The Antidote to Shame
Most mornings it's my job to get the kids out the door and onto the bus. One recent morning was hard — we were all tired, running late, and I was unreasonable with them. I said things I shouldn't have, in ways I shouldn't have, and made at least one of my kids sad and squashed. We made the bus, but I felt bad almost all day. What I felt was shame — and part of what made it worse was the thought: what if someone had seen? When we're ashamed, we'd rather the thing stayed in the dark where no one could see. You know that feeling too. So here's a question: what's the opposite of shame, and what actually makes it go away?
Not pride, not humility
One popular answer runs like this: "Pride is not the opposite of shame, but its source. True humility is the only antidote." It's a striking thought. Pride and shame are two sides of one coin — we're proud of something, and when we lose it, we feel shame. So the cure, it suggests, is humility: be less concerned with yourself and you escape both. There's wisdom there. But it's a strategy for avoiding shame. It doesn't deal with the shame I already have — perhaps the shame I actually deserve. Do I just forgive myself and move on? That might work for me. But what if I've hurt you? Humility isn't enough when the shame is real.
From pride to shame
As we read Isaiah 3–4, we watch a whole people carried from enormous pride into abject shame — shame they've brought on themselves. Following the judgment already pronounced in chapters 1 and 2, God now strips away everything they lean on: not just food and water, but the leadership they take such pride in. "I will make mere youths their officials; children will rule over them." Where leadership collapses, people give in to their appetites, and they grow so desperate they'll grab anyone: "You have a cloak, you be our leader; take charge of this heap of ruins!" The picture darkens — "they parade their sin like Sodom; they do not hide it" — and the judgment turns to those who sought their worth in beauty and status, about to lose it all as enemies invade. This isn't a condemnation of leadership or beauty. It's a portrait of a people who have lost their anchor, finding their value everywhere except in God, and crushing others to get ahead.
Grasping at everyone but God
What strikes me most is that even at their lowest, they don't turn to God for rescue. They keep grasping at each other to do what only God can. The women take hold of any man: "only let us be called by your name. Take away our disgrace!" The people meant to be called by God's name are looking everywhere else, saying to one another "take away my disgrace" — as if they could. And it's worth asking where we go when shame hits. Do we forget it, run from it, self-medicate, doom-scroll it into oblivion? Or do we embrace it — decide the thing was never shameful, that everyone else is wrong, and find people who'll affirm it? It's remarkable how often someone stepping back from their faith is, at the same time, stepping into something at odds with it. If I want this thing, the faith part must be wrong.
Run toward, not away
We feel shame most sharply when confronted by the people we've let down — or the God we've disobeyed. So we withdraw. The singer Marcus Mumford, a pastor's kid, once wrote that "the shame that led me off from the God that I once loved was the same that led me into your arms." That's the instinct exactly: hide from God, look elsewhere for acceptance. But God says the opposite. If you want the antidote to shame, come to me — don't run away. You want it gone, not just ignored or embraced, and you can't get that anywhere else. So he promises a day of healing: the stump will sprout a branch, fruitful and glorious; the survivors will be called holy; God himself will wash away their filth. The imagery reaches back to the glory days — the cloud and fire that led them through the wilderness — as "a shelter and shade... a refuge and hiding place from the storm." No one wants their restoration more than their Father.
The antidote is Jesus
It's counter-intuitive to run toward the person you've wronged; we'd rather bury it and hide. But the antidote to shame isn't rebuilding our pride. Remember that quote — the cure is humility? I agree, but not in the way it meant. True humility isn't something we work up in ourselves; we find it only in Jesus. He is true humility. God didn't look down on our shame from a safe distance. While we ran from him, he ran after us. Jesus climbs right into the muck alongside us — born in shameful circumstances to an unwed young woman in the middle of nowhere, wrongfully accused, beaten, and stretched naked on a Roman cross. "Cursed is anyone hung on a tree," the Scriptures say — and Jesus took that curse, and that shame, on the cross. So it's not so crazy to run to God in your deepest shame. Whatever your fall from grace, it doesn't come near the shame the Son of God endured for you. And he offers more than empathy: every shameful spot, every rebellion — give it to me, he says, and I'll deal with it, so you don't have to carry it. He takes the shame, puts it to death, and returns to glory — saying, join me here. The writer of Hebrews urges us to fix our eyes on Jesus, "who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame." He scorned it — and now says: it is nothing. Shame is disarmed. The viper has no teeth. It's not your humility that will save you, says Jesus. It's mine. So where, honestly, do you most need to stop hiding — and run toward him instead?
This post is adapted from a sermon preached by Murray Colville at St Hilda's Anglican Church Katoomba on Isaiah 3–4, as part of our TrustWorthy series through Isaiah. Visit us at www.katoomba.church.
