Jesus & the end of shame

Have you ever been made to feel ashamed for being a Christian?

Perhaps you’ve been frozen out of friendship groups because you expressed an opinion that some in the group found offensive. Perhaps you’ve been overlooked at work because you wouldn’t go along with a sinful workplace culture. Or perhaps – hardest of all – you’ve been shunned or sidelined by your own family, because your Christian lifestyle is a rebuke to the religion or morality of your own flesh and blood.

The author of the letter to the Hebrews in the Bible knew that his recipients were acutely feeling that sense of shame. They had become Christians from a Jewish background and were (probably) living in pagan Rome, making them strangers both to their society and to their own families. It’s perhaps no surprise that some of the church members had started to drift away from Jesus. Some of them had stopped turning up at church so regularly. Some of them had started to doubt even the very basics of their faith. Some of them were wondering whether their old Jewish way of life wasn’t a legitimate way to worship God after all.