Restoring the Shamed.

I'm currently reading this book for my thesis: Restoring the Shamed: Towards a Theology of Shame by Robin Stockitt. It's the most thorough Biblical and theological exploration of shame that I've read so far, and it's really readable. I like it alot.

I started crying when I read this part about Christ's crucifixion:

“At each stage of his arrest, trial, and execution Jesus is ritually, intentionally, and sadistically shamed, and with each succeeding humiliating incident he absorbs it and inverts its meaning...His death on the cross was the product of powerful political and spiritual forces ranged against him yet he chose freely to enter that place of shame. The decision was entirely his and in so doing he displayed a dignity that could never finally be removed from him. Shame is turned repeatedly into honor and this is how he “shamed shame” for us. The combination of shaming events is presented by the Gospel writers to illustrate the depths to which Christ was shamed on our behalf. In so doing Christ’s actions draw a deep resonance from deep within all those who have ever entered into their own shamed condition.

That personal journey of exploration is, for many, almost too painful and dark to endure. Shame resides in the primal, existential part of us that is unutterable in its intensity. It expresses itself at times in the simple but tortured cry from the heart: Not good enough! It is the experience of sensing that we are not good enough to merit the exuberant grace of God and that maybe we are also good enough to simply belong to human society and find a place of dignity. It is a truly desperate disease of the soul. If the atonement is only framed in judicial terms, with a declaration of “innocence” being pronounced upon those who put their trust in Christ, then I fear that the intensity of the shame experience will remain untouched. If the story of Jesus is retold, however, in terms of the one who deliberately, intentionally, purposefully seeks out all those who have been shamed – as well as those who have been the instigators of shame – then the narrative takes on a far deeper, more personal, more transforming hue. It is that Christ who not only understands our shamed condition but who has himself entered into the depths of shame for us. He has lowered himself down to the bottom of that poisoned well and drunk it dry” (140).

This thesis-writing process has definitely been a whole head-and-heart experience, and not just an academic endeavor. It is painful entering into feeling these deep places of shame, but I am comforted in knowing that Christ is with me, right here. He knows and understands these feelings of shame, entering this shame and taking it upon Himself, and He loves me here, and gently tells me to receive His love and grace. I think this Lenten season will be quite an experience for me, in contemplating the Cross, and Christ's great love for me. 

Currently listening to: Lent by The Brilliance.