Football coach Grant Teaff made national headlines when he inspired his team to victory by swallowing a worm. He told a story about a fisherman in the arctic who caught fish when others didn’t because he kept the worms warm. When he put the worm in his mouth, the players would have run through a wall. We only know the story because they won the game. I once heard him explain that he did not actually swallow the worm. Still, I suppose it would be better to eat a worm than to be eaten by worms.
Herod fell in the latter category. How did it happen? While the Gentile Christians in Antioch took up an offering to help the Christians in Jerusalem with a famine, the people in Tyre and Sidon sought government help instead. Flattering Herod, they invited him to speak, and upon hearing his words said he had the voice of a god and not of a man. Herod must have felt pretty good about all of that. He never stopped to say, “There is only one God and I do not have his voice.” Instead, he believed his own press clippings and died, eaten by worms. Pride goes before a fall! When I look for a leader in any setting, I look for the one who gives glory to God alone. I know. They are hard to find. But I won’t settle for less.
Words are more powerful than worms. At the same time King Herod’s proud voice was silenced, the word of God continued to spread across the ancient world. The story of God’s love and mercy revealed in the crucified, risen Lord Jesus Christ is still moving across our world. The prophet Isaiah predicted this in 55:11 “so is my word that goes out from my mouth: It will not return to me empty, but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it.” More victorious than any football team ever, God’s word is undefeated in accomplishing his purposes. Let’s read his word, hear it, speak it, and put it into practice.
