Jesus Bore Our Shame

SUMMARY

Jordan Tatum begins this Palm Sunday message by reflecting on the honor given to Jesus as He entered Jerusalem, explaining how honor and shame functioned as social currencies in the ancient world. He then delves into the deeper problem of sin, describing it not merely as bad choices but as a supernatural force that deceives, enslaves, and ultimately fills us with shame. Tatum shares how shame acts as our "personal attendant," convincing us we are failures and that God couldn't possibly love us if He truly knew us.

The sermon's turning point comes through Tatum's encounter with a man struggling with same-sex attraction, drug use, and deep shame who had abandoned his faith. When Tatum asked him, "What does the cross tell you?" the man could only respond, "Is he really that good?" This moment revealed how the cross doesn't just deal with our sin but also defeats our shame. Citing passages like Hebrews 12:2 and Colossians 2:13-15, Tatum explains that Jesus "scorned the shame" of the cross and made a "public spectacle" of the powers and authorities. The cross becomes the place where Jesus took our shame so we could receive His honor, demonstrating that God is indeed "really that good."

TRANSCRIPTION:

That was so cool seeing the kids this morning waving palm branches and hearing how they trust Jesus. Caroline's doing a great job and I appreciate that. I love that as a church here we reflect on Jesus journey during Holy Week. This week is the week that changed the world forever. The world has never been the same since Jesus Christ died and rose again.

And it begins with Palm Sunday, which we are celebrating today. As Jesus enters Jerusalem, the crowds are honoring Jesus just as we have been doing this morning. I want us to think about honor for a moment because honor is an important Biblical concept. Because in most of the ancient world, including 1st century Judea, it was made up of these honor shame societies. If you really kind of boil down what that means, it just means that they cared deeply about what other people thought of them.

Honor and shame were social currencies. And we see this played out in a lot of different stories. In the Bible, when people are traveling, it is seen as a great honor to have someone stay in your house. For them to be a host for a night is a way to receive honor. When there's a feast, there's usually a place of honor for important people to be recognized.

At those feasts, people with more honor are kind of treated as ancient VIPs, where people with less honor are forced to serve. So as Jesus enters Jerusalem, the crowd of people around him, they are singing Hosanna. They are giving him honor. They are affording him a lot of social currency that he could use. They were heralding a king, just as we do.

And with all of that social capital, Jesus could have easily formed an army. That's what they wanted from him. The people knew that they needed rescued, but they didn't realize what they needed. Rescued from sin is an enormous problem. Amen.

When most people talk about sin, what we talk about is sin as a choice. Adam and Eve were in the garden and God told them, don't eat from the fruit of this tree. But they see the fruit and they want to eat the fruit. And so they take it. They have a choice.

Which way are they going to go? That's kind of the doctrine of free will that we claim here, that we each have choice. We get the opportunity to make a choice. Which side are we going to choose? The Bible actually paints a picture of this pretty frequently.

There are these two paths that you can take. The way of life or the way of death. The way of goodness or the way of evil. The way of light or the way of darkness. And our lived experience of sin can be this way, where there's a choice presented to us.

I can honor my father and mother, or I can slander them. I can share what I have, or I could be greedy and hoard it. I can pay for that item, or I could steal it. We are all presented with the choice to be faithful or to sin, to do right or to do wrong.

But that's not really the fullness of sin. It's is it. It's really only a partial description of sin because the fullness of the problem is so much greater than I made a bad choice. When sin is first presented to us in scripture, there is a supernatural character, a supernatural creature of some sort that is enticing humans to sin. And honestly, enticing doesn't even feel like a strong enough word.

He is actively deceiving a. How many of you have ever been deceived?

Well, we can choose to sin, and we sometimes do choose to sin. Sin is also a force that is seeking us out, that is preying on our vulnerabilities. Sin is this evil that exists and desires to distort God's goodness and in us and in our world. And our enemy is crafty. He is hungry, and he is seeking to devour us.

And once we give in to sin, sin really changes us. It's not just a tally on the column of rights and wrongs. It's not a divine score sheet that's going on. Sin takes a toll on us. It grabs hold of us and it won't let go.

Lying begets more lies until we don't even recognize the truth anymore. Anger consumes us until we get violent with somebody that we love. It starts with an ad you see on Facebook and then you have a bad day and you do a Google search, then you watch a video, then you find a website. Not too long after that, you're having an affair. Sin grabs hold.

It consumes us to the point that we don't even recognize ourselves. Sin creeps into our lives and it overtakes us.

One of the consequences of sin is shame. When Adam and Eve sinned in the garden, they began experiencing shame. And I think this is a feeling that we know well and say. Over the past year or so, I've been convinced that shame is controlling most of us. Personally, I've begun recognizing how it's been controlling me.

Because while we have decided to sin, sometimes, sometimes we make that decision, sometimes we've been deceived into sinning. Shame continues that work of deceiving us once sin has taken root. And shame really works hard to deceive all of us not just what we think, but what we believe, our faith, our relationships. Dr. Kurt Thompson refers to shame as our personal attendant. Shame is there to remind you that you have failed.

And in fact, not only have you failed, you are a failure.

Shame is there to tell you to avoid, to hide, to isolate, to withdraw from anything that requires risk or vulnerability.

Shame is there to convince you that you will be much safer if you don't speak at all, if you stay silent. Shame is there to make us suspicious of each other and ultimately suspicious of God and church. Shame is an incredibly effective tool in the hands of our enemy, because underneath all of the shame is a fear of abandonment. We are afraid that if we are truly known, if we are truly seen, if we are truly recognized, then not only will people reject us, not only will God reject us. No, no, no, they'll leave us altogether.

We are made for a relationship with God. But we don't believe that God wants us. We don't believe that God desires us, that God loves us, especially if he truly knows us. Shame has convinced us that he couldn't possibly love somebody like me, somebody as bad, somebody as flawed, somebody as unlovable.

And so we preemptively leave God to avoid the pain of God leaving us. Just like the prodigal son. Just like Adam and Eve in the garden, we hide ourselves so that we won't be truly seen.

I recently had an encounter with a man that I had never met before. This man shared with me that he used to be a Christian, but he hasn't been a Christian for a long time. At the beginning of our conversation, he asked me a lot of questions about God, about faith, about Jesus, about all these things. And he wouldn't tell me anything about himself.

It wasn't really that he was curious about all these topics. He was just trying to keep me at arm's length, trying to keep the conversation out there instead of allowing it to reflect on anything within him. And so to get things moving a little bit in our conversation, instead of just having this conversation out there, I shared with him about some of my own experiences of sin and shame. And during the course of that conversation, eventually he decided to take the risk. He had the courage to open up about his own sin and shame.

You see, this man had struggled with same sex attraction as a young man. As he struggled with that, he began to give in to what he termed sinful behaviors. As he was engaged in that, he then began to surround himself with people who were using drugs. And it pulled him in that direction. And eventually he found himself to the point where he was hurting people.

Just like we talked about a moment ago. Sin crept into his life and it consumed him.

He couldn't look me in the eye, but he spoke about his shame. He said, I know God doesn't approve of any of this, so he couldn't possibly love me.

So we just sat there in the silence for a few minutes, letting that hang in the air for a moment. I honestly didn't know what to say to him. But in a moment of grace, I feel like the Holy Spirit gave me a simple question to ask him. What does the cross tell you?

This man didn't say anything for almost a minute. But I waited for him. And the only words he could say to me was, is he really that good?

I don't know that I've ever had an encounter of the Holy Spirit so clearly speaking directly to me. I recognize so much more deeply what shame has been doing in my own life there. Shame has convinced me that I need to achieve in order for God to approve of me.

Shame has convinced me that it's not safe to share what is broken or ugly or dark within me. Shame has convinced me that I have to carry all the burdens, whether they are mine or anybody else's.

Shame has convinced me that I am a failure.

And the Holy Spirit was asking me, what does the cross tell you?

We know that Jesus. That what Jesus did on the cross rescues us from our sin. Amen. When John the Baptist saw Jesus, he cried out, behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. He recognized.

He knew Jesus would deal with our sins. In First John, chapter two, we read that Jesus is the atoning sacrifice for our sins. And not only for our own sins, but for the sins of the whole world. Later on, in chapter 4, verse 10, he says, this is love. Not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.

The cross is a place. It is the moment where God deals with sin once and for all. Amen. Sin is a massive problem. It is so much bigger than we imagine.

Hebrews tells us that sin entangles us. Paul tells us in Romans that sin enslaves us. And Christ died to save us, to free us, to liberate us, to rescue us from our sins.

But what about our shame?

How does the cross deal with our shame?

You see, the cross was an instrument public shaming.

The sign above the cross that was on Jesus cross said, behold the King of the Jews. We all know that in the ancient world, they believe there is no king but Caesar. They were mocking him. The crosses were placed along a road leading into Jerusalem so that as people came into town, they would have to look. This is what happens if you're this kind of person.

This is public shaming. They mocked Jesus. They cried out all sorts of insults. They spit on Jesus. They gambled over his clothes.

Jesus was publicly shamed by humanity. That's what the cross was. And it's exactly what we read about with the suffering servant from Isaiah 53.

We're getting there, I promise. He was despised and rejected by mankind. A man of suffering and familiar with pain, like one from whom people hide their faces. He was despised and we held him in low esteem.

See, humanity decided that we would shame our Savior in the book of Hebrews. In Hebrews, chapter 11, you get this story of all these faithful people. And it kind of culminates in the beginning of chapter 12 where it starts talking about Jesus. And this is what it says. It says, we fix our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith, who, for the joy set before him, endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.

It made me wonder this week, what does it mean to scorn the shame of the cross? Some of your translations might say something like, disregard the shame of the cross. Some might say despise. I saw one translation that said, ignore the shame.

I think the best way to understand all of this is simply that Jesus defeats shame.

In Colossians chapter two, we get another testimony of what Jesus has done. Paul tells the Colossians, when you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made you alive with Christ. He forgave us all of our sins. Having canceled the charge of our legal indebtedness, which stood against us and condemned us, he has taken it away, nailing it to the cross on the cross. Jesus took away our sins.

He separated them from us. He removed them. He bore them. They are nailed to the cross. But not only that says, and having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross.

Church on the cross. Jesus disarmed shame.

He took away the its power and he shamed it. He made a public spectacle of shame.

Church. Jesus took away our shame so that we can receive his honor.

Let me say that one more time. Jesus took our shame so that we can receive his honor.

So I go back to the question that that man posed to me. And I think it's a good question for all of us. Is he really that good?

And the cross tells me he is really that good.

Maybe you're here this morning and you are feeling loaded down with shame.

Maybe shame has convinced you that you are a failure. Maybe shame has convinced you that you are not good enough.

Maybe shame has convinced you that you are unlovable.

Maybe shame has convinced you that you don't measure up.

Maybe shame has convinced you that it's all your fault.

Maybe shame has convinced you that God could never forgive you for what you have done. And my question to all of us is, what does the cross tell you?

God, we are sinners overwhelmed with shame. We have been deceived and we have fallen victim to the evil one. We have been enslaved. But we know that you love us so much that you sent your only begotten son to rescue us from our sin. And shame on the cross, you did it.

So God, we just ask you to rescue us again. We pray this in the name of Jesus, Amen.