“He who is most deeply abased and alarmed, by the consciousness of his disgrace, nakedness, want, and misery, has made the greatest progress in the knowledge of himself.”
― John Calvin
I have an ongoing mime-esque gesture I do with friends and acquaintances, where I pretend to grab the bottom of my chin and pull my hand back over my head, as if removing a mask. Hilarity and applause ensues as I bow to the multitudes.
The reality is, we are wearing masks as we perform, pretend and on some occasions live our adulthood. Think how often we put on our game face as we do dinner with the boss, or spend time with the in-laws on a holiday. As much as we’d like to speak our minds to the proverbial kooky uncle spouting conspiracy theories, we smile and nod as we wish for a cyanide pill to end the agony.
In the Netflix miniseries, Killer Inside: The Mind of Aaron Hernandez, I found myself asking how many masks do I wear, and how deep is the facade. There are plenty of opinions on his tragic story, and the Salon article is one of many negative reviews. Their perspective, like many others, questioned the focus of the content. For me, I found myself defaulting back to the swirling thoughts and personalities we try to camouflage.
Viewing the series through a spiritual lens, I kept thinking about family of origin, and the wounds we try to numb or erase from memory. If the series is correct, Hernandez had a litany of struggles: his own sexuality, a hair-trigger temper, and sociopath tendencies.
There’s a penchant to think, “That dude’s crazy,” followed by, “I would never do something so deranged.” I used to say things in a similar vein. Then the more I understood my own brokenness ― and this awareness only comes from knowing Christ ―I became aware of my depravity, the Bible’s word for our stunning moral corruption. Why do I say a person needs Christ to understand how effed-up they are? Because of the ever-present masks. Without insight from the supreme being who created us, we’ll lie to ourselves about our relative goodness. We need an outside source to shine a light on the deep crevices where we hide like roaches waiting to scamper. Here’s an easy measure: how often do we read stories about crimes of passion? People can enact extreme emotional and physical pain on those they love deeply. How is that possible? Depravity stemming from a cancer only eradicated through the grace of Christ.
One of my favorite pastors, Tim Keller, has a line that’s been tattooed on my brain. This is in relation to King David in the Old Testament. He sent his top soldier and friend, Uriah, to die in battle, as a way to cover up his affair with Uriah’s wife, Bathsheba. Check out 2 Samuel 11 for the narrative. Keller says (paraphrasing), “As soon as you say you would never do what David did, (pause for effect)… you’ve taken your first step towards doing the act.” He brilliantly captures the episode here:
“He (David) covets the man’s wife, he commits adultery with the man’s wife, he murders the man, and then he lies to cover it up, half the Ten Commandments being broken in one awful enterprise.”
Keller goes on to say these chilling words in the same sermon:
“Here’s what it teaches us. The seeds of the most terrible possible atrocities, the capability of the worst possible deeds, live in every human heart, even the best people, even people who are converted by God. Whoever you are, even the best people who have ever lived are capable of this. The seeds of those things, the seeds of the worst possible deeds are right now in your heart. That’s the teaching.”
That’s the enlightenment in the Hernandez series. The parts that I couldn’t shake from my memory were the home security videos of Hernandez cheerfully playing with his infant daughter with his buddies, the morning after they had executed a friend. That’s where scripture becomes such a powerful reminder of our hearts. King David is also the man who wrote many of our most inspiring Psalms, including this from Psalm 40:8, “I delight to do your will, O my God; your law is within my heart.”
I find tremendous joy in pursuing a life of service, prayer and surrender to Christ. Like David, I know the difference between right and wrong because God’s law and grace have been written on my heart. I also know the fragility of the boundaries stopping me from the same trespasses of King David and Aaron Hernandez.
See ya next time. ML