Photo credit: debidrecksler.com
Lizzie Valasquez is a 24 year old
motivational speaker with degrees in both English and Communications. She has
authored 3 books entitled: Lizzie
Beautiful; Be Beautiful, Be You; and Choosing
Happiness. What this resume doesn’t tell you about Lizzie is that she was
born with a very rare syndrome—so rare that only two other people in the world
have been diagnosed with it. She has zero percent body fat and has never
weighed more than 64 pounds. She is
blind in her right eye, and has limited vision in the other. She has a weak
immune system, but her organs, bones, and teeth are healthy, and her condition
isn’t terminal. Her skin has a prematurely-aged look to it, and she is all skin
and bones, and a big, beautiful smile. She jokes that her body may have all
kinds of problems, but she has really
great hair.
When she began creating YouTube
videos at 17, her online YouTube video got flooded with hateful comments, the
least hurtful of which was someone naming her the “ugliest woman in the world.”
In her famous TED talk, she admits that she has dealt with bullying and
meanness from others since she entered Kindergarten. She credits her parents
with raising her 150% like a normal child. When she was bullied, her mom, Rita,
reminded her to smile, hold her head high, and just keep being nice to people. After
seeing so many hateful and cruel comments on her YouTube video, she looked in
the mirror and wished she could just scrub off her syndrome and have an easier
life. She asked herself, “how will I pick myself up from this?” She felt like
her whole world just crashed at that moment. But she decided she had a choice.
She could either give up, or she could use the negativity of others as a fuel
to push her in the direction of her dreams. Two degrees, three published books,
and multiple public speaking appearances later she says, “if I ever see that
person who commented on the video I would jump on them and give them the
biggest hug in the world and tell them, 'Thank you for bringing the best thing
that has ever happened to me in my life,' " she says. "That video
changed everything and it has given me the platform that I have now to be the
voice for anyone who's ever been bullied – and not just myself." She says
that her amazing support system of friends and family, “let me have those times
when I just want to cry. But I give myself a deadline and say, today's my sad
day but tomorrow when the sun comes up it's done. Through her motivational
speaking, she has met hundreds of people who share their own personal stories,
and have a lot of the same feelings that she has. When she talks about her
faith in God, she insists that God blessed her with the greatest blessing of
her life, which is her syndrome. In her TED talk she asks the audience, over
and over again, “What defines you?” Your background? Your friends? Your outer
appearance? Your accomplishments? What defines you? After listening to her
inspiring talks, you come away just asking yourself, with everything she
has been through, where does her strength come from? How can this be?
No matter what our background,
size, age, resume, vocation, or appearance, we all have two things in common. (Besides
wishing we had really great hair!) We all long for belonging and unconditional love, and we all live in a
world full of exclusion, conditional love, and often cruelty. Even within our
Christian tradition, many interpretations of God include not just loving
acceptance, but judgement. Our Christian history is full of people declared insiders
and outsiders, those who are judged as true believers, and those who are
labeled unbelievers. In our secular world, to live is to be judged by outside
appearances. The idea of unconditional, universal love is rare and so foreign
to most people, that it can feel like a utopian ideal or a naïve illusion. Whether
we admit it or not, we all worry that how we look, what we have accomplished,
and who we know will influence how successful and loved we are. This is the way
of the world we have been born into. This is the world Nicodemus was born into.
And it’s the same world Jesus came to redeem. When we hear the word
“redeem” or “save” we automatically think of judgement. But, for Jesus, the
purpose of redemption is not judgement, but wholeness. It’s about stitching
back together what has been ripped apart. Reuniting what has been separated. When
Nicodemus comes to Jesus in the middle of the night, he’s not coming to have
Jesus merely point out the scriptural basis for his healing and teaching. He
isn’t coming under the cover of darkness just to get an annotated bibliography
of his sermon references. He comes because his faith has left him feeling
separated from the presence of God, and he senses in Jesus something more
compelling than the letter of the law. In
the days and weeks before this visit, he had witnessed two of Jesus' big signs—turning
water into wine at the wedding at Cana, and throwing the moneychangers out of
the temple. Both were about there being no limits to God’s abundant love. They
all watched him and thought, “How can these things be?” In the Temple, as Jesus
turned the moneychanger’s tables upside down, he also turned people’s
understanding of God upside down. They thought God required a sacrifice in
order for them to be put right with God. In the clearest way possible, Jesus
showed them that nothing should stand between them and God’s love and
forgiveness. No sacrifice required. No more separation. God’s abundant love and
forgiveness came into the world with Jesus, and it is available for all who
receive it.
But they couldn’t square this with
everything they thought they knew about God. So they wondered, “How can these
things be? Nicodemus came to Jesus under
the cover of darkness because, despite his elite education, knowledge, and
faithful practice of Jewish law, he couldn’t reconcile everything he knew of
the world with the radically inclusive, abundant, limitless love, that Jesus'
miracles, signs, and healings were about.
He knew Jewish law—what to eat and what not to eat. Who was in and who
was out. Who was pure and who was impure. He knew what the required behavior of
a good Jew was supposed to be. So he came to Jesus under the cover of darkness,
full of fear, because he had a hard time imagining that the love Jesus
practiced could hold up in the real world. He knew that living like that might
get him dubbed “the craziest Jewish tax collector in the world.” So when Jesus said,
“you have to be born again from above,” it was Nicodemus’ standing in front of
the mirror moment. Like Lizzie Valasquez, he was probably thinking, “if I could
just ignore this Jesus, my life would be a lot easier.” But Jesus was inviting
him to be born from above—born of the Spirit. He was offering him a whole new
mirror—a radically altered perception. The only thing that can be seen in God’s
mirror is unconditional love. The words around the frame of God’s mirror read,
“I love you, without exception, whether you like it or not.” Nothing we can do,
say, or be, can make us look unlovable to God. So believing isn’t about knowing
all the right rules, and always being perfect people. Believing is about
choosing what mirror we will look into each day. Will it be God’s mirror or the
world’s mirror?
When Jesus tells Nicodemus he must
be born of water and the spirit, he’s answering the question Lizzie Valasquez
asked her audience: “What defines you? He’s asking Nicodemus, and us, to forge
our identity apart from the markers of the world that have shaped us, and to reimagine
our communities and our bodies as God might. He’s asking all of us to radically
alter our perception, allowing the new life Christ offers—a life lived in the
way of self-giving love, to interrupt our old habits, making room for grace.
Grace gives us, and our communities, the courage to live with joy and purpose
for someone other than ourselves. We resist this kind of unconditional love and
grace because, like the wind of the Spirit, it is not in our control. We want
to label, judge, and predict things. We know that if we let the wind of the Spirit
blow through our souls, our churches, and our families, who knows what might be blow
out? Long held resentments? Prejudices? Fears? Or what might blow in? New
people? New ways of doing things? New challenges? When we allow the abundant,
unconditional love of Christ to radically alter our perception, we see everything
in a whole new way. When we look at physical disabilities, we can see strength
and perseverance. When we look at obstacles, we can see new opportunities for
growth. When we look at painful moments in our past, we can see the
outstretched hands of those who helped pull us through to the other side. When
we allow the unconditional, abundant love of Christ to radically alter our
perception, we no longer find ourselves asking, “How can these things be?” We
suddenly find ourselves asking, “How can these things not be?” When we look in God’s mirror long enough to understand
that He loves us whether we like it or not, long enough to know that it is that
unearned love that defines us, then we begin to believe. That is when eternal
life begins. Belief isn’t something we have
but something we do, over and over,
each and every day. Belief is choosing to put down the world’s mirror, the
mirror that magnifies every imperfection, and tells us lies about who we are.
Belief is choosing to pick up the mirror created by the triune God, Father, Son, and Holy
Spirit, whose love created, redeems, and sustains us, whether we like it or not.
Let that love radically alter your perception until you know in your bones that
God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that
the world might be saved--be made whole-- through him.
Imagine that. Knowing beyond
question that you are loved unconditionally, abundantly, and limitlessly.
Imagine looking in the mirror and seeing an irreplaceable, beloved person. What
would you do differently if you allowed God to radically alter your perception
that way? How could these things be? They are because that’s who God is. At
your birth, and in your baptism, God claimed you. God’s love defines you. You
have already been born from above by the power of the Triune God, Father, Son,
and Holy Spirit. Come to the Lord’s table to be nourished by that love, and
carry that love with you outside these walls. You are God’s mirror in the
world. When you are faced with hard things, may you not wonder, "how can God's unconditional love be?" but may you remember your baptism and ask, "how can it not be?" Then go and carry that love out into the world.
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