God has a Word for that: Ash Wednesday 2025 sermon
Chad Richard Bresson
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Today we begin our ash Wednesday thoughts by playing the animal game. Have you ever taken that personality test… what animal are you? I don’t play them. So figure out the animal that wouldn’t play the animal game. If you could become any animal in the world, which one would you choose? Question: How many of you would choose to become a worm? Yeah. Nope. Nobody. Nobody wants to be a worm.! I don’t blame you. Worms have no arms, no legs, and no eyes! They’re small and insignificant and, if you ask me, worms don’t have the best of personalities!
No one ever stops their car for a worm. There are no protests at our lakes and rivers for a better life for worms other than bait for fish. Worms have yet to serve as a team mascot. Could you imagine? The Houston Worms. The Dallas Worms. The Texas A&M Worms?
But right here in our text today, God is calling his people a worm:
In our text for today, Isaiah 41:14, God calls his people a worm: “Do not fear, you worm Jacob.” Why does God call the exilic community living in Babylon a worm? These are the people who had lost their homeland for centuries of having no faith in God, chasing other gods, and being disobedient. They have been carted out of the homeland, taken away from everything they know and love and are now living as immigrants in a foreign land… where they don’t know the language, don’t know the culture.
And here God is calling these people a worm. Here in Isaiah, they’ve also been called weak and weary, bruised reeds and smoldering wicks, deaf and blind, childless, widowed, divorced, and a stubborn rebel from birth. God has a word for that: worm.
The parallel thought running through the book of Isaiah is that of dead people. These dead people are worms. In fact, when you are dead, where is your body’s home? Yeah. With the worms. What happens when you see that scene on CSI when they are unearthing a corpse? Emily says, “tell me when it’s over”. Bodies lie with the worms. Dead people are buried with the worms. Away from the light. Away from the oxygen. Away from anything that gives life.
These exiles are dead. They have lost their homeland, lost their temple, lost God’s visible presence and home among them… they might as well be dead. They are a worm. And there is no hope. Alone and forsaken.
David had the same thoughts in his head in Psalm 22… We’re not exactly sure what David’s suffering or distress was. On the run from King Saul? On the run from his son Absalom? We don’t know. But here are his famous words in the the very first verse:
Psalm 22:1 “My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?”
David feels absolutely abandoned. In fact, David is convinced that God has abandoned him. But then look at what David says, just a few moments later:
Psalm 22:6 “But I am a worm and not a man.
David uses the same word to describe himself as God is describing Israel. “Worm”. Again.. the language of a dead person. Whatever is going on, David looks in the mirror and he sees himself dead. He’s a worm. That raises the question of the elephant in the room: isn’t this kind of language outmoded? Are we really supposed to embrace a kind of worm theology?
Use of the word “worm” to describe our human and even sinful condition has fallen on hard times. Isaac Watts, the hymn-writer was channeling David when he penned these controversial lines:
Alas! and did my Saviour bleed, And did my sov'reign die? Would he devote that sacred Head for such a Worm as I?
More than a few hymnals have changed that last line to read:
Would he devote that sacred head for such a one as I?
Watts has been accused of too much focus on sin and depravity… and worse, encouraging a low self esteem. Use of the word “worm” simply piles on the guilt and shame and keeps our focus on how bad we are. Luther himself used the word “nothing” to describe himself. Such a description seems to encourage self-loathing and spiraling down on shame.
But the question remains… why does God use this word of Israel and why does David himself cop to being a worm? And it’s precisely what our culture and people are running from when they rewrite the hymnbook to get rid of the offensive word and what people criticize any time the word “worm” is used for the human condition: sin. It’s all about sin. Both in Isaiah and in David… the context is a people who have rebelled and given God the finger. The context is sin. The context is chasing after idols and all those things that offer to replace God himself. What are we to think about ourselves when we’d rather serve ourselves than our neighbors. Sin really is a dirty word. How dirty? Dirty enough that sinners who reject God in acts of self-importance and self-sufficiency are called worms, by none other than God himself. What are we when are all about self? Petty? Vindictive? Always trying to gain the upper hand? God has a word for that: worm.
Without using the word, we confessed to being worms just moments ago… we’ve sinned in thought, word, and deed. But here’s the deal: you know what the problem is with the criticism of use of the word “worm”? The criticism isn’t seeing the whole picture. “Worm” is not the last word. The story doesn’t end there. In fact, Luther said this (and note the word “nothing”, his word for “worm”):
“To say that we are nothing and constantly sin when we do the best we can does not mean that we cause people to despair (unless they are fools); rather, we make them concerned about the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ.” - LUTHER
“Worm” doesn’t have the last word. Grace has the last word. The Gospel has the last word. This is what Lent is all about. It is acknowledging who we are in God’s sight—sinners… and then receiving Christ’s word of forgiveness. In fact, this is what the rest of the verse says in Isaiah:
Isaiah 41:14 “Do not fear, you worm Jacob, you men of Israel. I will help you”— this is the Lord’s declaration. Your Redeemer is the Holy One of Israel.”
Worm is only one half of what we’re supposed to see here. The Lord, your Redeemer… is the Holy One of Israel. You see, the Gospel doesn’t allow us to spiral down into the word “worm”. The Gospel isn’t interested in leaving us to our self-loathing… or even our self-sufficiency. There is hope for worms, and the hope is in a Redeemer who helps, indeed, saves worms. The Redeemer purchases for himself sinners. Whatever has gone bad, the redeemer makes good.
And this Redeemer is the Holy One of Israel. This is the One who has been promised since the garden. The Messiah who is the Holy One Himself from heaven… the One anticipated in all the heroes and all the events leading up to the great exile. That Holy One is your redeemer… that Holy One is pursuing worms to make them a new creation in life, salvation and forgiveness.
This Holy One so loves worms that he put on our clothing, put on our flesh and blood and then went to a cross and died as a worm. Jesus became the Worm to save us from our wormhood. You see… it was Jesus on the cross mouthing the words of David from centuries before..
Psalm 22:1 “My God, my God, why have you abandoned me? I am a worm and not a man.”
On this Ash Wednesday we have on our head the very object of wormhood, a cross. On the cross, Jesus was nailed to a tree and he was abandoned. God has a word for that: worm. Jesus did that FOR YOU and FOR ME.
For all those who have been ashamed and rejected… our ashes remind us of our mortality. But they also remind us that this isn’t all there is. Worms don’t have the last word. Ashes don’t get the last word. The Gospel does. Love does. Jesus does. You are redeemed. You are forgiven. You are loved. God has a word for that: Mine!
