Wounds that Heal - Week #3

Chapter three of Wounds that Heal touches on the sufferings of Jesus as it relates to bearing our shame in His death.

Stephen Seamands says, “Shame, growing out of deep-seated human hurts, can wreak havoc in our lives and lies at the root of much self-destructive behavior. Like infection in a wound, it festers long after the injury occurs. Sometimes…it can take on a life of its own.”

The fact that we can experience shame shows the nobility of humans. (Pause before God a moment and appreciate the nobility of your soul...) Only beings that can discriminate between good and evil can experience shame, and shame was the first consequence of their sin that the first couple experienced. Genesis 3:7 speaks of what happened after their disobedience: they became painfully aware of themselves, of their nakedness; but rather than own up to their sin and seek God for help and covering, they opted to hide from Him and cover themselves up. They no longer had an open and unashamed relationship with God nor with one another.

The hiding from God led to blaming one another when God came looking for them. But God, in His unrelenting love and jealousy over His children, will never stop pursuing us, no matter how much we attempt to avoid facing Him. We, like Adam and Eve, cover up before God by blaming others (including the devil) in an attempt to convince Him that we’re ok.

Seamands quotes Lewis Smedes who says that shame “gives us a vague disgust with ourselves, which in turn feels like a hunk of lead on our hearts.” Because we weren’t created to carry this weight within our being, it will “wreak havoc in our lives” and often, if not dealt with in the cross, will “take on a life of its own” and can cause physical breakdown as well as other types of breakdown.

Shame is different from guilt, which has to do with sinful behavior. Shame has to do with who we are, not merely with what we do. Shame tells us that we have no value and are fundamentally flawed as a person and therefore not worthy of being part of the human community.

As can be seen in Adam and Eve’s response, shame has to do with self-exposure, feeling that all the wrong and deficient things about us are exposed for all to see, and so we desperately look for “fig leaves” to cover over our condition so that others won’t reject us. Shame is so disorienting and painful that we go to extreme measures to find relief; when it is “toxic”, we will turn to drugs, work, food, alcohol or whatever can numb the pain of feeling exposed.

Shame also exposes the false gods in whom we have trusted to save us. Whenever we, like Adam and Eve, place our trust in the “promises” of false loves, we discover that they don’t deliver what was promised, and shame covers us.

“Some of the shame we feel comes as a result of the victimizing sins of others. What they have done can cause us to believe we are inherently flawed. But we also feel the shame because of our own sins and idolatries. We bow down to false gods such as control, safety, approval, power, freedom, perfectionism and invincibility, and we are ‘put to shame’ when they fail to deliver.”

(Sometimes we don't even recognize that we are being put to shame, because it's attached to religiously-acceptable behavior, such as perfectionism or work addiction, etc.)

The Shame of the Cross
Hebrews 12:2 speaks of Jesus enduring the cross, “disregarding its shame.” Because death by crucifixion was reserved only for those that were the worst of society, people in Roman times dreaded the shame of such death even more than the physical pain. Such was the shame of dying on a cross that the word “cross” wasn’t to be mentioned by Roman citizens. (See Martin Hengel’s book Crucifixion in the Ancient World.)

“Because of the horrendous shame associated with crucifixion, early hearers of the message of the cross (I Cor.1:18) found it offensive…For the typical Greek or Roman person, the Christian belief that someone who had been crucified was Savior and Lord of all was sheer madness…The Greek word for ‘stumbling block’ is skandalon, from which we derive our English word ‘scandal.’ It was indeed scandalous to tell Jews that the long-awaited Messiah had been nailed to a cross, for they also believed crucifixion was a sign of God’s curse (Deut. 21:23).”

The cross of Christ is the only place of genuine hope for freedom from shame. There Jesus experienced such shame that no one, Jews nor Gentiles, could believe He was the Son of God. Just as the disobedience of Adam and Eve left them naked and ashamed, so the shame that Jesus bore in His obedience unto death now restores humans to a state of standing before God, naked and unashamed. Rome crucified its victims naked; Jesus bore that shame, both His own and ours, in His death.

The author quotes a beautiful portion from Frank Lake’s book, Clinical Theology:
“He hangs on the Cross naked. Both the innocent who were not loved and the guilty who have spurned love are ashamed. Both have something to hide. Clothing is the symbol of hiding what we are ashamed to reveal. In His own innocence He is identified with the innocent in nakedness…He was so deprived of His natural clothing of transfigured beauty and glory that men, seeing Him thus, shrank away from Him. The whole world will see this same King appearing in all His beauty and glory, because He allowed both…to be utterly taken away.”

Jesus not only bore shame but He put shame to shame! “Shame itself was crucified on the cross.” (Col. 2:15) In spite of the shaming the leaders and rulers did in their deriding of the fact that God wasn’t delivering Him therefore believing He was being exposed as an imposter, Jesus kept trusting His Father, believing He would vindicate Him; three days later, God did vindicate His Son.

“The powers and authorities made a public spectacle of him. But having endured the awful shame of the cross and having been vindicated by God, now the tables were turned. He made a public spectacle of them…By crucifying him, their true nature was exposed, made public for all to see…Jesus hung naked on the cross. And his nakedness exposed their nakedness. His great final act of being shamed overcame shame itself. In the same way the cross exposed the false gods of the religious leaders and authorities and the emptiness of their misplaced trust, it exposes our false gods and misplaced trust. At the cross every false robe of pretence is stripped from us; our nakedness is revealed for all to see."

Throughout this experience, Jesus was always and ever the beloved Son of His Father. This is true of us; whether it be in innocence that we have been shamed or in guilt, we have never been abandoned by God. Because of this reality, we can have confidence, which is the opposite of shame (I Jn. 2:28; 3:21; 4:17,18; 5:14; Heb. 4:16;10:19).

Finally, it’s important that we realize that the healing of binding shame takes time, because the exposure of it and then the severing of the tentacles of shame can be a very long process; but it is well worth the time and effort to look to Christ’s suffering, letting the reality of His identification with and participation in our shame sink deeply into our heart and mind. Psalm 34:5 says, “They looked to Him and were radiant; their faces shall never blush for shame or be confused.” (Amplified) The practice of looking to Jesus, taking the time and effort to see your shame taken by Him to death, will reap a harvest of radiance and confidence in His love!

Stephen Seamands ends this chapter with a glorious story of an elegant woman (who had all the appearances of having her life together) who was wonderfully cleansed from shame – you must read the story! The truth is that all of our stories are glorious, because no matter how “benign” our shame may appear on the surface, it’s all deeply rooted in sin and takes the mighty power of the cross and the resurrection and the present working of the Holy Spirit to bring any of us into a confident relationship with God in Christ. To Him be all honor and glory!

Next week we’ll cover chapter 4, Why Have You Forsaken Me? If any of this resonates with you, pause long enough to work with the Spirit of God at the cross so that this isn’t mere accumulation of good information but true life for you and for others.

God bless you again this week!