Photo: Valeria Vinnick – Pexels

A very happy Christmas to you!

This post is based on the address I gave at our Carols by Candlelight service on Sunday 17th December. I spoke from the Genealogy of Jesus Christ in Matthew 1:1-17.

We all feel shame for all sorts of reasons: Shame for things we’ve done; for things that have been done to us; for where we’ve come from; for where we find ourselves. And each of us tries to deal with that shame – either consciously or subconsciously. We often do what the first man and woman did after the Fall in the Garden of Eden. We’re told that before the first sin they were both naked and had no shame (Genesis 2:25). But that changes when they go against God’s good commands. They are ashamed, and so they clothe themselves with fig leaves (Genesis 3:7). And that’s what we often do with our shame – we try to cover our shame with the equivalent of fig leaves, which are so inadequate for the job. So we try to ignore our shame; or we laugh about it; or we try to justify what we’ve done, saying it’s not so bad. But we find that none of those things helps: The shame remains.

A history of shame

Our reading from the start of Matthew 1 tells us that we’re not alone. It tells us that the history of God’s people – and of God’s promised King Jesus – is a history of shame. The reading gives the family line of Jesus. There’s lots of interest in family history isn’t there; I don’t know if you’ve ever done any research into your family history, or if you enjoy that TV show ‘Who do you think you are’? If we look into our family history and discover there’s someone famous or who is  remembered positively – we’re proud. But what’s our reaction if we discover if there’s someone in our family history who’s viewed more negatively? What do we make of that?

In this family tree Matthew is showing us two things. First – Jesus was born into a royal line. From verse 6 onwards all of the names are the names of kings – kings descended from the great king David. And before David we see the line descended from Abraham, the one to whom God made great promises to reverse the terrible effects of the Fall. The names are honourable, showing that Jesus is in an honourable line – the line of kings. Jesus is the King God promised who will overcome the consequences of the Fall.

But there are 4 names that would have come as a surprise to those reading the list of names. Tamar (verse 3); Rahab and Ruth (verse 5); and Uriah’s wife, called Bathsheba (verse 6). They all had reason to be ashamed. They’re all women, but we shouldn’t read anything into that: If you look at the Bible as a whole there are more men than women who have reason to be ashamed – including the apostles Peter and Paul, and King David himself. But what Matthew’s showing here is that just as Jesus is in a line of kings, he’s also in a line of shame. We all share a history of shame.

What do we know about these 4 women? Tamar might have been ashamed because of something she did. It’s a long and complicated story but she ended up sleeping with her father in law to preserve the family line (see Genesis 38).

Rahab might have been ashamed because of her past. She was a prostitute in the city of Jericho (see Joshua 2). Ruth might have been ashamed because of her ethnic background – she was from the country of Moab, which was looked down on by God’s people (see Ruth 1). Bathsheba might have been ashamed because of something that was done to her – King David forced her to sleep with him, even though she was married to someone else (see 2 Samuel 11).

Shame because of our past; shame because of who we are; shame because of something we’ve done; shame because of something done to us. Those are all things we can share aren’t they. I know I can identify with all of them in one way or another. And they’re all in the line of Jesus.

The king who bore our shame

Matthew wants us to see that Jesus was born into a history of shame, so that when at the end of the family tree in verse 16 we’re reminded of the remarkable, even shameful circumstances of Jesus’s birth – and in particular questions around the identity of Jesus’s father – we can see that’s nothing new for God’s people.

But we can also see something else: Jesus shared in our shame. In fact the good news of Christmas is that Jesus is the king who bore our shame. The Bible tells us Jesus is God – God the Son, who has enjoyed the presence of his heavenly Father for eternity in the love and joy of the Holy Spirit. And yet he chose to come to earth in human form.

Having made that decision he could have come as a king, dressed in purple, with powerful armies behind him. But instead he came as a baby, born to a refugee family who had nowhere to stay – hence he was laid in a manger. The first people to worship him were shepherds, the lowest of the low in society. He grew up as a carpenter’s son, though the rumours continued that no-one really knew who his father was. When his public ministry started he travelled around with nowhere permanent to lay his head. He spent time loving, teaching and caring for outcasts, the sick and those who knew they were sinners. Finally he was unjustly put on trial, spat on, whipped to the point of death, and executed as a common criminal. He hung on the cross completely naked. The whole process was deliberately designed to complete his shame.

But wonderfully, as he faced the ultimate shame he didn’t deserve – and because of his love for us – he was bearing our shame! The prophet Isaiah writes:

He was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was on him, and by his wounds we are healed… Do not be afraid; you will not be put to shame. Do not fear disgrace; you will not be humiliated. You will forget the shame of your youth and remember no more the reproach of your widowhood.

(Is 53:5, 54:4)

As he hung on the cross Jesus bore the shame of the insults we’ve received; he bore the shame of the things we’ve done; he bore the shame of the things that have been done to us; he bore the shame of our family history – he bore it all as he hung on the cross.

Response

But he didn’t bear it automatically – each of us is called to respond to what Jesus has done for us. And Jesus himself tells us that the right way to respond to the good news is to repent and believe (Mark 1:15). That is – to say sorry to God for the way we’ve lived in opposition to his good rule; to ask for his forgiveness; and to seek to follow King Jesus from now on. As we do that God’s Holy Spirit comes to live in us; and he pours out into our hearts a deep awareness of God’s love; and that awareness of God’s love drives out our shame. Just like the light from the rising sun on a winter’s morning drives out the darkness that filled the landscape just a few minutes earlier.

I had this experience just a few months ago. I’ve been a Christian for many years, but there were still parts of my life and past where there was shame. And God revealed a new area to me and poured an awareness of his love into my heart, and the shame was driven out. Thanks be to God!

We see the same in the 4 women mentioned earlier. If you look up the stories of Tamar and Rahab and Ruth and Bethsheba in the Old Testament – none of them were women who lived a life filled with shame. Why was that? Because they trusted God and did their best to follow him; and he poured out a knowledge of his love into their hearts. And so they were not ashamed. They lived confident, joyful, God-centred lives.

Of course coming to Jesus like this is hard. It’s hard because we’re all proud – we want to sort out our shame ourselves, to earn a ‘clean sheet’, like a goalkeeper in a football match. But I’d encourage us this Christmas to ask 2 questions:

  • Can I really deal with my shame myself?
  • If Jesus loves me that much, and he can deal with my shame, why hold back from him any longer?