Sin introduces decay and death. Jesus, the Perfect Man traded places with us sinners.

“I am a worm and not a man scorned by mankind and despised by the people. (Psalm 22:6) “… the patriarch David died and was buried, and his tomb is with us to this day. Being therefore a prophet, and knowing that God had sworn with an oath to him that he would set one of his descendants on his throne, he foresaw and spoke about the resurrection of the Christ, that he was not abandoned to Hades, nor did his flesh see corruption. This Jesus God raised up, band of that we all are witnesses. (Acts 2:29-32)”

Most people sometimes feel as if the whole world hates them. That’s why that kiddie song has these lines, ‘Nobody likes me, everybody hates me, I think I’ll eat some worms…’ It’s a happy song, presumably designed to make kiddies laugh at the idea that everyone hates you – its never true.

So how shocking are these words from the Bible in Psalm 22! The speaker doesn’t say ‘I’ll eat some worms’, he says, ‘I am a worm. Not a man. Everyone scorns me and despises me.’ How can anyone rational feel like this? Isn’t it just someone depressed who indulges his rage in hyperbole? And if it is true in some way or other, what could bring someone to be ‘dehumanised’ and become a ‘worm’?

Psalm 22 is about Jesus’ experience on the cross. True, the author David must have gone through an awful experience leading him to compose this song. But like all the Old Testament prophets, he wrote ‘better than he knew’. How can it be that Jesus, the most perfect man that has ever lived, says ‘I am a worm, not a man’!

Allegorically thinking, some have thought that ‘worm’ means that Jesus is God’s ‘bait’ to catch the Serpent – an interpretation as silly as it sounds. Others have seen significance in the Hebrew word ‘worm’ which also refers to red or ‘crimson-like’. Perhaps this refers to Jesus’ blood? But this an unnecessary play on words. The truth is simpler and more profound.

‘Worm’ is something ‘yucky’, something abhorrent. It speaks of corruption or decay, just like the word ‘maggot’. Worms feast on death – whether vegetation or flesh. A human being as she was originally designed, is something at the complete opposite of the spectrum of living things. Humans have ‘un-wormlike’ dignity.

Being crucified is the most inhumane(!) form of torture and unimaginably undignified. In fact, human beings were not designed to die. We were never meant to decay, which is why we are so scandalised by death – as anyone watching the war in Ukraine will tell you. Death is unnatural for humans.

But here is Jesus, the perfect man associated with death and decay as He dies on the cross! The reason is because He has traded places with sinners. Sin perverts and decays. Sin is a distortion of what ought to be and therefore sin introduces corruption that leads to death. Human beings end up being worm fodder because of our sin.

Jesus Christ traded places with us. He died our death. By taking our sin upon Himself, the perfect Man became a worm – the epitome of death by decay. He did this so that us ‘worms’ can become true humans again. His death frees us from sin and restores us to being true ‘man’ again. His resurrection, never more to die again, proves this truth.