Little Compromises 1/3

 Our house feels like living inside a musical. Not necessarily in the song quality, but definitely in quantity. It’s hard to say "Hello," "You're welcome," or "We're halfway there" without someone breaking into song. And it’s not just music. Our days are packed with lines from films, adverts, and TV shows.

“Coffee, coffee, boy, do I need coffee!”

“Bacon is good for me!”

I’m not sure it’s entirely normal (which is why I try to restrain myself in public), but it’s definitely normal in our house. One phrase triggers the whole thing—someone says a single line, and the rest of the song or scene starts playing in everyone’s heads. Just like that, an everyday comment becomes a full production.

When Jesus was on the cross, he did the same. He said:

“My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”

To the Roman soldiers crucifying him, it probably sounded like a dying man's cry. To someone reading the Bible today, it can sound as if Jesus believed God had abandoned him.

But to the Jewish people standing there, particularly the leaders who knew the scriptures well, those words would have sounded very different. They would have recognised them immediately as the opening line of Psalm 22.

In Jewish teaching, it wasn’t unusual to quote the first line of a passage and expect listeners to remember the rest.

So if they heard that first line, the rest of the Psalm might well have started playing in their minds.

But I am a worm and not a man,
scorned by everyone, despised by the people.
All who see me mock me;
they hurl insults, shaking their heads.
“He trusts in the Lord,” they say,
“let the Lord rescue him.”

Imagine hearing those words in your head while watching the crowd do exactly that.

One line in particular puzzled me for a long time:

“But I am a worm and not a man.”

Why would Jesus call himself a worm? When we read about Jesus in the New Testament, his humility doesn’t mean denying who he is. He knows who the Father says he is.

Calling himself a worm sounds almost like false humility.

So I looked into the Hebrew word.

The word used here, tola’ath, isn't referring to a wiggly garden worm, but a tiny scale insect used to produce scarlet dye. The adult female insects were collected, dried, crushed and processed to produce a deep crimson colour. That dye was incredibly valuable. It was used in the scarlet threads of the Tabernacle, including the veil that separated the Holy of Holies, and in the scarlet strands woven into the high priest’s ephod.

So “worm” could show humiliation—crushed, despised, hung out to dry. But it also suggests value: something chosen for worship, woven into the Tabernacle—the meeting place of man and God.

I can’t help wondering whether anyone standing there at the cross heard that line of the Psalm and thought about that crimson dye as they watched Jesus hanging there.

The Psalm continues:

I am poured out like water,
and all my bones are out of joint.
My mouth is dried up like a potsherd,
and my tongue sticks to the roof of my mouth.

Dogs surround me,
a pack of villains encircles me;
they pierce my hands and my feet.
All my bones are on display;
people stare and gloat over me.
They divide my clothes among them
and cast lots for my garment.

This Psalm was written centuries before Jesus. Now it was unfolding before their eyes. How did it feel, realising they were the villains the psalmist described?

But the Psalm doesn’t stop there.

But you, Lord, do not be far from me.
You are my strength; come quickly to help me.
I will declare your name to my people;
in the assembly I will praise you.

And then comes the great shift. The psalm’s tone changes: suffering becomes victory. (It’s that moment a song or movie flips from despair to triumph: "We are the champions, my friend...")

You who fear the Lord, praise him!
All you descendants of Jacob, honour him!
Revere him, all you descendants of Israel!
For he has not despised or scorned
the suffering of the afflicted one;
he has not hidden his face from him
but has listened to his cry for help.

All the ends of the earth
will remember and turn to the Lord,
and all the families of the nations
will bow down before him,
for dominion belongs to the Lord
and he rules over the nations.

Does that sound like the words of someone defeated?

It’s like the moment in a film when everything makes sense. The A-Team’s “I love it when a plan comes together.” Or Endgame: Thanos says, “I am inevitable,” and Iron Man replies, “And I… am Iron Man.”

You think this is the end?
Not at all.

This is the climax—the grand plan all along.

Now, you might be wondering: Does this matter to us today?

I think it might.

If you read that line in the Gospels — “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” — you could easily imagine a son abandoned by his father. The one he trusted and worshipped.

That would be a very different story. A tragic one.

But Jesus had already said to his friends:

“If you have seen me, you have seen the Father.”

Jesus wasn’t abandoned on the cross. There was separation, anguish and grief — yes. But not abandonment. You can read that in the Psalm. The cross was not the Father turning away from the Son. It was God stepping into the deepest place of human suffering to bring us back.

Psalm 22 ends with the words:

He has done it.

In Hebrew, the final phrase simply means “because he has done” — the work accomplished, the task completed.

Which makes Jesus’ final words from the cross sound even more striking:

“It is finished.”

Accomplished.
Completed.
Paid in full.

Jesus started Psalm 22 on the cross.

And anyone who knew the scriptures would already know how the rest of the song ends. Once again, Jesus was turning things upside down. Maybe the question for us is: will we let that song change how our story ends, too? After all, there’s always a soundtrack playing over our lives—might as well make sure it’s a good one.