TEXT: Luke 18:31-34

SUBJECT: Luke #70: Choosing Humiliation

Humiliation.

If there’s a more painful experience in life, I don’t know what it is. Embarrassment makes you blush for a few minutes, but you joke about it later. There’s no humor in humiliation. Disgrace is not funny; being put to shame is no laughing matter.

Every humiliation is bad, but the public ones hurt most. Because everyone knows about it, you can’t get away from the shame. You’re uneasy at home, worried in school, scared at work, not even church is a comfortable place for you anymore. Everyone knows your shame. Even the people who don’t, seem to. The funny look she gave you makes you wonder; the half smile you saw on his face must have been at your expense. There’s no place to hide for the man in disgrace.

Benedict Arnold sold his country and betrayed the brave men who trusted him. After the war, he moved to England where he lived in wealthy isolation. Wealthy because he was paid well for his treachery, but also in isolation because even the people he worked for despised him as a traitor. Money could not heal the wound of humiliation.

There are many kinds of pain in life, and shame is the worst of them all. If you had the choice, would you ever choose to be looked down on or laughed at?

Of course you wouldn’t--nobody would.

But one Man did. And unlike you and me, He had the choice. He could have chosen glory and praise. But He didn’t: He preferred shame and ridicule.

The Man is our Lord Jesus Christ. And His choice is what today’s sermon is about.

At this time in His life, Jesus Christ is a celebrity. He wasn’t born that way, of course; He grew up poor and in obscurity. But at the age of thirty, He was introduced to the nation as The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. From that day on, He commanded a large and growing fan base. Every day, many thousands came to Him and went away singing His praises and increasing His popularity.

The Lord, however, was not just a celebrity—a Man famous for being famous. No, He was a serious Man, one who had a claim on the Throne of Israel and a large following to support Him in making it. More than once, the people proclaimed Him king and tried to force a crown onto His head.

They were not fooling around either, for the most powerful men in Israel took the Lord seriously. He was not a violent man, of course, and had no army, yet King Herod feared Him and so did the Jewish Council—and even Pontius Pilate who had the Roman legions behind him!

He had glory and power at His fingertips. But He reached for Something Else.

The disciples thought He was going to Jerusalem to do some great thing—and they were right about that! But it wasn’t the great thing they were looking for. They were thinking, crown, but He was thinking, Cross.

Right in the middle of His amazing works, the Lord pulled His disciples aside for a little private tutoring. It wasn’t easy to find a quiet moment, but when He did, He told them:

At this point, the disciples must have been delighted: at last! The Lord, who had been so humble and unassuming, was going to take His place among the mighty—or above the mighty, I should say!

They knew the old stories: God had long spoken of the Messiah and the wonders of His kingdom. Just think: in a few days Peter would be a Governor, James a Senator, and Judas the Minister of Finance!

But the sermon is not quite over. The prophecies will be fulfilled, but not the ones the disciples have in mind.

Without ignoring the other parts of His suffering, Luke is emphasizing the humiliation of it all.

Delivered to the Gentiles. A clean man put into the hands of dirty men. A son of the Law standing under the authority of Roman Law. Israel was a free people and Gentiles over them put the whole nation to shame: and now, one Man stands in place of the whole nation in judgment. This is humiliation.

Mocked and insulted and spit upon. Think of Pilate’s men and their mock worship. They bowed the knee to Him and cried, Hail, King of the Jews! They crowned Him with thorns to symbolize the happiness of His reign. The put a bag over His head and punched Him in the face and said, If you’re a prophet, tell us who hit You! Pilate himself joined the mockery by nailing a sign over His head, This is the King of the Jews.

The Romans weren’t alone in their ridicule. The Jews—when given a choice—preferred a murderer to go free to their king. When He was on the cross, they even quoted Bible verses against Him:

The sarcasm is dripping all over the place. Obviously—they say—God does not delight Him for if He did He would save Him from the cross—which He did not do!

Even the men who died alongside Him added to the humiliation—If you’re the Christ save Yourself and us too!

When they ran out of obscenities, they used their dirty mouths to spit on Him!

Scourge Him and put Him to death. Then they got really nasty! They beat him like a common thief and crucified Him as though He had committed a capital offense.

The Romans crucified men, of course, but they didn’t have a good conscience about it: they were ashamed of themselves—it seems—that they would do such a vile thing to a man. The Latin word for cross was not used in polite conversation. It was a four letter word to the Romans. Thus, it didn’t just kill people (who may deserve to die), but it humiliated them and no decent man can approve of that.

But in Israel, death by crucifixion had a second meaning. It wasn’t only disgraceful, it was a cursed way to die. Deuteronomy 21:22-23 says

This is how the Jews of the First Century viewed a crucifixion—Paul says so in Galatians 3.

The disciples must not look for welcome in their capital city. Jerusalem had always persecuted and killed the prophets who recalled them to God, and now, they’re going to fill up the measure of their fathers’ guilt.

Things will get worse before they get better.

But they will get better, for after suffering every shame they could heap on Him,

The incredible shame our Lord suffers will be more than made up for! The honor He receives will outweigh the insults He bore. Not by two to one of ten to one, but by infinity! As low as He went in suffering and death, He was exalted far higher in His resurrection!

When the disciples heard all this, they had no idea of what the Lord was saying. Luke hammers away on this point: in three different ways, he says they didn’t get it,

How do we explain this?

The Lord sometimes used figures of speech and some of them are hard to interpret. But He’s not doing that here! He’s speaking matter-of-factly. He tells them what’s going to happen to Him in the next few day—with all the gory details.

The Apostles were not deaf or stupid or unacquainted with the Bible. They read the same Old Testament we do. They knew Psalm 22, Isaiah 53, and other prophecies as well as we do—better, in some ways.

Their problem was not a matter of stupidity or unbelief, but of time—of when they lived. It’s all clear to us because we live after the fact of the Lord’s resurrection. They lived before the fact—and no one in those days—not even John the Baptist—could fit the prophecies together, the prophecies that allow One Man to be both the Suffering Servant who dies for His people and the Conquering King who lives for them!

That’s what the Lord is saying: I’m all of these things! I’m the Lamb and the Lion, the servant and the king, I’m an ordinary Man and the Only True God.

With the lesson we’ve come full circle. There’s no pain like the pain of humiliation—of being disgraced, laughed at, looked down on, despised. Jesus Christ knew all about this pain—He had suffered it His whole life long.

And when it came to a head, He chose to accept it—to be mocked and insulted, spit upon and scourged, and to hang naked from a cross. He chose all these indecencies to save you from an indecent life, an indecent death, and the Second Death which is the most indecent thing of all. II Corinthians 8:9 cannot be quoted too often:

This means we ought to love and admire the Lord Jesus Christ. A man might suffer a lot for his friend, but we he accept the total loss of his dignity? Would he allow himself to be stripped of all respect to help his friend? I don’t know if I would or you would or anyone else would do that. But I know Christ did! And we ought to love and admire Him for it.

This means we ought to not think too highly of ourselves. Self-respect is a healthy thing—there’s a place for that in the Christian life. But a lot of what we call, self-respect, is nothing but pride. When someone speaks unkindly to you, you ought to overlook it when you can and forgive it when you can’t. What’s the big deal of insulting me? If God Himself took the insults of men, who am I too be too dignified to take some myself?

This means we ought to be thankful to suffer shame for Christ’s sake. For our own sake, there’s no credit in insults. But to be despised and laughed at for the Lord’s sake, there’s real dignity in that. If He suffered ridicule for us, we can suffer some for Him. With hope:

God bless you everyone. For Christ’s sake.