When Jesus entered Jerusalem on Palm Sunday 2000 years ago, the people welcomed him as a king who would save them from the world. They looked to him as being the living Prophet and God who would set things aright for them. They shouted Hosanna! They waved palms above their heads and laid them on the ground before their King. They Praised the Man who WAS Jehovah!
Within days, he would disappoint them in their aspiration for a king, and they turned on him. His kingdom was not of this world — meaning that his kingdom was not in the form of like kingdoms dominated by men. He would not be their worldly “Savior.” They crucified their King.
What went wrong?
As I read the narrative in John 12 describing Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem, something stands out to me. Upon seeing the world praise him as their earthly King, Jesus responded to their cries of praise with a cry of his own:
“Jesus cried and said, He that believeth on me, believeth not on me, but on him that sent me. And he that seeth me seeth him that sent me.”
(John 12:44-45)
What is Jesus saying? He is saying that the glory and honor people give him in praise is not the right thing to do. We say “I believe in Christ”, yet this very same Christ is saying that our belief in Jesus the Man — as a worldly king — is misplaced. Rather, we ought to place our trust in the divinity that sent the man Jesus to the world.
This is a remarkable statement. We speak of Christ as the King, and we establish an earthly Kingdom of God on the Earth as the vessel of Christ’s authority. We establish our Church leaders as those who speak for Christ, whether by Christ’s own voice or the voice of his servants, it is the same.
This is the basic theme preached in the LDS Church as we approach conference. We look to the Prophet to guide us in these latter days. We anticipate our Solemn Assemblies, and “unprecedented announcements”, as if the very Word of God is breaking forth from the Conference Center.
And then, we find that our institutions fail us.
We speak of faith being lost in these tragic incidents — in learning of patterns of abuse and cover-up that trouble our very souls, and bring up memories in our own lives. Yet this loss of faith in institutions and men can open our eyes to the idea that there is something deeply misplaced in our trusting the arm of flesh and believing that the messenger is above reproach.
I come back to Jesus’ remarkable statement: Those who “believe in” Christ do not have faith in the *person* of Christ, but rather, the divinity that sent Christ to the world.
And who is Christ? “He that seeth me seeth him who sent me.” Christ is incarnated divinity. We worship the divinity. We place our *faith*, our trust, not on Jesus the man as a King, but rather, to have faith in the divinity which indwells in Christ.
We don’t teach this in our Mormon religion. Instead, we imbue into our male leaders the power and authority of Christ, expecting them to never lead us astray. If Christ told his followers to not have faith in him [as a king], then why do we put our trust into the arm of flesh of our leaders?
The man will always disappoint. The man is fallible: it is our human condition. We sing “Praise to the Man”, and yet, even Christ is saying — when all the world praised him in hosanna shouts and palms of kingly glory — that we do not praise even that Man. To praise and worship the person is to miss the point of the Atonement.
To look to Christ — to see Christ for whom he truly is, we behold divinity made flesh and living as a man. And this same incarnated divinity — he who is One with God, then told us to be One with God in exactly the same way He is.
Here is a deep paradox. We believe we are divine spirits, incarnated into bodies of flesh. Jesus taught the same: “Ye are gods,” he said in John 10, quoting Psalm 82. Yet the Psalm goes a bit further, “But ye shall die as men.” In like manner, Jesus was worshipped as God, as King, as deliverer and savior in the flesh — terms that meant, to those in his time, one who would overthrow the kingdoms the world. Yet Jesus the man, died in the flesh.
There is something powerful here we must realize. If Jesus as God asks us to stop worshipping the Man Jesus, then ought we not to realize that our “Praise to the Man” devotion is not only displaced, but will ultimately not save us?
And yet, in this deep paradox, divinity becomes real in and through the divine within us. Jesus said, “”He that seeth me seeth him who sent me.” If we can see the divine in Christ, and if we realize that the divine is manifest through Christ’s humanity, then can we not also see the divine in ourselves and others?
This is the Atonement: that we might be One, as Jesus is One with the Father. That we put aside our worship and faith in the arm of flesh, that we let our heroes die as men, and embrace the “more” that goes beyond our flesh.
As we realize this paradox, we can realize that our faith in institutions will always fail us, and yet through our communion, one with another, we can heal our wounds, face without fear our sins, and comfort those who have been victimized, without judgment or labeling, or recrimination.
As we realize this paradox, we can set aside our faith in institutions, and see the divine spirit that goes beyond them.
And as we realize this paradox, we enter the Holy Week, focused on the death of our trust in flawed institutions and people, and embrace the divine that lifts us upon the Cross, and gives us faith in the New Life in Christ.
This…is A Thoughtful Faith:
We are born again.
We are Christ.
We are One.