The Symbolic Meaning of Masks in Leviticus (and Today)

In my personal devotions recently I was reading through the section of Leviticus about the skin diseases that made ancient Israelites ceremonially unclean.

Though the Bible does not have instructions on handling a pandemic (we should not expect such from a pre-scientific text), these chapters are the closest we have to how the Bible views contagion, and how it should be handled by a community.

It has been observed by others that the Bible always handles contagion by isolating sick or unclean people, not healthy or ceremonially clean people. I won't be addressing if such a principle should apply in our society's has handling COVID (which has quarantined healthy people because of fear of asymptomatic spread of the virus). That’s an article for another time.

Here I want to talk about what struck me in this reading of Leviticus 13: the symbolic meaning of the presence of a mask in the Law of Moses.

"The leprous person who has the diseases shall wear torn clothes and let the hair of his head hang loose, and he shall cover his upper lip and cry out, 'Unclean, unclean.' He shall remain unclean as long as he has the disease. He is unclean. He shall live alone. His dwelling shall be outside the camp." (Leviticus 13:45-46)

The phrase "he shall cover his upper lip" could also be translated "he shall cover the lower part of his face" (Sklar), or maybe in a more contemporary translation, "he shall wear a mask". Commentators say that the clothing of the unclean was used to signal to those in the community that they were unclean, alerting them to stay away. Hence, in the Bible, the mask had symbolic meaning.

What implications does this have for wearing masks in worship? Well, to be clear, it is certainly not a one-to-one correlation. The fact that these masks were worn by those with skin diseases to signal uncleanness, means they served a very different purpose from the masks used in the COVID pandemic. Modern masks are used to prevent the airbourne spread of the virus, not to signal uncleanness.

But I think we all sense that masks do signal something whether we want them to or not, and it struck me that Leviticus 13 seems to confirm this. It is a very modern way of thinking to assume something could be "simply medical", and not carry symbolic meaning. The modern world has throughly attempted to disenchant the universe of all its symbolic significance. The universe is now just a meaningless space of mass and energy, and science alone is the holder of truth. We have lost a vision of the cosmos of Creation revealed in the Bible, filled with symbols (water, trees, light, rocks, birds, stars, clouds, and above all humans). We live in a symbolic world. We are symbolic creatures. Christian worship too is highly symbolic, with bread and wine, water, standing in God's presence, raising hands, etc.

What symbolic meaning has the mask taken on the past year and a half? For some it represents love for neighbor, humility, obedience and self-sacrifice. It says, "I will suffer for the good of my community." For others it represents government control, irrational fear, and social isolation. It has certainly had political symbolism. At some points it has represented being a liberal; at others it meant you were still unvaccinated, and hence maybe a conservative. Such complexity should give us pause in making pronouncements on the symbolic meaning of wearing a mask.

My goal in this article is to simply say that the Bible's use of a mask should at the very least be factored into our discussions about mask mandates and the impact of masking. Though the context is different, it is not unreasonable to connect COVID to Leviticus, where a mask meant you were a danger to the community and people should stay away from you. (That feels familiar.) We should weigh significantly that in Leviticus a mask announced to the world that you had been separated from the presence of the Lord. A mask screamed, "Stay away from me!" Does a COVID mask carry none of that suggestion?

The gathering of the church is the congregation of the baptized, those who have been washed and made ceremonially clean, or even more, made holy, by the blood of the Lamb, meeting with her Lord. We all sense there is some spiritual cost to wearing a mask in worship. (How great that cost is, is certainly debatable.) But this cost must be weighed in our decisions about masks and the Christian life.

Please don't hear me saying that a person wearing a mask in worship has become unclean, or that they are in anyway distanced from the presence of God. They are not, and that is in fact my point. Worship is a time for people to be told, "You are clean, you are holy, you are welcome. Boldly approach the throne of grace. Death has been defeated and in Christ you have eternal life. Your God has embraced you and you have nothing to fear." Are there ways that the symbol of a mask is at crosswise with that message?