When Adam and Eve first saw each other in the Garden of Eden we know that they were naked and not ashamed. I can imagine that they viewed and thought of each other as they really were, created in the image of God, with no needed accessories. Then after they had sinned, Adam and Eve realized they were naked and they became ashamed. They tried to become something that they were not and could not become, and because of that sin, realized that they did not measure up, and the LIE was that somehow this was not okay.
God asks us to look at ourselves, and then no matter what fears, shame, or guilt we have, open ourselves completely up to Him and let Him see, have, and experience us for all that we truly are. I think this understanding of Jesus is critical and beautiful. There is a wonderful conversation in the Velveteen Rabbit by Margery Williams that helps illustrate my point almost perfectly. This story is a beautiful encounter between toys in a child’s playroom. The toys want to be real and in many ways have even created hierarchies so that they might know who is real and who is not. The conversation goes like this:
“‘What is REAL?’ asked the Rabbit one day, when they were lying side by side near the nursery fender, before Nana came to tidy the room. ‘Does it mean having things that buzz inside you and a stick-out handle?’
‘Real isn’t how you are made,’ said the Skin Horse. ‘It’s a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real.’
‘Does it hurt?’ asked the Rabbit.
‘Sometimes,’ said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. ‘When you are Real you don’t mind being hurt.’
‘Does it happen all at once, like being wound up,’ he asked, ‘or bit by bit?’
‘It doesn’t happen all at once,’ said the Skin Horse. ‘You become. It takes a long time. That’s why it doesn’t often happen to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don’t matter at all, because once you are Real you can’t be ugly, except to people who don’t understand.”[1]
To have an open and honest relationship with God and others in true community is to be real. This is a place where one cannot be ugly due to the realization that we are all the same. We were all sinners and, by the grace of God through Christ, we were all made acceptable, desirable, and pure. Some may understand this and others may not, but this is not the point. The point is that real and honest relationships have a grace that far outweighs any temptation to be perfect or to fake perfection. This is what God has made available to us through Jesus.
~Rod
[1] Margery Williams, The Velveteen Rabbit. Public domain.
