The Messiah’s Secret – The Crimson Worm.
(picture taken from our hay field overlooking town of Haslingden, Rossendale )
This year our summer in the North of England has been the warmest that we have had for a long time. It has been so warm that I had to sit in the shade especially hay making in June, however, we didn’t erect a shelter).
In the Middle East the temperature reaches over a hundred degrees especially in the region where the city Nineveh was located on the eastern bank of the Tigris river opposite the modern city of Mosul in Iraq.
Young people’s talk.
Jonah the prophet was called by God twice to take a message to the people of Nineveh. In our reading we find that this is the second calling and this time Jonah responded. He went through the streets proclaiming,“Yet forty days, and Nineveh will be overthrown.” Afterwards he found a place to sit and watch over the city, where he built himself a shelter.(A child came and sat on a chair in front of the picture of a shelter.)
It was very hot: the sun shone (hold up the sun) and the wind blew.(hold up the picture of the wind)
Overnight a plant appeared and it protected him from the heat of the sun’s rays, and the sultery wind blew
God sent a worm, which was not like the worms we find in the soil.It was round and scarlet in colour and about the size of a small pea. The worm ate the root of the plant.
(Tolaath – from the same root, refer to the cochineal insect. Unger’s Bible Dictionary. Coccus ilicus. Scarlet worm. Biblehub.com)
(Tolaath – from the same root, refer to the cochineal insect. Unger’s Bible Dictionary. Coccus ilicus. Scarlet worm. Biblehub.com)
When it is time for the female to lay her eggs, which is only the once in a life time, she climbs onto a tree and lays her eggs under her body.
The eggs are protected by her crimson shell . When the eggs hatch the mother dies and the young worms feed on their mother.
She gives her life to create new life which speaks of Jesus dying for us so we might live for ever.
Jonah liked the plant and was angry that it had died.
God was teaching Jonah that just as he liked the plant and felt sorry for it. God loved the people of Nineveh and took pity on them.
God says to us, I love all the people in the world even those who don’t know me yet and God wants us to tell people about His love for them.
Readings Jonah 3: 10. 4: 11. Matthew 20: 1-16.
The prophet Jonah was called by God twice to go to the city of Nineveh with a message
The two calls are quite different in their content. The difference lies in the change of one single word. The word ’against’ in the first call was to ‘preach against’ the city, in the second to ‘preach to it’ the message. The first of Judgement, the second a message of grace and mercy which resulted in repentance and salvation for the Gentiles.
On the first occasion, Jonah disobeyed; on the second he fulfilled. Between the two calls, Jonah had a most gruesome experience, dying in the stomach of the whale, and then being miraculously resurrected and deposited on dry land.
In our reading after Jonah’s second call he was given a message that he clearly believed that God would bring judgement on the city, “Yet forty days, and Nineveh will be overthrown.” But the King and people of Nineveh believed him and they repented.
Jonah was displeased, and being a prophet of Israel, he was worried about his reputation.
Even though he knew that God was merciful and not easily angered. The outcome was not how he had discerned it, Jonah wanted to die, his pride had been injured, he had not expected the city to repent.
We read in verse 10. God had changed his mind about destroying the city of Nineveh. “When God saw what they did, how they turned from their evil way, God repented of the evil which he had said he would do to them; and he did not do it.”
God had pity on the people of Nineveh even though they were enemies of Israel, God saved them from destruction as they repented from their heart. “All that the Father gives me will come to me; and him who comes to me I will not cast out.” John 6: 37
The visual aid revealed that God was showing Jonah his love for all the people who he had created. And he was showing future generations the way of faith and grace, illustrated through the plant and the worm.
Many Biblical scholars see this as depicting Law and Grace
The plant that sprang up was the law and the worm that ate the root of the plant represents the new covenant by faith and grace in Jesus.
The plant represents Jonah’s reliance upon himself: when he built his shelter and his pity for the plant which really was in fact his self pity at being left without the plants shade .And his pride, his self esteem had been injured, having discerned the message as a word of condemnation that was punishable under law.
Jesus’ parable. The labourers were under law who had worked all day had expected more than what was agreed with the vineyard owner. The denarius represents Salvation and a day represents a life time. Those who Jesus described as ‘the last first and the first last were under grace. Jesus is both the last and the first. When John saw Jesus, “I fell at his feet as though dead. But he laid his right hand upon me, saying, “Fear not, I am the first and the last, 18. And the living one; I died, and behold I am alive for evermore.” Revelation 1:17, 18. This as I understand it,( in verse 12) makes us all equal in Christ as Paul wrote in his letter to the Colossians, “And have put on the new nature, which is renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator. Here there cannot be Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Sythian, slave, free man, but Christ is all, and in all.” Colossians 3: 10,11.
The crimson worm under grace was a prophecy relating to the Christ,. Psalm 22: 6-8. “But I am a worm, and no man; scorned by men, and despised by the people. All who see me mock at me, they make mouths at me, they wag their heads; He committed his cause to the Lord; let him deliver him, let him rescue him, for he delights in him.”
The Psalmist prophecy was fulfilled when the passers by along with the chief priest and scribes mocked and wagged their heads at Jesus on the cross saying, “He saved others; he cannot save himself.” In Mark 15: 29-32.
In Paul’s letter to the Romans he wrote, “ the wages of sin is death”
Jesus bore all sin upon the tree and died and God delivered Jesus from sin that leads to death. Three days later God raised Jesus up from the grave.
The female worm firmly attaches herself to the tree and dies, so that her young feed on her and take up their new life from their mother.
Three days later the worm changes colour from scarlet to white, it speaks of death, resurrection and ‘Christ in us.’
In Paul’s letter to the Galatians, “I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me; and the life I now live in my flesh I live by faith in the Son of God.” Galatians 2: 20. God calls us to die to sin and self. We feel how God feels about sin and were we once relied entirely on ourselves in every aspect of daily life, we now look to Jesus.
The scarlet worm continues to bless us after her death:The dead worm’s white wax was scraped off the tree to used for polishing wood, it’s called shellac
The crushed worm was once used to make medicine to regulate the heart beat and its’ colour was used as dye.
Prophesies for the end time in John’s Book ‘Revelation.
Jesus blesses us in many ways: we have fellowship with the Trinity Father, Son and the Holy Spirit and other Christians. Now as we pray we find that Jesus is guiding us, watching over us. Jesus relies on us to serve him through the things he calls us to do like telling people about the prophesies that are leading up to the ‘Great Tribulation’ great in the sense of being a great catastrophe. This ia a warning to the world that John wrote about in Revelation 7: 14. 18:9. Matthew 24.
It’s part of the churches ministry to make this prophecy known in order to bring nations to repentance.