A Worm And No Man

But I am a worm, and no man; a reproach of men, and despised by the people. All those who see Me ridicule Me; they shoot out the lip, they shake the head, saying, He trusted in the LORD, let Him rescue Him; let Him deliver Him, since He delights in Him! 

Psalm 22:6-8 

Christ felt His humiliation deeply. Psalm 22 gives us an indication of how deeply. Because all things occur in God’s panoramic present, the fact that David wrote this psalm centuries before the crucifixion is no deterrent to it being an extremely accurate reflection of Christ’s emotions on the cross. True spirituality is seeing things from God’s perspective. He saw fit to have one of the holy man of old write, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, what accurately conveys Christ’s experience on the cross. If we want to truly understand anyone, we must know something of what they have experienced and how it affected them. One of the more fashionable trends at the moment is to see the world from everyone’s perspective. If we are going to do that we should include God’s perspective. Psalm 22 does that in relation to Christ’s suffering. He was at that moment by His Own description, ‘a worm and no man.’ He describes the behavior of His enemies as they reproach, despise, and ridicule Him. He records their mockery of Him. There we observe the voluntary humiliation of Christ and realize the degradations He endured on our behalf. He endured these for us and felt the depths of them keenly. Surely we have every reason to magnify such a Savior. With completely different meaning than Pilate we exclaim, ‘Behold, the Man!’ 

Our Gracious Master and our God, 
we rejoice that You have been willing to suffer so deeply for us. 
We praise You that You endured until the end, 
that we might be saved. 

Tomm Tice
Where the Bush is Burning