The Christians who know shame
“… yet the unrighteous know no shame” (Zephaniah 3:5b).
Stephen Seamands said in his book “Wounds That Heal: Bringing Our Hurts to the Cross”: ‘Guilt is about our works. Shame is about our being, though it is caused by something we say or do. At the heart of shame is the sensitive feeling of self-exposure’ (Seamands). Our human nature is to cover up something that we feel shameful so we try to hide from others anyway possible. It is our human nature that we are in constant worry about someone may find out our shame things so that we keep on trying to cover them up again and again in tension so that no one may know for sure. After all, if we live by this human nature, then not only we can’t show our own values but also can’t see the values ourselves. That's why we waste our energy to protect ourselves while looking down on our own values. In the fear of acknowledging the truth about ourselves, we endeavor to divert our attention by pointing to others. Just as Adam and Eve blamed others after their sin, we blame those around us and our circumstance. The shame that keeps us from seeing ourselves in God's view hurts us. Moreover, it makes us feel helpless and lose our confidence in the crooked self. Furthermore, I think shame may inspire all addictive behaviors. It's so hard to endure painful self-exposure that we are immersed in the world of drugs, work, food, sex, and other insensitivity we've created for comfort and recognition. In this way, we who have fallen into the world of our own insensitivity have a rotten root of shame in our hearts, but we live our lives without remembering it. In the end, we may not only tell people that we no longer feel shame in the illusion, but we can also tell ourselves the same thing.
The world we live in now knows no shame. The worldly people steal and don't know their shame. They do sexual assault and adultery and don't know their shame. They don’t know their shame even after they commit murder. Even though the world is full of crimes, people who continue to sin don’t know their shame. But more serious sin than these is being done in the church. We Christians steal the tithe and offerings and don't know our shame (Mal. 3:8). We Christians are not ashamed of harassment, assault, and adultery. Even the Bible says that hating a brother is a murderer (1 Jn. 3:15), and we don’t know our shame after we commit such a murder. Yet we are preaching the gospel to our neighbors, worshiping and praising God with our lips. Yet we serve the body of the Lord with our hands and feet. What is so shameful is that even in such hypocrisy there is no shame in our hearts. Our conscience is paralyzed and our faces have gotten too thick. Our faces and conscience are so thickly packed with lies and hypocrisy. That is why I fully agree with the God’s word of Zephaniah 3: 5, "… yet the unrighteous know no shame." I think that it is applicable to us, the Christians, that the unrighteous people don’t know their own shame even though they should know. In fact, we are the unrighteous people. We obey no one, we accept no correction, and we don’t trust in the Lord (v. 2). We are too stubborn in not obeying God's command (Park). We don’t draw near to our God (v. 2), but turn back from following the Lord and don’t seek Him and inquire of Him anymore (1:6). But we are following our Baal (v. 4). We are trying to satisfy our greed by idolizing money, just as the judges were less satisfied when they thoughtlessly received the bribes (3:3). The more serious sin is that we, the church leaders, are not truthful like the Israeli prophets who were arrogant and treacherous men (v. 4). Just as the Israeli priests profaned the sanctuary and did violence to the law (v. 4), we aren’t keeping the purity of the church, rather we are defiling the church with lies. We are still eager to act corruptly in all we do (v. 7). Yet we don’t know the shame. What should we do?
Today, during the Morning Prayer meeting, I repeatedly sang the hymn “Pass Me not, O Gentle Savior” verse 1 and chorus quietly: “Pass me not, O gentle Savior, Hear my humble cry; While on others Thou art smiling, Do not pass me by. Savior, Savior, hear my humble cry; While on others Thou art calling, Do not pass me by.” And this was my prayer: ‘Lord, help me to be a Christian who knows shame.’ I want to have shame as I face my iniquities that are revealed by my holy God. I want to be a Christian who can feel shame in front of God and people. In the midst of my shame, I want to look upon Jesus, who was shamed on the cross. Jesus who died in the tree of shame, despised the shame of the cross (Heb. 12:2) and was crucified in the tree of the curse (Deut. 21:23; Gal. 3:13). When I looked at this Jesus, I came to believe what the Zephaniah 3:11a says: “On that day you will not be put to shame for all the wrongs you have done to me.” Let us no longer hide our shame. Let us no longer cover our shame up even in front of our holy God. Let us all look to the cross of Jesus' shame by faith. And let us confess and repent our shameful sins to our God. Then God will cover our shame up with the blood of Jesus who shed His blood on the tree of shame in order to forgive all our sins. May this grace be with you as well.