The Christmas Story and the Scandal-Filled Life of Jesus

The Christmas Story

Allen Snapp

Grace Community Church

Dec. 19, 2021

The Christmas Story and the Scandal-Filled Life of Jesus

It seems like it’s hard to pick up the newspaper today without reading about some new scandal. Scandal is everywhere – no demographic is free of scandal. We read about scandals among politicians (Republicans, Democrats, and Independents), and scandals in Hollywood. High powered CEO’s have had to step down in disgrace due to scandal. Journalists have sabotaged their careers with scandal. The Olympic games have been tainted with scandal. The church hasn’t been exempt from scandal in both the Catholic church and among Protestant churches and denominations.

Have I missed anyone? Scandal can be found in every demographic and at every level of society. That’s probably not new. What is new is the level of exposure scandal can receive. Years ago, if you found yourself embroiled in a scandal, your whole town knew it. Now, with social media, the whole world will know it.

Merriam Webster defines the word scandal as an action or conduct that offends propriety and disgraces those associated with it, causes loss or damage to one’s reputation or involves malicious or defamatory gossip. A word that comes to mind when I think about scandal is shame. People caught in a scandal are publicly shamed. Families of those caught up in scandal feel the weight of that shame even though they did nothing wrong.

We tsk tsk at scandal, act like we’re shocked and scandalized, but there is a part of us that secretly enjoys scandal (as long as we’re not involved). The TV series Scandal ran for seven seasons. I never watched it, but I get the impression it was about scandal and people were glued to it for seven seasons.

The fact is, bad news sells, and scandal is the juciest of bad news. We say we don’t like hearing about scandal, but if we’re honest, something inside of us perks up when someone says, “did you hear about so and so?”

The more scandalous the news, the more something inside of us delights to pass it on: did you hear about so and so?

This morning, I have what might seem to be a scandalous question for you: did you hear about Jesus?

See we might think that Jesus lived a scandal-free life. If there was ever a person who couldn’t be touched by scandal, it was Jesus, right? Actually, wrong.

Title: The Christmas Story and the Scandal-Filled Life of Jesus

When God spoke about Jesus through the prophet Isaiah, He spoke in terms of scandal:

As it is written, Behold, I lay in Zion a stumbling block and rock of offense: and whosever believes in Him shall not be ashamed. Isa. 8:14

The Greek word for stumbling block is scandalon, from which we get the word scandal. God says, Jesus will be a scandalous and offensive figure. People will be offended by him and whisper against him. Jesus will know scandal but his scandal will be a different kind of scandal. To understand this a bit better, let’s look at some of the ways scandal swirled around Jesus’ life.

1. There was scandal in Jesus’ lineage

Apart from Mary, there are only four women mentioned by name in Jesus’ lineage. These four women don’t have a lot in common except that they each became part of Jesus’ lineage through scandal.

• Tamar entered Jesus’ lineage by pretending to be a prostitute and having an incestuous relationship with her father-in-law, Judah.
• Rahab was a pagan and a prostitute in Jericho.
• Ruth was a Moabite woman. God told the Jews not to have anything to do with the Moabites yet somehow Ruth the Moabite ends up in Jesus’ lineage.
• And Bathsheba, who became King David’s wife through adultery, cover-up, and murder. A whole season of Scandal could have been written about David and Bathsheba’s relationship.

This can’t be a coincidence. These are the four women we’d want to leave off the list but God goes out of His way to highlight the scandalous portions of Jesus’ lineage. Did you hear about the scandal in Jesus’ ancestry? Yeah I did, because God put it right out there!

2. There was scandal in Jesus’ birth

This time of year we celebrate the birth of our Savior to Mary and we know the story well, how an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph assuring him that the baby inside of Mary is of God and will be the Savior of the world. But that angel didn’t appear to every neighbor and friend and acquaintance in Nazareth. All most people knew is that before Mary and Joseph were married, Mary was found with child.

You don’t think people whispered? No doubt there was gossip: “Did you hear about Mary? I hear she was pregnant months before she and Joseph were married.” “I heard Joseph’s not even the father!” Whispers of Jesus being illegitimate probably followed him all his life.

3. There was scandal in Jesus’ ministry

I’ve been in pastoral ministry for almost 30 years (I started when I was 5 years old), and I don’t believe – thank God – I’ve been involved in one ministry scandal (or non-ministry scandal either). I’ve said and done dumb things, I’ve made mistakes. I’ve shown poor judgment, I’ve offended people. But no scandals. I don’t say that in a cocky way. I agree with James Dobson when he said, “Lord, help me never step on a landmine that could blow up my entire family, reputation, and ministry.” We are all capable of scandal, but what I’m saying is (to the best of my knowledge) in 30 years of ministry I haven’t been involved in one scandal. Jesus, in his three short years of ministry, was involved in several.

• He broke the Sabbath by healing and feeding on the Sabbath
• He broke the laws of cleanliness by touching unclean lepers
• He went out of his way to befriend sinners and offend the religious leaders
• He let a prostitute clean his feet with her tears and her hair
• He claimed to be God

These scandals proved conclusively to the religious leaders that Jesus was a blasphemer and a false prophet, that’s why most of them rejected Jesus as the Messiah.

Did you hear about Jesus?

4. There was scandal in Jesus’ death

“And if a man has committed a crime punishable by death and he is put to death, and you hang him on a tree, 23 his body shall not remain all night on the tree, but you shall bury him the same day, for a hanged man is cursed by God. You shall not defile your land that the Lord your God is giving you for an inheritance. Deut. 21:22-23

The Gospels tell us that as Jesus hung on the cross, people walking by reviled him and wagged their heads. Wagging heads was a way of showing disgust and derision. They were simply believing the words of Deut. 21 that Jesus was a man cursed by God.

Jesus’ death wasn’t characterized by dignity and honor. It was characterized by scandal and shame. That’s why most of the disciples abandoned him – it was too humiliating to watch. As Mary watched her son die on the cross, she must have remembered the prophet Simeon’s words that a sword would pierce her heart because of Jesus. Her heart was pierced.

Did you hear about Jesus? Scandal, scandal, scandal, scandal.

It’s what God said Jesus would be:

As it is written, Behold, I lay in Zion a stumbling block and rock of offense: and whosever believes in Him shall not be ashamed. Isa. 8:14

But Jesus’ scandal will be a different type of scandal. Look at the result of those who believe in Jesus: they will not be ashamed, their shame will be removed. Typically scandal brings shame to those associated with the person involved in scandal, but not in Jesus’ case. His scandal removes our shame.

Those four women in his lineage who had scandal in their history had their shame replaced with honor as the chosen few through whom the Son of God’s line would pass through. God goes out of His way to mention the four of them by name, I believe, because He took special joy in them. Those are my girls! I am proud of them!

For a while people whispered about Mary, but we see in the Magnificat that Mary’s soul wasn’t filled with shame, her soul was filled with praise to God. In the moment people might have whispered shameful things about her, but she knew that soon people wouldproclaim that she is blessed among women.

The shame that the religious leaders try to heap on Jesus didn’t stick because while what he did violated their hypocritical sense of propriety, everything Jesus did pleased the heart of his Father. When Jesus touched shame, the shame didn’t attach to Jesus, instead the shame was removed from the one Jesus touched. When Jesus touched the leper, the leper’s uncleanness didn’t pollute Jesus’ cleanness, rather Jesus’ cleanness purified the leper’s uncleanness. Jesus wasn’t violating the Father’s will on the Sabbath, he was doing the Father’s will by doing good on the Sabbath. The religious leaders thought the Sabbath judged Jesus. Jesus said, “no, I judge the Sabbath. I don’t bow to the Sabbath, the Sabbath bows to me.”

Jesus loved the sinner – he came for the sinner – and his heart perfectly reflected the heart of the Father. It was the religious leaders who looked good on the outside but one day it would be revealed they were filled with dead men’s bones on the inside. Their momentary pride would soon be turned to shame as all men saw they were far from the God they professed to love.

The prostitute who cleaned Jesus’ feet with her hair and tears, Jesus said whenever people talk about him, her story would be remembered. We are remembering it right now. Her act was an act of love and worship, and there’s no shame in that.

On the cross, Jesus was cursed by God – but it was in our place. Jesus was never more obedient or pleasing to God than when he was cursed and forsaken by God. Jesus took the symbol of curse and shame and turned it into a symbol of love and sacrifice and atonement.

Christmas is the story of the Scandalon taking the scandal of our sin upon himself.

²¹ God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. 2 Cor. 5:21

This isn’t a license for us to sin freely. When people came in contact with Jesus, they left changed. The woman in adultery didn’t head back to her adulterous affair, feeling affirmed in it. Jesus said, “go and sin no more”. The prostitute became a follower of Jesus. The unclean became clean at the touch of Jesus.

Jesus took our sin upon himself, and he gave us his precious Holy Spirit to empower us say no to sin and to live unto God. Jesus lived a scandal-filled life so that we might live a Spirit-filled life.

This final week of Advent the theme is faith. Let faith arise in your soul that Jesus not only cleansed your sin, and took away your shame, but he has given you the Holy Spirit to help you live differently to the glory of God.

Confess your sins to God. Bring them out of the darkness and into the light by being honest with God. Believe that Jesus can remove the scandal and the shame. Then ask God for the power to live holy. To love sincerely. To honor God with your life.

Whoever believes in him shall not be ashamed…