For my morning devotional reading, I have been reading one chapter in the Psalms (if it’s really long, I’ll just read a page) and also a chapter or a few in the Old Testament. I’m currently using the Orthodox Study Bible, and today I was in Psalm 83 and Leviticus 4 – which I was stuck on for a bit.
The part in Psalm 83 that stood out to me was in verse 12 that says “For Yahweh God loves mercy and truth”. This part stands out to me because it seems that mercy and truth go together – they are not polar opposites. Yet, in many Christian circles, they seem like polar opposites, or on the other end, they equate the two. Mercy and compassion actually go hand in hand, thus for truth and mercy to go well together, the binding ingredient is relationship or a moving towards. Yahweh loves mercy and truth because of his relationship with us. That all to say, as we are made in the image of God as well, if there is no trusting and safe relationship, then expressing things truthfully or in love is actually near impossible.
Leviticus 4 is all about sin offerings, more specifically, for sins done involuntarily. The first sin offering is for someone who sinned involuntarily and the offering is started within the temple and then completed outside of the temple. The second sin offering is a communal, involuntary sin offering started within the temple and then also completed outside the temple. Finally, the third sin offering is an involuntary sin offering brought to light, and seems to be one of the rare offerings where a female animal offering is offered – and this offering is fully done within the the temple.
I have been stuck on this passage because I have been thinking of the significance of Jesus’ dying strongly reflecting that of the first two sin offerings – involuntary individual and communal ones started within the temple (i.e., in Jesus’ case, within Jerusalem) and then completed outside the temple (i.e., in Jesus’ case, at Golgotha). Personally, I feel like the fact that Jesus’ sin offering reflects that of an offering for individual and communal sin done involuntarily says a lot about trauma and shame.
A Merriam-Webster dictionary definition of the word ‘involuntary’ is:
- done contrary to and without choice; and
- not subject to control of the will
I have yet to find the best working definition of trauma, but the way that I have begun to understand it is that it is a wound resulting from feeling alone/unseen/unheard/abandoned/neglected after a distressing or disturbing experience. Ultimately, something in relationship is not met during a difficult moment – or it is perceived that something is not met (which is as equally as impactful because of how embodied our feelings are as God made us to be). For someone who is traumatized and doing harmful or ‘bad’ things, all they really know is that they want to do those things, that they are aware of doing them, and/or that they do them because they believe they are ‘inherently bad/wicked/evil’. But all of that only scratches the surface of our humanity, and does not honor the story of how God created all humans to be made in His image.
In psychology, behavior is only the tip of the iceberg. This doesn’t mean that people should not be held accountable for their actions and that people are excused from restoration, but it does mean that the behavior itself does not say much about a person or how they are designed to be wired. Being described as evil or wicked is not an ultimatum in describing someone’s hurtful/harmful behavior. Behind all brokenness and evil is trauma driving it – and trauma is a relational wound perpetuated by shame. In the words of Christian psychologist, Curt Thompson, from his book The Soul of Shame:
“Our vulnerability, ultimately to potential abandonment (of which shame is the herald), is simultaneously both the source of all that is broken in our world as well as its redemption.”
Curt Thompson | The Soul of Shame
more importantly, also:
…the primal emotional evocation of shame, from which proceeds all that we call sin, emerges. And all sin, all idolatry, all coping strategies in which I indulge are ways for me to satiate my hunger for relationship, my longing to be known and loved, my desire to be desired.
Curt Thompson | The Soul of Shame
As I was further processing this, I realized some of Jesus’ last words on the cross alluded to Leviticus’ laws of (involuntary) sin offerings. At one point, Jesus says:
“Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do”
Luke 23:24
They know not what they do. Jesus knew that these people were consciously aware that they were killing Him, but subconsciously, they did not know why they were doing what they were doing because whatever reason they could muster up would have not been true. One could argue that this is more ignorant sin through their own free will, but as shame/trauma are the drivers behind evil, and as John Crowder has mentioned it – is our will really free at that point then? If we are already born into a world of shame, suffering, and trauma, how free is our will and our decision-making process? In other words, is our will really voluntary all the time? As we are made in the image of God, is it the best of our will doing sinful things or the worst of our will doing sinful things?
Plus, why, of all the offerings, does the process of Jesus’ death and crucifixion reflect that of involuntarily sin per Leviticus so evidently? And if Jesus came to redeem us, doesn’t that already mean that worst of our will never belonged there to begin with?
Anyways, my motive for sharing this is to shed light on how sin is not as black and white as many in Christian circles have grown up in, including myself. I don’t deny the fact that there is horrendous evil and sin. Yet also, as John Mark Comer has said, “We are loved into loving”. As that is true, the opposite holds true as well – that we are hurt into hurting, and it is far more helpful to view evil in this light as Jesus does, the One who had the mission of healing our hurts.
the heart as it is | courage • grief • beauty 