Shame & Glory

Isa 50:4-9a; Ps 70; Heb 12:1-3; John 13:21-32

These passages are a study in shame and glory! Jesus, our Lord, 'endured the cross, despising the shame' because of 'the joy set before him', the glory of being the vindicated One exalted at the right hand of the Father and thereby bringing glory to the Father by bringing many sons and daughters into glory too!

St John's account of Jesus' dismissal of Judas precipitates a Satan-inspired betrayal which will be a means of bringing shame upon Jesus for death by Roman crucifixion is death in shame. Yet, Jesus, after the dismissal, immediately speaks of glory for both himself and God. The shame accompanying the finishing of his mission --'It is finished' -- lifts up the name of God!

But, how can such evil glorify God? We only know by faith that it does. Just as the man born blind was not a result of immediate sin, said Jesus, but an occasion for the manifestation of the 'works of God' so the shame of Messiah works to the redemption of all people.

It was moving to hear the German Chancellor speak to the Israeli Knesset identifying the Shoah (Holocaust) as Germany's shame. However, God does not want for our acknowledgment of our complicity in the death of his Son as much as our simple acceptance that He died for our sins.