Valley of Humiliation and Shame

Midweek Lent 1, John 18:1 & II Sam. 15:23 & 30

Tonight we go with King David as he escaped the rebellion led by his son Absalom. With weeping and lamentation, David and his supporters descended into the Kidron Valley and crossed Brook Kidron, just to the east of Jerusalem. Left behind were the palace and the Ark of the Covenant. Abandoned were all the perks, power and privilege that were his as king. David was once more a fugitive as he was during Saul’s reign. As far as his son Absalom was concerned, his father was ready for the garbage heap of history. The text reports David went into the wilderness walking barefoot, his head covered. David was also descending into spiritual depths. Psalm three David’s feeling, “O Lord, how many are my foes! How many rise up against me! How many are saying of me, ’God will not deliver him.’”

The Brook Kidron, which at times ran with water, David and his supporters now filled with tears as they descended in mourning, humiliation and shame. Have you ever been in the valley of humiliation and shame?

The valley of humiliation and shame is the valley of nakedness in which we look at ourselves and see no good thing. We see ourselves as the mistake, not just making mistakes. We have no worth in the valley. Remember that statement from a few years ago, “God doesn’t make junk?” In the valley of shame and humiliation, I believe God does make junk and I am the junk. It is the valley strewn with the boulders of “oughts” and “shoulds.” The person with a drinking problem knows this valley and so does the family. The person who has been physically, sexually, verbally abused walks in this valley. The person who experiences failure in his or her life is familiar with this valley. In this valley, the walker sees himself as the fault, not just at fault. We may not have put ourselves there, but we believe we belong there, and there is no way out.

God may not even exist in this valley. If God does exist, God only condemns. Even the wonderful verse, “God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whoever believes in him will not perish but have everlasting life.” does not apply. The person in the valley of humiliation and shame says, “God may love the world, but that doesn’t include me. Whoever believes in this Son may be saved, but I am not one of those “whoevers.”

By any other name, this is the valley of sin. God created us with eyes directed at Him and hands outstretched to His creation. When we turn our eyes from God to ourselves, we become self-conscious rather than God conscious. We withdraw our hands from the neighbor to protect and warm ourselves. Adam and Eve discovered they were naked when they looked from God to themselves. They discovered they were in the valley of humiliation and shame. They needed something to cover their shame. They began to blame each other because they were conscious of themselves and needed to protect themselves from the other one.

In the valley of humiliation and shame, we see only ourselves. Our failures keep mounting higher and higher. Yet, we do not want to ask for help. We fool ourselves, lie to ourselves, and deny to ourselves the possibility that there is any help. Sin has such a strong hold on us that though we know we cannot help ourselves, we still insist on clinging to ourselves. In fact we may not want to leave that valley because it’s the only life we know. Think of hugging yourself and never letting go. Walking would be impaired, as would eating. No one could hug you nor would you be able hug anyone in return. To maintain that kind of grip on yourself would use up enormous energy and concentration.

However, though David descended into the Kidron Valley in humiliation and shame, he did not remain there. With repentance, he and his people made their way out and up to the Mt. of Olives. On the Mount of Olives, even when David heard that his trusted advisor had gone over to Absalom’s side, he turned to God. He continued on his way toward the wilderness and came to a place where God was worshipped. You see there is no place, where God is not. There is no despair where God has not been. There is no shame that God does not understand. Where has God experienced such things?

Nearly a thousand years after David made this journey, another of God’s anointed ones, Jesus, followed literally in his footsteps. We read in John 18:1, “When Jesus had spoken these words; he went forth with his disciples across the Kidron Valley, where there was a garden.” Here the very Holy One entered into the valley of humiliation and shame. In the intervening years between David and Jesus, the Kidron Valley had become a site for dumping garbage. There the prophets and reforming kings had dumped and burned the idols that Israel was forever bringing into the temple. The priests flushed the blood of the animals sacrificed in the temple into the Kidron brook. When Jesus walked in that valley his eyes saw and his nostrils smelled the garbage. It was a reminder of all the sins and all the humiliation and shame that you and I and all humanity have experienced. It was a painful reminder of the humiliation and shame he would suffer at his trial and crucifixion. John the Baptist had said of him, “Behold the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.” Soon his blood would run. Soon it would be his body humiliated as he hung naked on the cross.

The prophet Jeremiah, who lived during one of Israel’s darkest hours, 600 years before Christ spoke of a day that would come when God would make a new covenant with his people. God would forgive his people and not remember their sin anymore.

Through Jesus suffering, he took upon himself our shame. In its place he gives us life and removes from us all that we might use to condemn ourselves let alone that which God would use to condemn us. As Paul writes to the Romans, “The one who trusts in him will never be put to shame.” God replaces humiliation with exaltation with Christ. Christ gives us his worthiness in place of our shame. We are not junk, but God’s treasured possession.

In our walk of faith, God assures us that when we enter into our spiritual valley of Kidron, God goes with us. Like David and because of Jesus God has anointed us too, in the word and water of baptism. Christ gives us the power to walk, through the valley of such spiritual death and to emerge on the other side with life, hope and salvation.