But I am a worm and not a man, scorned by everyone, despised by the people. – Psalm 22:6

 

Today's Scripture Reading (June 25, 2022): Psalm 22

In the early years of the eighteenth century (1707-1709), Isaac Watts wrote his hymn "At the Cross" (also known by the first line of the song, "Alas! And Did My Savior Bleed"). The opening stanza of the song is - 

Alas! and did my Savior bleed
And did my Sovereign die?
Would He devote that sacred head
For sinners such as I?

Except that those aren't precisely the words that Isaac Watts wrote just over 300 years ago. I am always amazed by how our language changes and the words or turn of the phrase that were accepted when Watts wrote his hymn that is no longer politically acceptable in our contemporary world. The words that Watts chose to open his hymn with were slightly different.

Alas! and did my Savior bleed
And did my Sovereign die?
Would He devote that sacred head
For such a worm as I?

It is the last line of the verse that has changed. To be blunt, it seems that we don't really like the word "sinner" anymore. I know my computer balks every time I try to use "sin" in any of its variants. Sin is considered to be archaic and degrading. Maybe we could use "mistake" or "error" instead. Those words seem a little less judgy than "sin." And if "sin" is losing its political correctness, "worm" is just way too outside our zone of comfort to be used to describe the phenomenon of humanity. And so, we changed the words of Isaac Watts's hymn. We don't want to think of ourselves as worms. Worms are too – insignificant.

And yet, that is the very point that Watts was trying to make with his word choice as he wrote his hymn. We are insignificant. The miracle of the cross that so impressed Watts is that Jesus, his leader and king, the very Son of God who walked this earth with us, and someone of infinite worth, would die on the cross for him, someone whose worth is comparable with that of a worm. I get it. It is not an affirming idea, but it is the truth. When we compare ourselves with God, we are nothing more than a worm.

David agreed. He, too, felt like a worm. But the impact of Psalm 22 is that it carries Christological undertones. It starts with Jesus's words during his crisis on the cross; "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me" (Psalm 22:1, Matthew 27:46, and Mark 15:34)? So, it is not just David who feels like a worm. Jesus himself was scorned and despised and crucified as less than a man. The miracle of the incarnation is that Jesus didn't just become a "human like us," he became "a worm like us." The miracle of the cross is that the one who was of infinite worth became insignificant because of his love for his creation, us. To quote Joan Osborne, he became like one of us, "just a slob like one of us, just a stranger on the bus trying to make his way home."

Tomorrow's Scripture Reading: Psalm 23