To commemorate the 100th day of the Obama presidency, artist Michael D’Antuono had planned to publicly unveil his painting “The Truth” at New York’s Union Square. However, last Wednesday’s planned unveiling was canceled after the artist received thousands of angry emails protesting his sacrilegious masterpiece. D’Antuono’s painting portrays President Barack Obama uncovering the presidential seal behind him by lifting up a dark veil with outstretched hands in crucifix form. To eliminate any doubt that the artist intended to depict our president as our Savior, D’Antuono added a painted crown of thorns on Mr. Obama’s bowed head.
Of the thousands of emailed protests sent to the artist, I dare say that not a single one was registered by the subject of Mr. D’Antuono’s blasphemous portrait. Despite our first “hip” president’s well-publicized and unprecedented proficiency among his presidential predecessors in today’s high-tech communication devices, as well as his avowed devotion to the one who declared that He alone was “the way, the truth and the life,” our president apparently felt no need to twitter a protest against D’Antuono’s painted portrayal of him as Jesus Christ.
That our president does have an occasional identity crisis within which he confuses himself with Christ is indisputable. For instance, in a recent speech at Georgetown University President Obama substituted himself for the Savior and his economic policies for the Scripture. He commandeered Christ’s famous Sermon on the Mount in order to twist the text and teach us that our only hope of building our nation’s future upon a rock is by doing what he says, not by doing what Jesus said. In another glaring example of Mr. Obama’s occasional illusions of divine grandeur, he outlandishly promised during his campaign for the presidency that if elected he would “slow the rise of the oceans, lower the earth’s temperature and heal our planet.” And I thought that only Jesus could command “the wind and the sea” (Mark 4:41).
A striking contrast may be drawn between our current president, who professes to be a Christian, and John the Baptist, who was the forerunner of Christ. When asked if he was the Christ, John the Baptist immediately and emphatically replied in the negative (John 1:19-28). Far from allowing anyone to confuse him with Christ, John insisted to everyone that he wasn’t even worthy to stoop down and untie Jesus’ sandals. As our Lord’s forerunner, John the Baptist spent his whole ministry fading from view so that others could see Jesus more clearly (John 3:22-30).
Jesus once said, “Among them that are born of women there hath not risen a greater than John the Baptist” (Matthew 11:11). Our Lord never paid a greater compliment to any man that this one He paid to John the Baptist—a man devoted to diverting everyone’s attention away from himself to Christ.
Like John the Baptist, Paul and Barnabas also sought to divert people’s attention away from themselves to Christ. When they were mistaken for gods in Lystra, they tore their clothes in distress and immediately stopped their would-be worshipers from offering sacrifices to them (Acts 14:8-20). As genuine servants of God, they readily denied any claim to their own deity and indubitably declared to others that they too were but mere mortals. Far from wanting halos put on their heads by human hands, these early pioneers of the gospel wanted all of the world to know that they too stood on feet of clay.
Nothing disturbs the true Christian more than for him to be substituted for Christ as the object of people’s faith and worship. Being wholly devoted to pointing others to Jesus, the true Christian desires no devotion to himself. He understands that it’s not about him; it’s about Christ! Therefore, he seeks no personal devotees, but only to make disciples of Christ in fulfillment of Christ’s Great Commission.
While President Barack Obama has little in common with the forerunner of Christ and early pioneers of the gospel, he does remind me of another political leader; namely, King Herod Agrippa I. Like our current president, King Herod was a masterful orator. Following a public address in Caesarea, the people became so enamored with Herod that they exclaimed, “It is the voice of a god, and not of a man” (Acts 12:20-23).
Like President Obama, King Herod didn’t declare himself to be God, but remained silent when others did so. As a result of his failure to “immediately” redirect people’s adoration from himself to the Almighty, King Herod was struck down by “the angel of the Lord.” The moral of this story is clear. It is a serious offense against God to usurp His glory, regardless of whether one does so straightforwardly or silently.
The Bible teaches us that no one can be compared to God and that God will not share His glory with anyone (Isaiah 40:18; 42:8). It also teaches us that the goal of true Christianity is to do everything we do for “the glory of God,” never for our own glory (1 Corinthians 10:31). Anyone seeking to usurp God’s glory by living for their own will eventually end up “eaten by worms” like King Herod; that is, proven in the grave to have been human rather than divine. And this, my friend, is really THE TRUTH!
