Jesus Bore My Shame – Mark

Brandon Werner   -   October 13, 2024

Jesus Bore My Shame

Pastor Brandon Werner | Together Church OKC |
October 13, 2024 | Series: Mark

 

 

WELCOME

  • Little different… starting our focus on the main idea now.
  • Jesus did not just die on the cross for our sins; He bore our sin and shame. (No offering or interruptions, focus now.)

 

SETUP (after third song)

  • Remain standing and open your Bibles to Mark 15:1-32.
  • Dismiss the children.
  • Jesus did not just die so our sins could be forgiven; He bore our sin and shame.

 

Mark 15:1-32

1 And as soon as it was morning, the chief priests held a consultation with the elders and scribes and the whole council. And they bound Jesus and led him away and delivered him over to Pilate.

2 And Pilate asked him, “Are you the King of the Jews?” And he answered him, “You have said so.”

3 And the chief priests accused him of many things.

4 And Pilate again asked him, “Have you no answer to make? See how many charges they bring against you.”

5 But Jesus made no further answer, so that Pilate was amazed.

6 Now at the feast he used to release for them one prisoner for whom they asked.

7 And among the rebels in prison, who had committed murder in the insurrection, there was a man called Barabbas.

8 And the crowd came up and began to ask Pilate to do as he usually did for them.

9 And he answered them, saying, “Do you want me to release for you the King of the Jews?”

10 For he perceived that it was out of envy that the chief priests had delivered him up.

11 But the chief priests stirred up the crowd to have him release for them Barabbas instead.

12 And Pilate again said to them, “Then what shall I do with the man you call the King of the Jews?”

13 And they cried out again, “Crucify him.”

14 And Pilate said to them, “Why, what evil has he done?” But they shouted all the more, “Crucify him.”

15 So Pilate, wishing to satisfy the crowd, released for them Barabbas, and having scourged Jesus, he delivered him to be crucified.

16 And the soldiers led him away inside the palace (that is, the governor’s headquarters), and they called together the whole battalion.

17 And they clothed him in a purple cloak, and twisting together a crown of thorns, they put it on him.

18 And they began to salute him, “Hail, King of the Jews!”

19 And they were striking his head with a reed and spitting on him and kneeling down in homage to him.

20 And when they had mocked him, they stripped him of the purple cloak and put his own clothes on him. And they led him out to crucify him.

21 And they compelled a passerby, Simon of Cyrene, who was coming in from the country, the father of Alexander and Rufus, to carry his cross.

22 And they brought him to the place called Golgotha (which means Place of a Skull).

23 And they offered him wine mixed with myrrh, but he did not take it.

24 And they crucified him and divided his garments among them, casting lots for them, to decide what each should take.

25 And it was the third hour when they crucified him.

26 And the inscription of the charge against him read, “The King of the Jews.”

27 And with him they crucified two robbers, one on his right and one on his left.

29 And those who passed by derided him, wagging their heads and saying, “Aha! You who would destroy the temple and rebuild it in three days,

30 save yourself, and come down from the cross!”

31 So also the chief priests with the scribes mocked him to one another, saying, “He saved others; he cannot save himself.

32 Let the Christ, the King of Israel, come down now from the cross that we may see and believe.” Those who were crucified with him also reviled him.

INTRODUCTION

There are three questions that we want to answer this morning from this text.

 

  1. What did Jesus experience from the time of His arrest in the Garden of Gethsemane until He died on the cross at Golgotha?

 

  1. Why was it necessary for Jesus to have this experience?

 

  1. How does Jesus’ experience apply to us today?

 

 

BODY

 

  1. What did Jesus experience from the time of His arrest until He died on the cross?

 

We can read the details of what He suffered physically, and it was horrific.  But the scriptures tell us even more about what He experienced emotionally…

 

Isaiah 50:6

6 I gave My back to those who struck Me, and My cheeks to those who plucked out the beard; I did not hide My face from shame and spitting.

 

The English word “shame” comes from Hebrew word “kelimmah”.  It literally means “disgrace”.  It is also translated confusion, dishonor, and reproach in the scriptures.  This Hebrew word is derived from the root word “kalam” which means “to wound by taunting or insulting”.  The purpose of this insult is to cause someone to blush or be embarrassed; to experience humiliation or to feel ashamed.

 

This is what Jesus experienced from the garden to Golgotha. Jesus didn’t just die on the cross for our sins; He experienced shame.

 

Isaiah says Jesus did not hide His face from SHAME. Instead, from the time of His arrest until the time of His death, Jesus experienced nothing but shame.

 

Mark is relentless in his report about the shame Jesus experienced. Even more than relating the details of His physical suffering, Mark takes great pains to relay to us the shame Jesus endured…

 

  • He was arrested like a criminal in front of His disciples.
  • Many false witnesses told lies about Him.
  • He was falsely accused by the high priest.
  • He was physically and verbally assaulted in front of the Jewish Sanhedrin.
  • Before he was transferred to Pilate, the Jews covered His face, hit Him, spat on Him, and mocked Him.
  • They bound Him to transfer Him to Pontius Pilate and walked Him through the crowds.
  • He was placed on trial before His own people, and the crowds were led to treat Him with hatred and contempt.
  • When Pilate gave the Jews the opportunity to vote for His release, they shouted for the release of Barabbas – a violent robber, insurrectionist, and murderer.
  • When Pilate asked what should be done with Jesus, His own people – not the Romans – demanded He be executed in the most public, shameful fashion ever known to man.
  • Jesus was stripped naked in public.
  • They scourged Him so that His body was physically disfigured.
  • Roman soldiers ridiculed Him as He bled.
  • Then, those soldiers dragged Him aside and called other soldiers over to mock Him, too. They made Him out to be a fool.
  • They placed a purple cloak on His bleeding body.
  • They made a crown of thorns and called out to Him, “Hail king of the Jews.” And as they called out to Him, they struck his head with a reed like they were coronating Him as King, knelt down in front of Him as if they were paying homage to Him, and then they stood and spit on him to show their disgust for Him.
  • Then, they strapped a cross to His back. They made Him carry His own instrument of shame, torture, and death through the crowds.
  • They took Him outside the walls of the city to a very public place… and then, they nailed Him to that cross and lifted Him up in shame.
  • They divided His clothing in front of Him and gambled over them.
  • They mocked Him with a sign that read “King of the Jews.”
  • They hung Him between two robbers… common criminals.
  • People who passed by railed Him and mocked Him.
  • The chief priest said, “He saved others; He cannot save Himself.”
  • Even the criminals hanging on crosses to His right and His left reviled Him!
  • And to the Jews who saw Him, His crucifixion would be in their minds all the evidence they needed to attest to the fact that He was a terrible sinner who was abandoned by God.

 

According to Mark, what was Jesus’ experience from the time of His arrest in the garden until He died on the cross?

 

Yes, Mark reports on the horrific physical suffering He endured; but more than that, Mark describes Jesus’ experience with SHAME.

 

 

  1. Why was it necessary for Jesus to have this experience with shame?

 

Jesus’ experience with shame wasn’t an accident; it was predestined by God. Through the prophets, God revealed that it was necessary for Jesus, the Messiah, to endure this experience with shame…

 

Isaiah 53:4-6

4 Surely he has borne our griefs

and carried our sorrows;

yet we esteemed him stricken,

smitten by God, and afflicted.

5 But he was pierced for our transgressions;

he was crushed for our iniquities;

upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace,

and with his wounds we are healed.

6 All we like sheep have gone astray;

we have turned—every one—to his own way;

and the Lord has laid on him

the iniquity of us all.

 

To accomplish His mission to atone for our sins, was it enough that Jesus simply die? If that was enough, why not spare Him this shame? How about this: when they came to arrest Him, one of the guards thrusts his sword through Jesus’ heart. He dies, is buried, and rises again on the third day.

 

Through the prophets, God told us that would not be enough. To accomplish His mission, Jesus could not just die so our sins could be forgiven… He had to bear our sin and shame.

 

As Christians, we believe in substitutionary atonement. To be our substitute, it was necessary for Jesus to die in our place for our sins. But that alone was not enough to fully satisfy God’s wrath and justice towards sin. To be our substitute, Jesus also had to experience the shame we deserve for our sin.

 

Our sin makes us shameful as human beings.

Sin has messed us up; broken us beyond repair. Sin makes us worthless; it has stripped us of our value.

 

We can see it in the story of Adam and Eve…

Created in the image of God and as the highest expression of God’s glory on the earth, Adam and Eve fell into sin. When they sinned, they became flawed. They were disfigured by sin, and the glory of their creation was lost. Sin corrupted their entire being: spirit, soul, and body. Instead of bringing glory to God, their lives brought shame to the God who created them in His image.

 

Their sin changed their condition. They fell from glory and into shame.

 

We are all children of Adam and Eve. Like them…

  • Sin has made us worthless.
  • Sin has stripped us of our value.
  • Sin has messed us up.
  • Sin has broken us beyond repair.

 

The Apostle Paul described our shameful human condition this way…

 

Romans 3:10-12

10 as it is written:

“None is righteous, no, not one;

11     no one understands;

no one seeks for God.

12 All have turned aside; together they have become worthless;

no one does good,

not even one.”

13 “Their throat is an open grave;

they use their tongues to deceive.”

“The venom of asps is under their lips.”

14 “Their mouth is full of curses and bitterness.”

15 “Their feet are swift to shed blood;

16     in their paths are ruin and misery,

17 and the way of peace they have not known.”

18     “There is no fear of God before their eyes.”

 

God made us for glory, but sin has made us shameful as human beings.

 

Picture Adam and Eve in the garden. They knew they messed up. They lost their innocence. Their mistake could not be undone. Frantically, they try to sow together leaves from fig trees to hide their nakedness and cover their shame. Sin causes shame.

 

What about us? How shameful has our sin made us? What would it look like if we suddenly had to bear the full weight of our shame?

 

There’s no greater picture of the severity of our shame than the shame Jesus experienced on our behalf. He was sinless, so He was shameless. We are sinful, so we are full of shame.

 

1 Peter 2:24

He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed.

Jesus did not just die for our sins…

To become our substitute and to fully satisfy the wrath of God towards our sins, Jesus became sin for us and bore our shame…

  • He was treated like He was worthless.
  • He was stripped like He had no value.
  • His body was messed up and broken by our sin.

 

So, why was it necessary for Jesus to have this experience with shame? Jesus knew that He couldn’t just die for our sins… He knew He had to bear our shame. Since He had no sin and shame of His own to bear, He went to the cross to bear ours for us.

 

It was necessary for Jesus to have this experience so that He could bear our sin and shame.

 

 

  1. How does Jesus’ experience with shame apply to us?

 

Because Jesus experienced shame on your behalf, there is a cure for your sin and shame!

 

Go back to Isaiah’s prophecy in Isaiah 53. These words from God came to Isaia around 700 years before the events of Mark 14 and 15 unfolded…

 

Isaiah 53:5-6

5 But he was pierced for our transgressions;

he was crushed for our iniquities;

upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace,

and with his wounds we are healed.

6 All we like sheep have gone astray;

we have turned—every one—to his own way;

and the Lord has laid on him

the iniquity of us all.

 

There are two words I want us to look at in this passage: iniquity and healed. These two words respectively reveal the cause and cure for shame in our lives.

 

 

  1. INIQUITY

 

Twice in Isaiah’s prophecy, we see this word “iniquity”…

  • He was crushed for our INIQUITIES.
  • The Lord has laid on Him the INIQUITY of us all.

 

What do you think the word “iniquity” means?

How would you define it?

 

When we think about “iniquity”, we often think about the act of sinning. But in the Hebrew, the word isn’t just limited to the act of sinning.

 

Iniquity literally means perverse, crooked, or flawed. So, “iniquity” doesn’t just describe the act of sinning, it also describes a person’s condition because of sin. Our sin, our iniquity, makes us perverse, crooked, and flawed.

 

 

There’s not a better Hebrew word to describe sin, what sin does to us, and the shame that sin causes. The reason we all battle feelings of shame is because we all have iniquity…

 

Psalm 51:5

5 Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin my mother conceived me.

 

Being born into iniquity means our condition wasn’t good from the start. We were born perverse, crooked, and flawed. But it gets worse… wherever there’s iniquity, there’s always shame. So, because of our iniquity, we all battle feelings of shame.

 

What do feelings of shame sound like?

  • You will never be good enough.
  • You aren’t loveable.
  • You aren’t worthy.
  • You can’t measure up to others.
  • You are a failure.
  • You are worthless.
  • You are broken.
  • You are the worst thing(s) you’ve ever done.
  • No one likes you.
  • No one wants you.
  • No one thinks you’re special or worth it.

 

Unchecked, these feelings of shame will lead us into greater iniquity…

  • We’ll compare ourselves with others to try to make ourselves feel better.
  • We’ll tear others down to boost our self-esteem.
  • We’ll act out destructive behaviors to cope with feelings of shame.
  • We’ll suffer from insecurity, depression, and anger.
  • We’ll pervert our minds and begin to call good evil and evil good.

 

Shame is a powerful force that can control our lives. Our experience with shame can be so painful that some have been willing to take their own life.

 

If we do not find a solution for these feelings of shame, they will be a poison to our soul and dominate the course of our lives.

 

What’s the solution to these feelings of shame?

 

The whole world is asking that question…

 

  • Some say the solution to shame is just to change what you believe about yourself. Forgive yourself and stop believing you’re flawed. For them, morality is just a social construct that imprisons people in shame. Just start believing you are an inherently good person who just needs a better environment to become a better person and overcome shame.
  • Others say the solution is to celebrate your sin. The only reason you feel shame is because the tribe around you is saying that you are wrong. So, their solution to shame is to surround yourself with people who will tell you that your sin is fine.
    • If your parents’ beliefs don’t align with yours, cut them out (support groups online celebrating estrangement and saying it’s the best thing they ever did).
    • If your church won’t support your sinful lifestyle, find a church that supports your sin or leave the church.

Many are trying to resolve their shame by celebrating sin and finding people who will tell them their sin is okay.

  • There are others who seek to resolve shame by isolating themselves from people. They’ve discovered that shame makes them feel very insecure and they can’t stop thinking about what others think of them when their with people. So, they hide away in hopes to deal with their feelings of shame.

 

This is just a sampling of some of the ways the world is trying to deal with shame. But all these efforts are like putting band aids on a cancer patient… they just don’t work.

 

While the world’s solutions to shame will not work, God’s solution always works.

 

God’s remedy for our shame was to send His Son Jesus to experience our shame and die for our sin.

 

That brings us to the second word in Isaiah…

 

  1. HEALED

 

This is what Isaiah said…

  • With His wounds we are HEALED.

 

Notice Isaiah didn’t say “FORGIVEN,” Isaiah said HEALED.

 

The English word “healed” comes for the Hebrew word

raphah (raw-faw’) and it means “to mend” (by stitching) or “to cure” or “to make whole”.  Rapha is one of the covenant names for God:  Jehovah Rapha, which means “I am the God that heals you”.

 

Jesus did not just come to take away the guilt of our sin, He came to completely heal us of the iniquity that causes our shameful human condition in the first place!

 

God’s solution isn’t a band aid, it is an actual cure for the underlying condition of our shame: JESUS HEALS OUR INIQUITY AND BEARS OUR SIN AND SHAME!!

 

How does this happen to us?

 

When we receive Jesus as our Savior and Lord…

  • He transfers to us His righteousness.

2 Cor 5:21

21 For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.

 

He clears our eternal record of our sins and replaces it with His record of righteousness.

 

  • He transforms us with His Spirit of Righteousness.

 

1 Cor 6:19-20

19 Or do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and you are not your own?

20 For you were bought at a price; therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God’s.

 

  • Jesus sends His Spirit to dwell in us and fill us completely!
  • We become the temple of the living God.
  • He makes us partakers of God’s divine nature.
  • The Holy Spirit cures us of our iniquity (the underlying condition that causes our shame).
    • He mends our flawed being.
    • He restores us to what God intended for us to be.
  • When God sees us, He looks past the veil of our flesh and sees the image of Jesus!
    • He calls us His chosen ones.
    • He calls us His children.
    • He calls us His beloved.
    • He calls us blameless.
    • He calls us saints.

 

Jesus heals our iniquity! And because our iniquity, our sinful condition, is the underlying cause of our shame, faith in Jesus frees us of our shame!

 

Now, even after we are saved, can and should we still experience feelings of guilt if we act out in our flesh and sin against others?

 

Of course! We must cooperate with the Holy Spirit and make amends when we give into our flesh and cause others harm through sin.

 

But feeling remorse for sin is completely different than being defined by it. Once you are in Christ, your sin cannot and must not define you ever again! Jesus’ work of redemption removes every reason that we should ever experience any shame about who we are in Christ.

 

How does Jesus’ experience with shame apply to us?

Jesus didn’t just die for our sins, He bore our shame by bearing in His body all our iniquities. By His stripes we are healed!

 

Healed of iniquity and freed from sin and shame!

 

 

 

 

CONCLUSION

  • Too many disciples of Jesus are being shut down by feelings of shame.
  • Too many of us are being led to indulge in sins because of feelings of shame.
  • Too many of us are being used by Satan to pile shame on our brothers and sisters in Christ.

 

Today is the day that needs to stop!

 

It is time to stop seeing yourself as just the wretch that God saved and start seeing yourself as the Saint that Jesus has made you to be!

 

Each one of us has a decision to make with regard to feelings of shame.  Are we going to believe the lies about ourselves that cause us to entertain feelings of shame or are we going to believe the truth that Jesus has cured us of iniquity and has born our shame?

 

 

 

INVITATION

Today’s invitation is to call you out of shame by believing that Jesus has already born your sin and shame for you!

 

(SETH KEYS IN G)

 

  • There are some here who have never come to Jesus for forgiveness of sins. You cannot experience freedom from the shame of sin until you’ve experienced Jesus’ forgiveness for sin.
  • There are many here who are living in faith that Jesus has forgiven their sins, but they are not living in faith that Jesus has cured them from iniquity and born their shame.
    • You’ve still seen yourself as a sinner, not a saint.
    • You’re still living like your sin defines you.

 

Jesus did not just die so my sins could be forgiven and I could go to heaven when I die.

 

Close with a time of ministry…

  • Remain seated and focus on this truth…

 

Jesus died bearing my sin and shame!

He has cured me of my iniquity; He has delivered me from my shame!

 

  • I’m going to sing a song of ministry over you. It is a song loaded with truth about what Jesus has done and who you are in Christ.
  • As you listen, listen for the Holy Spirit.
  • When you know your heart is receiving this truth on the screen, stand in honor of Jesus and worship the Lord with me.
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