Shame Reversed

…you will forget the shame of your youth. Isa. liv. 4.

Naked in shame, we hid in fear,
Cursing the Name we should hold dear,
Exiled by flame, the source whereof
Yet proclaims his steadfast love.

Clothed in our skin, he bore our shame;
Killed for our sin, he rose to claim
Church without wrinkle, mark or spot—
“It is finished”: wondrous thought!

Risen to know his life above,
Where can we go without his love?
Waiting below to share his home:
Even so, Lord Jesus, come.

—7/17/26. To “Surrender” (Enfield). A love song.

Scripture references:

I. Gen. 3:7-8, 12, 24; Ex. 34:6
II. Phil. 2:7; Heb. 12:2; Rom. 4:25; Eph. 5:27; John 19:30
III. Col. 3:1; Ps. 139:7-12 ; Rom. 8:35; John 14:2-3; Rev. 22:20

I didn’t set out to write this. I had a line “‘It is finished’: wondrous thought,” and then I ran across this lovely piece, “Surrender” from Rivers of Mercy by The Enfield Hymn Sessions, a song about which I can find very little:



And then on a sleeplittle night when I realized I could combine them, the rest came about. The middle stanza was composed first. Trying to determine where it might go, I realized it made more sense to figure out where it came from first, so there was lost Eden.

From that moment, a curious thing happened: trying to tease out the Word, it showed itself to be far greater than I had heretofore realized. It will do that; it is one of the great pleasures of writing like this. There is such a parallel between the fallout of the Fall and the circumstances of the Crucifixion. In the Fall, in God’s display of mercy, an animal was killed and its skin became clothing to cover our nakedness, so that we need not hide in the figs. In the Crucifixion, the God-Man, clothed in our skin, was unhidden and uncovered before the world, both his enemies and his mother, our shame his in both the spiritual and the very physical senses. And now we are clothed in his same righteousness (Job 29:14; Rev. 19:8, 14) and long to be further clothed in his glory (2 Cor. 5:4). What a wonderful Savior.

This idea also throws a little extra light into the story of David and Michal in 2 Sam. 6:16-23. David, if you’ll remember, overjoyed that the Ark of the Covenant is coming into the city of his dwelling, dances mightily. His wife Michal, daughter of Saul, despises him and accuses him of lewdness, especially in front of the servant girls. Oh, that I had pearls to clutch. David responds that if God has exalted him so highly, he will be even more lowly before God—I like to paraphrase it, “you will see me get even sillier”—but he will be honored by the same servant girls. God puts a period on it by cursing Michal with barrenness.

Here is the typology: the son of David will follow in his father’s footsteps to be uncovered before the world in humility before God. And the children of pride and of kings will hold him in contempt, but they who are of humble and contrite spirits, we slaves and serving-girls, will hold him in honor. His shame was for us, by it was our atonement made, and we have no honor apart from his. Wow!

Finally, third stanza, where do we go in the journey from shame to honor? Home. The Lord has made it his business to reverse our unfaithfulness, and when he is done, he has promised to marry the pure virgin Church. Amen. Come, Lord Jesus.

---

Originally posted on Substack.