“Bryan, write down this truth” ….
“ I can never be an embarrassment to God”
I had shared that there was a moment in my life when these words were spoke at me. Words have power you know…. that little diddy we would say as kids ‘sticks and stones may break my bones but names can never hurt me….
“but no human being can tame the tongue.
It is a restless evil, full of deadly poison. “
James 3:8
The word for “deadly” in the original Biblical Greek for all you other Bible freaks is θανατηφόρος (thanatēphoros), meaning bringing or causing death, deadly, fatal. Not “mostly dead”. While he is not saying that if you speak a curse over a person they will fall dead, but rather is using language to show the degree of severity.
I don’t need to tell you all my junk and I don’t need to hear yours but I think there are very few who can say that they have not done things that they would not want broadcast on the Jumbotron.
so why is it true that I could never embarrass God?
because he endured more than I ever could…
The soldiers led Jesus away into the palace (that is, the Praetorium) and called together the whole company of soldiers. They put a purple robe on him, then twisted together a crown of thorns and set it on him.
Now the men who held Jesus mocked Him and beat Him. And having blindfolded Him, they struck Him on the face and asked Him, saying, “Prophesy! Who is the one who struck You?” And many other things they blasphemously spoke against Him.
And they began to call out to him, “Hail, king of the Jews!” Again and again they struck him on the head with a staff and spit on him. Falling on their knees, they paid homage to him.
And when they had mocked him, they took off the purple robe and put his own clothes on him.
Then they led him out to crucify him.
When they had crucified him, they divided up his clothes by casting lots. They took his clothes, dividing them into four shares, one for each of them, with the undergarment remaining. This garment was seamless, woven in one piece from top to bottom. “Let’s not tear it,” they said to one another. “Let’s decide by lot who will get it.”
The people stood watching, and the rulers even sneered at him. They said, “He saved others; let him save himself if he is God’s Messiah, the Chosen One.”
The soldiers also came up and mocked him. They offered him wine vinegar and said, “If you are the king of the Jews, save yourself.”There was a written notice above him, which read: this is the king of the jews.
One of the criminals who hung there hurled insults at him: “Aren’t you the Messiah? Save yourself and us!”
But the other criminal rebuked him. “Don’t you fear God,” he said, “since you are under the same sentence? We are punished justly, for we are getting what our deeds deserve.
But this man has done nothing wrong.”
(The Crucifiction as told by Matthew, Mark, Luke and John)
Do you see it now?
Jesus was humiliated. in the eyes of men. They took his everything, right down to his undergarment and hung him naked on the cross.
For me, and for you.
I can never be an embarrassment to God because he endured every embarrassment for me.
So happy Sunday, “Humiliation Day”, the day we recall the depths Jesus went to to bring us up to the highest places.