Sermon on Isaiah 41:14-16, for Ash Wednesday, "God has a word for that!"

(Singing with the Exiles Series, Rev. Reed Lessing) 

“Fear not, you worm Jacob, you men of Israel, for I myself will help you, declares Yahweh, your Restorer, the Holy One of Israel.” Isaiah 41:14.

 

If you could become any animal in the world, which one would you choose?  Maybe like Isaiah you would soar on wings like an eagle. Or like Amos perhaps the lion is your animal of choice, because you love to rumble in the jungle! Or maybe like Elisha you boast in the bear because when it comes to obstacles you maim and you maul. Or if your name is Caleb – which in Hebrew means dog – you just might choose to be a sweet and faithful little dog.

Question. How many of you would like to become a worm?  May I see a show of hands? That’s just what I thought. None of you are worm wannabes!  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 a lot of personality!

No one ever stops their car and says, “Hey everyone, take a look out the window at that worm!” Or when did you read an editorial that passionately argued, “Stop the genocide in our oceans, lakes and rivers! Worms deserve better! These cute creatures should not be skewered on hooks and fed to the fish!” Worms are altogether disregarded and unnoticed. Little concern is spared for these lowly creatures of the soil.

Can you imagine the worm being any team’s mascot? Will we ever hear of the L.A. Leaches or the Michigan Maggots or the Washington University Worms? I don’t think so.

Isaiah 41:14, reads: “Fear not, you worm Jacob.”… Why does Yahweh call the community in exile in Babylon a worm? Didn’t he get the memo that worm theology doesn’t boost self-esteem or encourage people to get up and get going? 

Buried under the boot of Babylon, in Isaiah 40-55 the exiles are also called weak and weary – bruised reeds and smoldering wicks – deaf and blind – childless, widowed, divorced – and a stubborn rebel from birth. They get what it means to be disregarded and unnoticed.

God has a word for that: Worm.

Calling them “O worm Jacob” also suggests the image of those who are dead and buried with the worms. The men of Israel are weak and defeated, in the dirt like worms. What a charming prophet! Dead people are buried; so are worms. Dead people are stepped on; so are worms. Dead people are surrounded by dirt; so are worms. Dead people are ignored and soon forgotten; so are worms.

The exiles had seen terror on every side. The promises to the patriarchs and to David appeared to be null and void. God’s protection of His people seemed withdrawn. They were exposed, helpless. The captives lived in a culture where their most treasured stories, liturgies, and songs are being mocked, trivialized, or dismissed as being simply irrelevant.  Everything had been swallowed up by the beast called Babylon.

This hopelessness is epitomized in Psalm 22:1, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”  And then verse 6, “I am a worm and not a man.” 

            Now, what should I think of myself when I am captive to sin and so far away from the Father? When I don’t “act justly and love mercy and walk humbly with my God”? When I’m not aflame with holiness and feel no compassion for the lost? What am I to think of myself when I take no delight in the Word, recoil from prayer, harbor lustful thoughts and pant for the praises of people? What am I when I am duplicitous, mean-spirited, petty and vindictive?

God has a word for that: Worm. “Pastor, didn’t you get the memo that worm theology doesn’t boost self-esteem or encourage us to get up and get going?”

No, I didn’t. Because thinking highly of ourselves has nothing to do with God’s word. Rather he longs for us to cry out with Isaiah, “I am a man of unclean lips,” and with Job, “Therefore I despise myself, and repent in dust and ashes,” and with Paul, “O wretched man that I am, who will deliver me from this body of death!?”

You see, only people who are dead and buried and surrounded by dirt cry out for life and resurrection! And only they receive it! “Fear not, you worm Jacob, you men of Israel, for I myself will help you, declares Yahweh, your Restorer, the Holy One of Israel.”

Yahweh is not some football coach rallying his team: “come on, you can do it!” He doesn’t pump us up with empty praise. Nor is he some talk-show host who wants us to feel warm and fuzzy all over. Yahweh is not some sentimental granddaddy who helps those who help themselves. No. He is “your Restorer, the Holy One of Israel.”

The Hebrew word go’el – best translated “your Restorer”. Usually it’s translated Redeemer, and it appears here in Isaiah 40-55 for the first time and will show up fourteen more times in this section. A go’el is your next-of-kin-relative who buys back your inheritance, frees you from slavery, and pays off your debt. Whatever has gone bad your go’el restores or makes good.

Coupled with go’el is the phrase “the Holy One of Israel” – which appears in the book of Isaiah twenty-five times and only seven more times in the Old Testament. So this title, “Redeemer/Restorer, the Holy One of Israel” is one of Isaiah’s favorite descriptions of God. He is, as the seraphim cry out “holy, holy, holy!” Yahweh is completely set apart from everyone and everything else.

Isaiah couples your Restorer – the completely immanent One – with the Holy One of Israel – the completely transcendent One to announce that Yahweh alone can marshal every power in the universe for a single, loving, furious, relentless goal – to bring us home! Because, you see, there is no place like home! God is ultimately powerful and intimately near.

How does he do it? In the fullness of time Yahweh became our next-of-kin-relative, literally, by taking on flesh and blood. Then he took another step. He became dirty, despised and dismissed. But then he took another, almost incomprehensible step. One for the ages. 

Psalm 22:1, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” Or, in his native Aramaic language, “Eli, Eli lama sabathani.”  And then verse 6, “I am a worm and not a man.” 

Here is Jesus, nailed to the tree, his body bent, broken, and twisted. Here is Jesus, a bloody horrific mess. Here is Jesus, mocked, ridiculed, and abandoned. He took the step down to the lowest, most despised place. God has a word for that: Worm. Buried in the earth.

But then there was an earthquake and an angel and an announcement that still rocks our world, “He is not here, he is risen, just as he said!”  Jesus took the lowliest place for us, but now God has exalted Him to the Highest place!

And because Jesus is alive, Yahweh’s transforming word to us is Isaiah 41:15, “See, I am making you into a threshing sledge, new and sharp, with many teeth. You will thresh the mountains and crush them and reduce the hills to chaff.”

Worms become mountain movers! The lowly and despised are loved and lifted up. “The blind see, the lame walk, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the gospel is preached to the poor.” God has a word for that. Grace! God’s grace is sufficient for us because His power is made perfect in weakness!

And God’s grace means that lowly exiles will get a homecoming—a homecoming at the hands of Jesus, our go’el, or Restorer, and the Holy One of Israel. God’s grace means we are going home to our eternal paradise in heaven!

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.