On another level, however, masks hide. Moses’ mask hid the fact that the old covenant was a fading glory. It was passing away; its glory was unsustainable, and Moses, the mediator and spokesperson for God to Israel, hid the old covenant’s insufficiency from the people. He hid the fact that he represented something that could not sustain the people indefinitely.
Our required masks during this time of Covid hide us from each other. They enforce our distance and limit our vulnerability, and they stop our natural responses to one another. Yet these masks are temporary, as Moses’ mask was.
When we turn to the Lord, we can shed our masks. We no longer have to hide in the shadows of 24-hour Sabbaths or divisive food laws. When we turn to Christ, the law and its letters of death become obsolete, and we don’t have to hide in their insufficiency. We can live in liberty with unveiled faces, beholding the Lord’s glory, and as we do, we are transformed “from glory to glory” by the Lord who is the Spirit!
We may have to hide for a time in public behind veils that cover our faces, but if we are in the Lord, these masks cannot stop the glory of the Lord which is ours when we are alive in Christ. His glory shines even if our mouths are muffled, and we can gaze at Him in thankfulness as He glorifies Himself through us. †
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