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Grace to you, and peace from
God our Father and from our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.
We have all sorts of names and descriptions for the Second Person of the Holy Trinity: Jesus, the Christ, Immanuel, the Son of God, Son of David, Son of Man, Redeemer, Savior, Lord, and many others. We also have any number of pictures of Christ: the brown-haired, fair-skinned young man with the well-trimmed beard who looks like someone we’d want our daughters to bring home to meet us; the ferocious Lion of Judah; the butterfly; the adorably meek Lamb of God. But our text speaks of Christ in a different way.
Last week, we were reminded that, to understand a Biblical text, we must first ask the question: “What does it say about Christ?” So…what does this passage say about Christ? Maybe the more appropriate question here is: What does Christ say about Himself in this passage? It’s not our pretty picture of Him—not even close. You’re not going to see beautiful paintings or drawings depicting our Lord this way, for the Son of God calls Himself a worm.
Why would Jesus call Himself a worm? Well, maybe to answer that, we should look at what a worm is. Worms are generally slimy little creatures that look a little like snakes. They usually live under rocks or in the soil. And they are weak: weak and helpless. Children cut them in half to see if they really do become two worms. People step on them without even noticing. Prospective fishermen dig them up by the can-full to use them as bait, shoving hooks through them. Easy to see how the Lord could think of Himself as a worm, right?
The sad thing is that it’s all too easy for us to see the Lord as a worm. We treat Him that way. We grudgingly give Him “one bitter hour” each week, as if the words of the hymn are a timer to limit the length of the Divine Service. We disregard our worship of Him and our obedience to His commands when it suits us. We use His name in vain as a curse against our neighbors and the rest of His creation. We give Him what we have left as an offering instead of designating the first fruits of our labors. You might remember the old spiritual where the singer asks, “Were you there when they crucified my Lord?” Well, when they nailed Jesus to the cross, laughed at Him and spat on Him, we were there, laughing and spitting on Him, making jokes about His pain, driving in the nails all the deeper. To us, He is a worm. And just like we treat any other worm, we killed Him. And we don’t even care. It’s just a worm. It’s just our Savior.
What a contrast between the mighty “I AM” who delivered Israel from slavery in Egypt on the one hand and “I am a worm” on the other. But this is a true confession of the Second Article of the Creed. Being so far above men, Jesus became a Man, and He was treated as the lowest of men. Our Lord Jesus Christ, who as God was deserving of all praise and glory, received as a Man all the scorn and hatred mankind could produce. With those tormenting the Psalmist, we shout at our Savior: “He trusts in the Lord; let Him deliver Him; let Him rescue Him, for He delights in Him!” The truth is, the Father indeed does delight in His Son. He delighted in Him, and yet the Father let Him be crucified. And for what? The very people who condemned Christ were the ones who benefited from His agony.
Jesus called Himself a worm. He became a worm, but He was a worm for our sake. The condition that made Him worthy of scorn was our sins heaped upon Him. This Worm’s filth and slime was the filth and slime He took upon Himself so that we would not be buried under it. He let Himself be mocked, beaten, and killed so that Satan would not have us to mock and torture in eternal death. He suffered all of the Father’s wrath against sin so that we would enjoy eternal life in the presence of our God.
Think again of the purpose of a worm in the hands of a fisherman. Lancelot Andrewes, an Anglican theologian and preacher, described it this way:
A fisherman, when he casts his angle into the river, does not throw the hook in bare, naked, and uncovered, for then he knows the fish will never bite; and therefore he hides the hook within a worm, or some other bai; and so the fish, biting at the worm, is caught by the hook. This Christ, speaking of Himself, says, “I am a worm, and no man.” He, coming to perform the great work of our redemption, did cover and hide His Godhead within the worm of the human nature. The grand water-serpent, Leviathan, the devil, thinking to swallow the worm of [Christ’s] humanity, was caught upon the hook of His divinity. This hook stuck in his jaws and tore him very sore. By thinking to destroy Christ, he destroyed his own kingdom and lost his power for ever.
Our Lord Jesus Christ, the almighty Son of God by whom
all things were made, became a worm. And as a worm brings the fish into the
boat, our Lord gathers all the faithful into the boat, this holy Ark which is
His Church. Thanks be to God, for the Son’s humiliation lifts us up, bringing
us into eternal life. In the name of the Father
and of the Son (+) and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
The peace of God which surpasses all understanding will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus always. Amen.
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