Behind the Mask
When I was nine, my mum — a gentle, reserved, sensible woman — got my attention from across the room. I looked up, but she was facing away, toward the door. Then she said something, turned around, and she was wearing a mask: a simple cardboard thing, but brightly coloured and genuinely terrifying. I jumped several feet in the air. From my own kids it would be expected; from her it was so surprising precisely because it was such a different face to reality. And that, it turns out, is something we're all rather good at. We wear masks constantly — the smile at the annoying customer, the look of productivity when the boss walks past, the serene face we carry into church after a morning of yelling at the kids, the good front over a secret grief or private shame. We wear them to survive, and often that's no bad thing. But sometimes it takes a good friend, or a kind parent, to say gently: I can see through that. Do you want to talk about it?
A mask before God
When the ancient book of Isaiah opens, God's people are wearing a mask — and this one is deadly, because they're wearing it before God. "We're doing fine," they say in effect. "We're God's people, living God's way, worshipping him as he wants. No problem here." And God, who knows and loves them, replies: I see straight through it. Did you really think I wouldn't notice? This is roughly 700 to 800 years before Jesus, a grim stretch of history — a nation in decline, drifting further from God even as outside powers gathered to destroy it. Into that, God speaks through the prophet Isaiah, and the first chapter sets the tone for everything that follows.
Children who turned away
"Hear me, you heavens! Listen, earth!" it begins. "I reared children and brought them up, but they have rebelled against me. The ox knows its master... but Israel does not know." Here is the heart of the charge: these are God's own children, and they have turned their backs on him — and even animals know better than to forget who feeds them. The consequences that follow aren't arbitrary. Long before, God's people had entered an agreement as they came into the land he promised: blessings for living his way, and consequences for turning to other gods and oppressing the weak. They said yes, repeatedly. Even Moses knew they wouldn't keep it. So when Isaiah opens by summoning heaven and earth to listen — echoing the song Moses taught them — we're meant to hear it: these are the very consequences they were warned of. You brought this on yourselves.
What God hates most
There is not a trace of "I told you so" here. Their rebellion causes God pain — the pain of a parent watching a beloved child make ruinous choices. "Why do you persist in rebellion?" he asks, describing a body covered in untended wounds, a country left desolate. They had come within a whisker of destruction — and then he reaches for the most shocking comparison available: without a few survivors, "we would have become like Sodom and Gomorrah." For his hearers, those cities were the very archetype of evil. And he doesn't stop at like them: "Hear the word of the Lord, you rulers of Sodom!" Then comes the real surprise. What would you guess God detested most — the corruption, the idolatry, the abuse of the poor? Listen: "Stop bringing meaningless offerings! ... when you offer many prayers, I am not listening. Your hands are full of blood!" The thing that angers God most is their worship — the sacrifices, festivals, and prayers of people who live in rebellion, exploit the vulnerable, then raise blood-stained hands to him and expect his blessing as though nothing were wrong. Corruption and idolatry are the sins of every nation. What makes this so much worse is that these are his children, who have turned away — and won't even admit it. What he hates is the pretense.
Even now, turn back
God detests what they've done. And yet — even now — it isn't the end of the road, though it could rightly have been many times over. "Wash and make yourselves clean... stop doing wrong. Learn to do right; seek justice. Defend the oppressed. Take up the cause of the fatherless; plead the case of the widow." Notice how tightly he binds love for him to love for his people; worship was never meant to be separate from justice and mercy. And then comes one of the most extraordinary invitations in all of Scripture: "Come now, let us settle the matter... Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow." God would be entirely within his rights to call it quits. Instead he says: let's talk. Let's work this out. The covenant of blessing is still open. Turn, and be clean.
Written for us, not to us
What do we make of this, all these centuries later? We need to avoid two mistakes. The first is to read Isaiah 1 as though it were written directly to us. It wasn't; it was written to Judah — but preserved for us, as part of God's larger story. If we forget that, we'll turn the chapter into a simple to-do list: be more sincere in worship, work harder for the poor, stop sinning. Those are good things — but the moment we make it only about our own effort, we've put our trust back in ourselves. And the sweep of the whole story shows that never worked; it took God himself entering the story in Jesus to truly deal with sin. The opposite mistake is to jump to Jesus too quickly — to skim the chapter, think "glad Jesus paid for my sins," and move on. If that's all we do, we might as well not read Isaiah at all. Better to hold it together, and let these words show us the very heart of God.
The one who took our place
Because when you look closely, you see God's love for his wayward children, his heartbreak that they're walking into destruction when his blessing is right there. You see his hurt that they lie about it, wearing a mask of the perfect family — trusting the ceremony instead of the relationship it was meant to deepen. You see his fierce care for the oppressed, so much so that mistreating them is treated as an assault on him. And you see his longing to take people with blood on their hands and make them white as snow. All of which helps us understand Jesus. He loved God's children, longed to gather them under his wing, and reserved his sharpest words for hypocritical religion that fixed on the external and missed the heart. He loved the poor and the outcast. And he knew no effort of his people could ever cleanse their own guilt. So rather than let judgment fall on them again, he took it himself: the one pure as snow, pouring out his crimson blood; treated as though he were Sodom and Gomorrah, handed to foreign rulers and killed. He took everything his wayward people deserved, so their scarlet sins could be washed away — and not just for one nation, but for all people, across every time and place. So we can now come to this holy God cleansed and unafraid, because he did for us what we could never do ourselves.
Taking off the mask
So it's worth asking honestly: what mask do you wear before God? Whatever it is, he already sees straight through it — and he would far rather your honesty than your pretense. But as you take it off, remember that the way forward isn't mainly cleaning up your life, manufacturing the right feelings, or throwing yourself into service. It begins with receiving the sacrifice of Jesus in your place — and then who knows what good will grow from there. See God's heart: his love for his people then, and his love shown to you now in Jesus. What would it look like to come to him with the mask off?
This post is adapted from a sermon preached by Murray Colville at St Hilda's Anglican Church Katoomba on Isaiah 1, as part of our TrustWorthy series through Isaiah. Visit us at www.katoomba.church.
