Shattered

“Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus …” 

Romans 8:1 heralds a gift seemingly too good to be true for all who struggle within the tangle of our own shame. No condemnation? Can that be real?!? We believe, in principle, that God forgives. We find ourselves celebrating without reservation the grace He extends to others. But when it comes to our sin, our transgressions … we somehow suspect we fall outside the reach of His mercy.

If we could only, for a moment, look beyond ourselves and see the schemes of the enemy who means to drag us endlessly through the muck of our own failures … this is not of God! His heart is never to crush His beloved, but to heal and redeem. He offers full redemption, taking the penalty for both guilt and shame. “But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was on him, and by his wounds we are healed” (Isaiah 53:5).

I was reminded today of a nameless woman’s encounter with Jesus. Her guilt was very real; her sin could not be denied. Yet when she met the Savior, His simple words and actions convinced her that she truly could begin again. I have read this account so many times, I can close my eyes and instantly feel her heart thudding inside my chest. I know well the voice of her Accuser: the same ageless serpent hisses in my own ear.

Still, when the shame drips the thickest, I have only to look up into the eyes of One who speaks my true name, and it falls away like a discarded cloak. And now … will I step out of it, leave it behind? Will I truly believe it is mine no longer, that repentance and belief are freedom enough? The choice is mine, and one I find myself needing to make, again and again, every time the Accuser threatens. It’s not mine anymore … look to Jesus. Mine was the sin, the fall, the guilt; His is the punishment, the penalty, and the restoration. 

Step with me into her soiled slippers — you’ve stood there before, as have I — and gaze into the eyes of One who waits to exchange our sorrow for His peace.

~*~

“How did I let it get this far?”

It’s a question with no answer.

One step, one choice, one failed attempt. And another. And one more.

One flattering tongue heeded.

One whispered pledge believed.

One chance to dull the pain, mute the sorrow, drain the wound.

One last hope to fill the aching, throbbing emptiness …

Shattered.

It was not supposed to come to this.

How did they find me here? How did they know?

The bleeding blackness of my wretched soul must have given off its scent in signal, exposing my shameful nakedness for all to see …

… and me – clutching rumpled bedclothes like tattered mourning rags, cloaking my grief before the hostile glares of my executioners.

No need have I to tear my hair in my distress – they do it for me … ripping, wrenching, dragging me from my pit of darkness through the unforgiving streets, parading my disgrace to prop their righteousness.

Hauled into their court of law and forced to stand before them all – the end surely near, but I am resolved: not a single tear will they squeeze from this heart of stone. My tears are my own, and I will not waste them here.

Perplexing judge – His garments mark him peasant, not priest. Surely all within and without hear their bellowed accusations, the shameful litany of my crimes, my history, reduced to a single shout of strangled venom.

But He upon whom all eyes are fixed appears unconcerned. Unmoved by pompous posturing He moves to kneel and write – a sentence that will bring the gavel down? But no – He stands again, unflustered by their questioning, at ease amidst their blustering, and addresses my accusers: “Have you no sin? Then, by all means …”

He waits not for their answer; indeed, seems to expect none, but kneels again to write. Perhaps you’ll think me odd if I should claim the hand of God then wrote His name across my heart …

… this barren, dry and dusty thing, riddled with cracks and holes and patches clumsily applied to hide – or try – its scarred appearance. Not till then had I noticed, had never seen my heart’s own resemblance to the parched ground on which He knelt – to calculate my penance?

No. To unleash my soul’s repentance.

One by one, my would-be judges slunk away, back to their holes, to scheme and plot for another day – or at best, to grow wiser in their humbling – until He alone remained.

And I – in my rags exposed, standing still on feeble legs, wondering if I should run or beg, flee or plead – Oh God! What do I need to cloak my sin in oblivion? Have I any hope left to erase all the pain, to shed all the blame?

But the look on His face stilled the questions in my throat; then He asked one.

“Woman, where have they gone?”

The self-righteous had fled, though they would have been well within their rights to rip the stone from within my chest and with it, crush my head.

“Is no one left to condemn?”

No charge, no shame, He seemed to imply, but went further still: “Beloved, neither do I.”

With a reeling gasp I felt the knell of pardon strike my heart within its shell, which shuddered, trembled, shook and fell, till all the hardened, layered defenses lay harmless in the dust –

shattered.

But, oh! My filthy, tattered rags, disheveled hair, and stumbling legs … The tears fell then, no longer dammed by layers of rock, and shame, and sin.

Then drawing near, He touched my face and pulled me close in chaste embrace, and whispered words of my release, to grant me freedom, hope and peace:

“Go now, and leave your life of sin.”

I knew then that I’d entered in to life more rich and full and free than ever yet I’d known.

And when I left that place, still clothed in rags yet shining, surely, by His grace, I walked the streets with head held high.

Humbled, healed, stripped of pride – it’s

– shattered –

and I am boldly redeemed.

~ Drawn from John 8:1-11 … and life ~