Since our earliest story of the Garden, people have been wanting to hide. Much of our individual behavior and social interaction with others is an elaborate dance of hiding and covering. Some of this may not be unhealthy—it may reflect an appropriate modesty. In fact, many bemoan the crass, in-your-face aspects of our society as “having no shame.” I am beginning to recognize, however, that a sense of shame is everywhere around us (and in me), and that attempts to save ourselves from it can be disastrous for our spirits. Shame’s disguises are as myriad as its causes, and I wonder if even “shamelessness” can be a perverse covering for the mess inside. I know this: for the poor, the abandoned, and powerless among us—those on the fringes of society—shame is a constant companion.

Spiritual “lostness” is sometimes painted as a matter of arrogant pride and willful disobedience, for which the path to salvation is confession and repentance. While representing essential steps on our spiritual journey, I have not found this to be the most compelling or healing biblical storyline for chronically shamed people. My friend groaning in the car is far from arrogant and willful. He would long for such a sense of self! Yes, it can be a relief to confess wrong actions. Since guilt and shame are so often intertwined, genuine forgiveness can be part of the healing process for wounded people. But confession is seldom enough, and at times even inappropriate. So often I have heard people “confess” things for which they are not responsible, but about which they are deeply ashamed. Sometimes even the act of confession leads to more frightening exposure and deeper shame.

I should say clearly here that I am speaking not as a skilled therapist (I would welcome insights from any of you who are), but rather as one simply trying to “apply the Bible to life” as I was brought up in Sunday School to do. I do believe the Word of God is a healing, life-giving word. I want to connect God’s story to my own, and to those neighbors whom I seek to love as myself. Maybe more importantly, I long to connect our stories to his.

Here’s what I’m exploring, and starting to find helpful for myself and others: the meaty, incarnational story of God-with-us that begins with creation, culminates in the cross, and ends with God’s ultimate embrace of his people to himself. It’s a long story. As Benny Nowell pointed out so well in his post, The Power and the Story, our own stories are long stories. The story of our cleansing may be long as well; shame’s stain is deeply imbedded. Can we discover a shared connection between our own shameful stories and the story of our wounded healer, Jesus?

I am writing this over Good Friday – Holy Saturday – Easter weekend, which as it happens, represents the “crux” of our salvation story. I cannot begin to retell it here, but you may have been reflecting on the passion of the Christ during Lent and Holy Week. I have been re-reading this story (and others in the Bible) through the lens of humanity’s shame, rather than my usual lens of humanity’s guilt. Can I suggest you try doing the same?

Reading in this way requires imagination, which is the faculty which allows us to live into stories and let them live into us. Try reading the story again, with an eye out for both the ways people might have covered their inner shame and shame others.

Take Judas, for example (he’s getting press these days). Wander inside his mind—and even further, inside his emotions, inside his shame. Maybe you think you’ve got him figured out. Think again, and imagine again. Read the story of the Last Supper. Move around the circle, stopping for awhile inside each character. Our Master is giving us all his body. Us all! His chosen ones, his beloved. He is telling us one will betray him. Is it I? All of us ask! All of us wonder. All of us have secrets even from ourselves—hidden stains we suspect and fear and loathe. Will we be exposed? No! We will follow even unto death! “What you are about to do, do quickly.” Relief. Out into the night. But before the cock crows, shame of such gut-spilling rawness that it can no longer possibly be covered.

Only healed.

Healed, not by leaves and skins of our own fashioning, but by One who knows our shame precisely by sharing our shame. To be known by another—our deepest fear, our deepest longing—becomes not our rejection but our embrace. We remember: he shared our flesh, and invited us to eat his. The stories merge. At-one-ment, atonement, salvation. It is the story of God, whose image we bear: the shame, the honor, the dying, the rising. By living into this story, we can know the glory of being human because we have known the glory of God.

None of this means a quick fix for my friend in the car, or for me. The healing may be painful and long. But the story will be longer, if there’s any truth to the morning’s good news: He is risen. Let’s see.