Shame Undone (Notes from my sermon)

 Read Genesis 3

6 When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it. 7 Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realised they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves.

The first effect of sin is a sense of shame. Before sin, we were naked, nothing was hidden and we felt no shame or judgement from each other or God. (Nakedness is a metaphor also for the shame of our sin). What God has created as good and is now being profaned by shame and judgement.

 1. Our Inadequate attempts to cover our shame- Fig leaves

How ridiculous is using fig leaves to cover your nakedness. Symbolic of our own futile efforts to cover up. We are fooling no one, not even ourselves. It wont hold up, and it wont last. It does next to nothing in addressing the problem.

2. Our Idiotic efforts to Hide from God

Although God called to them where are you he is omnipresent and omniscient. Nothing is hidden from him. So again, how futile are our efforts to hide from God. Your shame, like your sin, will find you out. We have a tendency to try and hide in our sin and shame. Keep ourselves distracted or occupied in it, but this is like the child who reasons, if I cant see you, you cant see me, and so just closes their eyes.

3 Our Isolation- Shame and the blame game

The serpent has exactly what he wanted. It's divide and conquer. The man blames the woman, the woman blames the snake. Both are ashamed and hiding. Neither of them talking to God. 

This is how it still works. Shame is used to isolate us. From God and from each other. 

The devil did then what he does now. He tempts you to sin and then says look what you did! I can't believe you did that!

He is separating the weaker ones from the herd so he can pick them off.

Once isolated in shame it spirals. He doesn't need to destroy you. You'll destroy yourself.

4. His Solution- The sacrifice v21

The Lord God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife and clothed them.

The first death to occur because of sin (And the first death at all) is the animal that died to make the garments to cover mankind's shame. It is the first echo of the cross. The wages of sin is death, and without the shedding of blood their is no forgiveness of sins.

This sacrifice foreshadows God's kindness in the cross. He has provided the sacrifice himself. He slew the animal. God has never shed blood up to this point. It cost him too. Because he loved Adam and Eve, he made a way. 

He doesn't do away with the consequences. The verses following are the words were |God lays out the curse. He does not mollycoddle them. But he does cover their shame. Equips them to face up to it and to face it. He forgives them. He does show them that he is with them in it, that he will provide.

5. The Great Solution

Jesus was shamed in every way it was possible to be shamed. There was no loin cloth, He was stripped naked and splayed at at the centre of that cross, mocked and rejected by his people, betrayed and abandoned by his friends under the full gaze of everyone, at the centre of history. God drew attention to him. He made it so that everyone who wants to be save must look on this shame, embodied in Jesus' own body. Jesus had nowhere to hide. All eyes on him and he took the shame that was ours, he bore our disgrace, all for the love of you and I.

Heb 12:2

 fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith. For the joy set before him he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.

 Heb 12:2 reminds us that, for the Joy set before him (that's us and the Father's pleasure) he endured this cross and scorned its shame (Shaming shame itself), taking his rightful place on the throne at God's right hand.

He did this for us. Because God so loved us.

In his love for us He did not hold back His only son, but freely gave him up. How much more, Romans  says, will he freely give us all things

Hebrews 2

 We must pay the most careful attention, therefore, to what we have heard, so that we do not drift away. 2 For since the message spoken through angels was binding, and every violation and disobedience received its just punishment, 3 how shall we escape if we ignore so great a salvation? This salvation, which was first announced by the Lord, was confirmed to us by those who heard him. 4 God also testified to it by signs, wonders and various miracles, and by gifts of the Holy Spirit distributed according to his will.

Jesus Made Fully Human

5 It is not to angels that he has subjected the world to come, about which we are speaking. 6 But there is a place where someone has testified:

“What is mankind that you are mindful of them,
    a son of man that you care for him?
7 You made them a little[a] lower than the angels;
    you crowned them with glory and honor
8     and put everything under their feet.”[b][c]

In putting everything under them,[d] God left nothing that is not subject to them.[e] Yet at present we do not see everything subject to them.[f] 9 But we do see Jesus, who was made lower than the angels for a little while, now crowned with glory and honor because he suffered death, so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone.

10 In bringing many sons and daughters to glory, it was fitting that God, for whom and through whom everything exists, should make the pioneer of their salvation perfect through what he suffered. 11 Both the one who makes people holy and those who are made holy are of the same family. So Jesus is not ashamed to call them brothers and sisters.[g] 12 He says,

“I will declare your name to my brothers and sisters;
    in the assembly I will sing your praises.”[h]

13 And again,

“I will put my trust in him.”[i]

And again he says,

“Here am I, and the children God has given me.”[j]

14 Since the children have flesh and blood, he too shared in their humanity so that by his death he might break the power of him who holds the power of death—that is, the devil— 15 and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death. 16 For surely it is not angels he helps, but Abraham’s descendants. 17 For this reason he had to be made like them,[k] fully human in every way, in order that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in service to God, and that he might make atonement for the sins of the people. 18 Because he himself suffered when he was tempted, he is able to help those who are being tempted.

I thought the whole  passage pertinent but the verse that drew me here was verse 11 ( Both the one who makes people holy and those who are made holy are of the same family. So Jesus is not ashamed to call them brothers and sisters.) 

Jesus did all this in his love for us. This is love. Not that we first loved him but that he loved us. We love him because we are loved. He laid down his life- even before creation. He is the lamb that was slain before the foundation of the earth. Jesus is bold  enough to say that this is why the Father loves him (John 10:17), because he is,at his heart, he IS love. And God loves love.

And all this was to make us family. 

This character is consistent to bring us into a community where the shame covering is from top to the bottom. He is not ashamed of us and we are not to be ashamed of him, or each other.

He says, If you love me you will obey my commands,

And this is my commandment. That you love one another. You see he takes the disgraced, the isolated and the exiled and he brings them into the community. He gives them family. He gives them as family to one another. 

And we are taught...love covers a multitude of sins.

1 Peter 4:8

Above all love each other deeply because love covers a multitude of sins.

 I love that it says deeply. There's no get out or brush off. You cant interpret this instruction as tolerate one another. No love one another deeply.

And notice it says love covers a multitude of sins. It does cover up. It addresses it head on, but it covers. We cover each other with and in love. We make up for, in ourselves collectively what is deficient in each of us as individuals.

Love the Lord your God with all you have and are
And love your brothers and sisters as you love yourself.

WE all understand, who have had our shame covered by Jesus that we are not without sin. That we need a saviour. That we need our shame covered. And therefore we can be safe and vulnerable. We will not judge and we will not be judged. And in this environment we fight the enemies main weapon. Shame and isolation. We are seeing the curse reversed. We have each other backs. No one is more or less valuable. The eye cant say to the hand I don't need you. No one part of the body is dispensable. We cover each other with love. 
Satan isolates but God creates community. He puts the lonely in families. He bought us together.

Heb 13 13,14

 Let us, then, go to him outside the camp, bearing the disgrace he bore. For here we do not have an enduring city, but we are looking for the city that is to come.

We go to him- where he was cast out, in his exile and isolation. In his disgrace.

We go outside the camp. We go to him where he is.  

We accept the disgrace he bore, and, in him, our shame is covered. 

The one who trusts in him will never be put to shame.
We are clothed in his righteousness, like the animal skins in Genesis 3 covered Adam and Eve. God provided the sacrifice and covered our shame...but we are not clothed in skins. Our clothes are awesome.

He made him who had no sin to be sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

He has arrayed us in robes of righteousness.

And the value of these robes is highlighted by this verse

 I counsel you to buy from me gold refined in the fire, so you can become rich; and white clothes to wear, so you can cover your shameful nakedness; and salve to put on your eyes, so you can see.~ Rev 3:18

Amen.