Shame. I have heard it called the immune system of the soul. Shame lets me know something is wrong, so very wrong. I don't know when the last time you had a really good dose of shame but it is an awful feeling. I think that is why our society is slowly trying to remove it from our experience. The most shocking thing about shows like The Jerry Springer Show is the absolute lack of shame. Any way, I was thinking about the cross since this is Easter weekend. I think the worst thing about the cross is the shame Jesus endured. He must have felt the shame I have felt and all the shame you have felt. Legitimate shame times a billion would be beyond endurance. I wonder if that had as much to do with his death as the nails in his hands. "By his stripes, I am healed", so says Isaiah. The relief of shame, the healing of my damaged soul, is the great gift Jesus has given me. It came at great cost. Shame, it turns out, is about as expensive as anything in the world.
Join in realizing the vision of Christ Community Chapel with Senior Pastor Joe Coffey
1 comment:
Glad you are blogger, Pastor Joe! Shame is something that my grandmother felt and my mother feels is indeed being pushed out of our society. It reminds us too much that we are wrong, that we should feel bad sometimes, that we are sinners. No one wants a moral compass anymore. If we have one, then we admit that we don't know it all - and that would undermine our individual and collective efforts to blame everyone else for our problems and to tell everyone else what to do, how to live, and who to be. If we can get rid of shame, then we can get rid of God. My husband thinks it's one of the most sinister concepts - and why politics are so shrill today. When I worked in Chicago, I walked past a man in his 20s hawking the Tribune. A young woman of about the same age walked past him a few yards in front of me. Between me and that woman was a woman in her 80s. As the young woman past him, the kid stopped his shouting to whisper some words of acknowledgement to the girl. She didn't stop, but the older woman did: "Shame on you." The kid with the newspapers was dumbfounded. When he found his voice again, he shouted at the older woman, "What did you say, you old *****?" FOUR of us walking stopped and turned to him: "She said 'shame on you'." He picked up his papers and took off in the opposite direction. I wish more of us would have the nerve of that older woman and speak first.
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