Now Their King He Shall Be Known

Mormons generally do not use the crucifix in their worship. To explain why, I will start where many stories of Jesus Christ end – when he is on the cross, exclaims “It is finished,” and dies.

Before sunset on the Friday of his crucifixion, the Lord’s mortal body was taken down from the cross and hastily laid in the tomb owned by Joseph of Arimathea. The third day, Sunday, some of the women came to the tomb to prepare the body properly for burial. They discovered that the stone covering the entry to the tomb had been rolled away. Inside the tomb, an angel told them “He is not here but is risen.” (Luke 14:6.)

Mary Magdalene wept at the tomb, not yet understanding the resurrection. She saw Jesus, but thought it was the gardener and asked “Sir. If thou have borne him hence, tell me where thou hast laid him, and I will take him away.” Jesus said to her “Mary.” And she recognized him, saying “Rabboni,” “Master.” And Jesus said “Touch me not for I am not yet ascended unto my Father . . . .” (John 20:14-17.)

Later the same day, Jesus appeared to ten of the apostles, excluding Judas, who had betrayed Jesus and then taken his own life, and Thomas, who was simply absent. His appearance was miraculous because the apostles were in a closed room when Jesus came and stood in the midst of them. But he showed them that he had a body of flesh and bone, with the prints in his hands and the wound in his side. (John 20:19-20, 24.) Thomas doubted the other apostles’ story. But eight days later, Jesus again appeared to the apostles. This time with Thomas present, who exclaimed, “My Lord and my God.” (John 20:26-28.)

After 40 days of ministering to his disciples in Palestine, Jesus went with the apostles to the Mount of Olives. As the apostles watched, Jesus ascended into heaven. Two angels appeared and said, “Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye gazing up into heaven? This same Jesus, which is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come in like manner as ye have seen him go unto heaven.” (Acts 1:9-11.)
 
Also after his resurrection, Jesus appeared to the inhabitants of this continent, and ministered to them for several days. (3 Nephi.) On that occasion, Jesus said: “Behold, I am Jesus Christ the Son of God. I created the heavens and the earth, and all things that in them are. I was with the Father from the beginning. I am in the Father, and the Father in me; and in me hath the Father glorified his name. I came unto my own, and my own received me not. And the scriptures concerning my coming are fulfilled. And as many as have received me, to them have I given to become the sons of God; and even so will I to as many as shall believe on my name, for behold, by me redemption cometh, and in me is the law of Moses fulfilled. I am the light and the life of the world. I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end. . . . Behold, I have come unto the world to bring redemption unto the world, to save the world from sin. Therefore, whoso repenteth and cometh unto me as a little child, him will I receive, for of such is the kingdom of God. Behold, for such I have laid down my life, and have taken it up again; therefore repent, and come unto me ye ends of the earth, and be saved.” (3 Nephi 9:15-18, 21-22.)

He was not dead; he was very much alive, even immortal.

For many years, however, the heavens were closed because of the wickedness of man. Finally, in 1820, the heavens were again opened. Young Joseph Smith went into a grove to pray concerning which church he should join. Joseph described what happened: “I saw a pillar of light exactly over my head, above the brightness of the sun, which descended gradually until it fell upon me. . . . When the light rested upon me I saw two Personages, whose brightness and glory defy all description, standing above me in the air. One of them spake unto me, calling me by name and said, pointing to the other—This is My Beloved Son. Hear Him!” (Joseph Smith – History 1:16-17.)

Sixteen years later, after the translation of the Book of Mormon, the restoration of the Church of Jesus Christ as it existed at the time of Christ, and the construction of the first temple in this dispensation, the Savior came to his temple. It was on April 3, 1836. The temple had been dedicated the week before. On this particular Sunday, Easter Sunday, Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery participated in a meeting with the members in the temple. They then retired to a place behind the pulpit, with curtains drawn, and knelt in prayer. Doctrine and Covenants section 110 states: “The veil was taken from our minds, and the eyes of our understanding were opened. We saw the Lord standing upon the breastwork of the pulpit, before us; and under his feet was a paved work of pure gold, in color like amber. His eyes were as a flame of fire; the hair of his head was white like the pure snow; his countenance shone above the brightness of the sun; and his voice was as the sound of the rushing of great waters, even the voice of Jehovah, saying: I am the first and the last; I am he who liveth, I am he who was slain; I am your advocate with the Father.” (D&C 110:1-4.)

We do not focus on the crucifix in our worship of Jesus Christ because he is not there, neither is he in the tomb; he is risen. He reigns in the sidereal heavens. Elder Quentin L. Cook taught us that “[w]hile we rejoice in the supernal significance of Gethsemane and Calvary, our focus has always been on the resurrected Lord.” (Ensign, May 2010.)

The resurrection of Jesus Christ was just as important to us as his death. Without his resurrection, we could not be resurrected. “For by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive.” (1 Cor. 15:21-22.) I think most of us are familiar with that scripture from First Corinthians, but perhaps not with the next four verses: “But every man in his own order: Christ the firstfruits; afterward they that are Christ’s at his coming. Then cometh the end, when he shall have delivered up the kingdom to God, even the Father; when he shall have put down all rule and all authority and power. For he must reign, till he hath put all enemies under his feet. The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death.” (1 Cor. 15:23-26.)

As Alma the Younger prophesied: “Yea, every knee shall bow, and every tongue confess before him. Yea, even at the last day, when all men shall stand to be judged of him, then shall they confess that he is God; then shall they confess, who live without God in the world, that the judgment of an everlasting punishment is just upon them; and they shall quake, and tremble, and shrink beneath the glance of his all-searching eye.” (Mosiah 27:31.)

The testimony of Jesus Christ and the truth of his restored gospel is obtained by the witness of the Holy Ghost. Yet there are also outward evidences that this Church is the true Church of Jesus Christ. One of those evidences is the similarity of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to the primitive Christian Church, soon after the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. The focus of those early saints was also on the resurrected Christ rather than the crucifix.

Frederic Farrar, an English Bible scholar of another faith, studied the question of why the primitive saints, those living just after the time of Jesus Christ, did not preserve a record of where all the events of the life of Christ took place. Even the site of the crucifixion of Jesus Christ is open to conjecture. Farrar’s explanation highlights the similarities between how we worship and how the primitive saints worshipped. Quoting Farrar:
 
“That the sites where events took place which have swayed the whole temporal and eternal destinies of the human race could have been forgotten, might well seem passing strange; but the earliest generations of believers, in the days of primitive Christianity, attached no importance to localities or relics. The Lord Christ was to them far less the human Jesus, who, for one brief lifetime, had moved among men, than He was the Risen, the Eternal, the Glorified Christ, their Lord and their God. They habitually contemplated Him, not as on the Cross, but as on the Throne; not as the humiliated sufferer, but as the King exalted far above all heavens. They never regarded Him as taken away from them, but on the contrary as nearer to them than He had been while on earth even to the disciple whom He loved, and who bowed his head upon His breast. So far from being absent from them, He was, as He had expressly taught, ever with them and within them. To minds pervaded by such thoughts, the scenes of His earthly pilgrimage were comparatively as nothing.” (Frederic Farrar, The Life of Lives – Further Studies in the Life of Christ (New York, 1900), pp. 276-277.)

As did the primitive saints, we worship him as a living, redeeming, glorified God, not as a humiliated sufferer.

Gordon B. Hinckley addressed the question of why we don’t use the crucifix. He taught us that the symbol of Christ for the Latter-day Saints is the way we live His gospel. (Gordon B. Hinckley, “This Glorious Easter Morn,” Ensign, May 1996, 65–67.)

Parley P. Pratt, one of the early latter-day apostles penned the words of one of our sacrament hymns:
 
Jesus, once of humble birth,
Now in glory comes to earth.
Once he suffered grief and pain;
Now he comes on earth to reign.

Once a meek and lowly Lamb,
Now the Lord, the great I Am.
Once upon the cross he bowed;
Now his chariot is the cloud.

Once he groaned in blood and tears;
Now in glory he appears.
Once rejected by his own,
Now their King he shall be known.

Once forsaken, left alone,
Now exalted to a throne.
Once all things he meekly bore,
But he now will bear no more.
But he now will bear no more.
(Hymns, 196.)

Never again will he sleep in an animal’s manger while others luxuriate at the inns.

Never again will he flee to Egypt to escape the murderous intent of a wicked king.

Never again will he be taken before a tribunal of sinners to be judged for offending them.

Never again will he be spit upon and fitted with a crown of thorns.

Never again will he submit to cruel lashing and painful assaults.

Never again will he be burdened with his own cross and paraded to his death.

Never again will he be nailed to a cross and suffer death.

Never again will he be burdened with our every sin, every grief, and every pain, descending below all things.

It is finished.

Now their King he shall be known.

Always our King, our Savior and Redeemer, he shall be known.