Christ’s righteousness covers your shame.

 

Sermon for Epiphany 1, January 11, 2026

Grace and peace to all of you who are in Christ Jesus.  Amen.

Genesis 9:18-29  ¹⁸The sons of Noah who went out from the ark were Shem, Ham, and Japheth. (Ham was the father of Canaan.)  ¹⁹These three were the sons of Noah, and from these, people spread out over the whole earth.  ²⁰Noah began to be a man of the soil and planted a vineyard.  ²¹He drank some of the wine and got drunk.  He lay uncovered inside his tent.  ²²Ham, the father of Canaan, saw the nakedness of his father and told his two brothers outside.  ²³Shem and Japheth took a garment and laid it over their shoulders.  They went in backwards and covered the nakedness of their father.  They faced backwards, and they did not see their father’s nakedness.  ²⁴Noah awoke from his wine and knew what his youngest son had done to him.  ²⁵He said: A curse on Canaan!  He will be the lowest of servants to his brothers.  ²⁶Then he said: Blessed be the Lord, the God of Shem!  Let Canaan be his servant.  ²⁷May God enlarge Japheth.  Let him dwell in the tents of Shem.  Let Canaan be his servant.  ²⁸Noah lived 350 years after the flood.  ²⁹All the days of Noah were 950 years.  Then he died. (EHV)

Christ’s righteousness covers your shame.

Dear brothers and sisters in the Lord Jesus,

            The Fourth Commandment states: Honor your father and your mother, that it may be well with you, and that you may live long on the earth.

Martin Luther asked, What does this mean?  He then explained, “We should fear and love God, so that we do not despise our parents or superiors, nor provoke them to anger, but honor, serve, obey, love and esteem them.”  In his letter to the Ephesian congregation, St. Paul called this commandment, “the first commandment with a promise.” (Ephesians 6:2)  God promises great blessings will come our way if we follow His commands, and this one especially so.

As we take our catechism students through classes before confirmation, we teach what these commands include.  How far does each commandment reach while instructing us to do God’s will?  It doesn’t take long to realize that for each commandment, we fall far short of holiness before God.  In addition, this 4^th command puts us under the authority of all those God places in positions of power above us.  That means we are to obey our parents, certainly, but by extension, all positions of authority placed over people are established primarily as an extension of our parents’ authority and especially God’s authority as our Father and Creator.  Through St. Peter, the Holy Spirit commands us:

Submit to every human authority because of the Lord, whether to the king as the supreme authority or to governors as those who have been sent by him to punish those who do what is wrong and to praise those who do what is right.  For this is God’s will: that you silence the ignorance of foolish people by doing good.  Do this as free people, and do not use your freedom as a cover-up for evil, but use it as servants of God. (1 Peter 2:13-16)

Returning to our sermon text, we have the example of a young man who didn’t respect and honor his father.  The details are minimal, but this much is clear; Noah planted a vineyard, and once it was producing fruit, he made wine.  Unfortunately, he then consumed too much wine. 

Now, many commentators condemn Noah for his drunkenness, and some for even consuming the wine, but certainly, we understand that drinking intoxicating beverages to excess is a sin.  At the same time, there is no indication that Noah regularly did this or even that he intended to get drunk.  Still, we grant that intention isn’t the only part of sin.

However, the sin that comes under condemnation in this text is Ham’s reaction to seeing his father’s shame.  It appears that Ham took unnatural pleasure from seeing his father drunk and naked in his tent.  Perhaps, there was a sensual element to it.  That might fit well with later Canaanite history.  At the minimum, Ham publicly shamed his father to his brothers.  He took pleasure in embarrassing his father for this temporary weakness.  Ham’s lack of respect for Noah is remarkable.

Back when I was a teenager, it was quite common for my peers to disrespectfully refer to their fathers as their old man.  I always thought that was terribly disrespectful.  At the same time, I dare not hold myself up as some kind of extra-virtuous person for feeling that way, for I know that there were times when I didn’t show my father the respect I owed him, and for such sins, I also must repent.

The result of Ham’s wicked behavior startles us.  The translations make it sound like Noah was placing a curse on his grandson for Ham’s infraction.  I note, however, that the curse comes not from Noah, but from the Lord God.  A literal translation of Noah’s comment would be more like “Having been cursed is Canaan!”  Noah was recognizing that Ham’s failure would have long term consequences for his family.  Time and again through Moses, God warned His people, “I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children to the third and fourth generations of those who hate Me.” (Deuteronomy 5:9 NKJ) 

This does not mean that God punishes children for the sins of their father, but that the fathers’ failures are often carried on through the following generations due to failure to properly instruct the children in righteousness or the children imitating their father’s wickedness, which often grows exponentially more wicked through the passing of time and generations.  Canaan’s descendants, as you would expect, became the Canaanites, and they were known for the extreme wickedness of their worship, for they abandoned God to worship idols with vile forms of prostitution and sexual excess.  For the Canaanites’ blatant idolatry, God used Israel to bring His judgment on the Canaanite people.

In our own time, disrespect for authority is rampant.  Disrespect for God and His law even more so.  This past week, a woman lost her life as a consequence of this disrespect.  Whichever side one falls on concerning her death, the truth of the matter is we all share in the guilt.  It has become far too common to pick and choose what laws we want to obey.  Likewise, one of the main faults is that the leaders we elect have not consistently enforced the laws we have.  It is a tragedy that some civil authorities have in certain cases foolishly decided to disregard their role of enforcement, and many citizens have decided that enforcers are evil for doing their jobs. 

Yet, as God’s people, we are commanded to obey and respect every authority placed over us.  We can only disobey authorities when they command us to do something against God’s law, for “We must obey God rather than men.^” (Acts 5:29)  Still, when forced to resist evil commands, we suffer the consequences of their wrath.  In a similar vein, it is a terrible disrespect of God when our leaders pass laws that go against what God commands.  There will be judgment for those who reject God.

All that being said, we need to focus on how God rewarded Shem and Japheth for the way they respected their father and protected his honor.  It is through Shem’s descendants that God would bring a Savior for the world, and Japheth’s descendants would likewise benefit by dwelling in the same faith in the Christ.  All of Noah’s sons would enjoy great material blessings as they repopulated the earth.  From those three sons came all peoples and nations alive today.  Those who remained trusting God and His Word receive the gift of God’s mercy and grace.

I would like you to consider, therefore, this sermon theme for our text: Christ’s righteousness covers your shame.  Like Noah, each of us have committed sins that would shame us.  Whether intentional or inadvertent, our sins deserve condemnation.  Here, Noah somewhat represents Adam, whose lapse in judgment brought sin into the world.  Like Noah, a Son of Man covered our shame.

No, Jesus didn’t just throw a blanket over our nakedness.  Instead, God’s Son came into the world to be our righteousness and to take on Himself all our shame.  Who among us could honestly say that we have always obeyed the Fourth Commandment, or any of the Commandments, for that matter?  We fail them all.  For our sin, we deserve God’s wrath and judgment. 

Spiritually drunk under the devil’s control, we often failed to live according to all God has spoken.  Our shame is laid bare before the Lord’s knowing eyes.  The psalmist wrote, “Lord, you have investigated me, and you know.  You know when I sit down and when I get up.  You understand my thoughts from far off.  You keep track of when I travel and when I stay, and you are familiar with all my ways.  Before there is a word on my tongue, you, Lord, already know it completely.” (Psalm 139:1-4)  Where can we hide from God’s presence?  What could we do to cover our naked shame?  Nothing.

Thanks be to God, Christ’s righteousness covers your shame.  Because we couldn’t rescue ourselves from judgment, Jesus entered our world and lived righteousness for us.  Instead of bringing shame to His Father, Jesus lived perfect obedience on our behalf, and so well that the Father spoke of His Son from heaven, “This is my Son, whom I love.  I am well pleased with him.” (Matthew 3:17) 

For their faithful and kind reaction to their father’s predicament, Noah said, “Blessed be the Lord, the God of Shem!  Let Canaan be his servant.  May God enlarge Japheth.  Let him dwell in the tents of Shem.  Let Canaan be his servant.”  Noah praised God that Shem remained a believer, and Japheth along with Shem would enjoy the blessings of God’s grace.

You and I also, likely having descended from Japheth, remain in God’s grace, for by the faith that was poured out on us at Baptism, and by the hearing of God’s Good News, the Holy Spirit has worked trust in Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection in our hearts.  By faith, our naked guilt is covered by Christ’s righteousness before God.  By faith, we are welcomed into His kingdom and one day will be welcome in the mansions of heaven, we might say, to dwell in the tents of the righteous for all eternity.

This morning, we again partake of the rich food of Jesus’ body and blood in the Sacrament of the Altar.  Here again, repentant sinners receive the forgiveness won for us on the cross.  Here, God again prepares us for our eternal dwelling place in the promised land of heaven as He covers us again with Jesus’ holiness.  Therefore, in true and sincere repentance for any and all sins which you have ever committed, believe the Good News that Christ’s righteousness covers your shame.  Amen.  

How blessed is everyone who fears the LORD, everyone who is walking in his ways.  Amen.