Journey Through Jeremiah & Lamentationsਨਮੂਨਾ

Jeremiah: Shame & Dignity: In Front of the Text

Jeremiah knew that pain and shame were coming but that God was going to be with them on the other side. This is the same God we met in the Garden of Eden, bringing judgment along with a solution to their greatest needs.

A Bigger Gospel

Jesus the Redeemer of our Shame

In his death and resurrection, Jesus rescues us from shame and inverts the traditional concept of dishonor and humiliation. His humiliation becomes our salvation. Paul stays anchored to this concept:

May I never boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world.

Galatians 6:15 (NIV)

Through our being crucified with Christ, and identifying our suffering and death with his, the shame and dishonor of our suffering becomes a mark of honor:

That is why I am suffering as I am. Yet this is no cause for shame, because I know whom I have believed, and am convinced that he is able to guard what I have entrusted to him until that day.

2 Timothy 1:12 (NIV)

And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.

Romans 5:5 (NIV)

The author of Hebrews makes a similar comment:

And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, 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.

Hebrews 12:1-2 (NIV)

Paul’s references to boasting conclude with a quote from Jeremiah:

Jeremiah

Let not the wise boast of their wisdom or the strong boast of their strength or the rich boast of their riches, but let the one who boasts boast about this: that they have the understanding to know me, that I am the LORD, who exercises kindness, justice and righteousness on earth.

Jeremiah 9:23-24 (NIV)

Paul

Brothers and sisters, think of what you were when you were called. Not many of you were wise by human standards; not many were influential; not many were of noble birth. But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. God chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things—and the things that are not—to nullify the things that are, so that no one may boast before him. It is because of him that you are in Christ Jesus, who has become for us wisdom from God—that is, our righteousness, holiness and redemption. Therefore, as it is written: “Let the one who boasts boast in the Lord.”

1 Corinthians 1:26-31 (NIV)

Notice that Paul sees shame as central to the bigger story of redemption.

Wrap-up

Nicole wraps up this lesson about how God reaches out with mercy and dignity to people in their sin, suffering and shame.