When Shame Steals Your Name
@audreycfrank
And Jesus asked him, “What is your name?” He replied, “My name is Legion, for we are many.” Mark 5:9
“What’s your name?” the kind man in the appliance department asked my eighteen-month-old daughter. Blonde curls framing her dimpled face, she looked up at him through big blue eyes and answered, “
Fweetie was her version of the name we always called her: Sweetie.
She knew who she was, dear to her father and me, no matter how she pronounced it.
Not everyone knows how precious they are to their Father in heaven.
Too many of his children when asked their names respond with lies they have been forced to believe about themselves. Lies like Rejected, Ugly, or Unloved. Shame has forced them into isolation and stolen their true names. Names like Beautiful, Beloved, and Accepted.
Shame itself has many names in the Bible. One common name is unclean. Unclean is another word for dirty, a synonym for shame. Clean, on the other hand, is another word for honor. A persistent theme throughout the Old and New Testaments
Honor was God’s original intention for you and me.
In Mark 5, one of the New Testament’s great honor-shame chapters, Jesus meets a man described in verse 2 as having an “unclean spirit”. The man pitifully illustrates the extent of shame’s destruction in a human life, the robbery of one’s intended identity.
When Jesus found him, he was living in tombs carved into the mountainside. He had lost his family and his home. He dwelled among the place of the dead. Shame robs relationships and wrecks homes. The tombs were a fitting place for one who probably felt dead inside.
No one could come near him. Strong and violent, he resisted everyone who tried to subdue him. People of the area were afraid of him. Shame isolates, causing its bearer to push others away. Help is often rejected and eventually, even friends may shrink away, afraid and not sure what to do.
As the man wandered alone among the tombs and surrounding mountains day and night, he cried aloud and cut himself with stones. Cutting, as it is flippantly called among many teens today, has been one of shame’s punishments for millennia. According to the Cornell University Research Program on Self-Injury and Recovery, an estimated 17/2% of adolescents, 13.4% of young adults, and 5.5% of adults self-injure. These stats are disturbing evidence that shame is still on the rampage in our culture today.
The man in the tombs did not even know who he was when asked his name. The dark forces of shame and evil that controlled his life had taken over and stolen his identity. When asked his name, the only name he knew was the name shame had given him.
“My name is Legion. For we are many” (verse 9).
It’s too much for me. I am outnumbered, overwhelmed, defeated.
Spiritually unclean, emotionally devastated, physically filthy, mentally fragmented, and socially exiled, the man with an unclean spirit lived a life eclipsed by shame. His true identity as one loved and valued by God was hidden from his own view.
Nothing is hidden from the Savior. He seeks us in our tombs with the intention to heal us. He knows every cut and scar on our bodies and souls. His healing pervades every part of us touched by #shame. #self-injury #depression Share on XHe knows who we really are, and He comes to give us the beautiful name we were always meant to have.
The One who abolished shame forever was promised in Isaiah 61 in these glorious words:
He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom to the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners… Instead of their shame, my people will receive a double portion, and instead of disgrace, they will rejoice in their inheritance… (verses 1,7).
And here in Mark’s account, we see Him, sitting with a captive who he has set free.
And people came to see what it was that had happened. And they came to Jesus and saw the demon-possessed man, the one who had had the legion, sitting there clothed and in his right mind (v. 15).
The man who once wandered naked and deranged in desolate places encountered Jesus and he was completely transformed. The Gospels do not tell us his real name, but I believe that in those quiet hours sitting with Jesus he learned who he was meant to be all along. Loved, whole, accepted. And perhaps it is more profound that we don’t know his real name, for some secrets are so personal and precious they are meant to remain between the Lord and his beloved child.
There are two profound promises here for every person suffering from shame.
You do not have to be controlled by shame.
Jesus has come to set you free from shame forever. Dirty can be exchanged for clean. Shame can be exchanged for honor. When you yield to Jesus as the Lord of your life, you become clean in every way: spiritually, emotionally, mentally, and physically. Like a man sitting calmly in new, clean clothes, you can be completely renewed.
Your mind and emotions can be restored.
There is no damage so complete it cannot be healed by the Savior. When you encounter Jesus, the lies that have twisted your mind for so long will be replaced with truth. The truest things about you are what God says about you, and when you know this truth, you will be set free from shame and given a “right mind”.
What is your name, dear reader? Has shame whispered to you for so long you now believe a lie about who you are? There is good news. The Lord is making his way to your tombs to find you. Jesus knows you by name. He will restore to you what shame has stolen. Trust him today.
Jesus, set me free from the shame that has robbed me of so much in my life. Restore me and make me whole. Amen.
If you want to learn more about how Jesus removes our shame, giving honor instead, read Covered Glory, available here for pre-order now.
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