“Now when He was in Jerusalem at the Passover, during the feast, many believed in His name, observing His signs which He was doing. But Jesus, on His part, was not entrusting Himself to them, for He knew all men.” (John 2:23-24).
In our English translations we may miss the two uses of the single word believe in this passage. John says many people believed in Jesus, but he didn’t believe in them. They were putting their trust in him, but he wasn’t putting his trust in them. Jesus knew better than to rely on people because he understood the human condition. Our question is how this passage teaches us to imitate Jesus.
First, we learn that we must be cautious of putting confidence in people. They were believing in him, but Jesus knew he could not count on their belief. Indeed, we ought not pay too much attention to what others are thinking. To take too seriously the accolades or distain of others is to invite disappointment and to be misled. To trust in anyone but God is to misplace our hope.
However, we may easily think only of others and fail to recognize that we are “people” too. If Jesus did not entrust himself to people, then we dare not entrust ourselves to ourselves! Jesus relied on his Father and not on Himself. We may know better than to trust in our good works, but do we have faith in our faith? When we depend on God we take hope in the work he is doing in us, but we know that we ourselves are very unreliable.
Cynicism is not a virtue to be cultivated, but true humility and faith are. True faith is to trust in God alone. True humility is to know that we are susceptible to corruption. A cynical person disbelieves the existence of any good. Christians carefully distinguish between the good of God, which we see everywhere, and human frailty. In fact, we trust in the goodness of God to overcome human weakness! We should not be cynical in the least, but very confident of God’s triumph through love and grace.
Reliance on God leaves no room to lean on ourselves. Our true nature and ultimate destiny is to be in union with God, but we must be deeply aware of human capriciousness. We cannot believe in Jesus as long as we believe in ourselves. The subtlety of self-trust resides in us all. To follow Jesus we need to be thoroughly suspicious of our own tendencies, thinking, emotions, desires, and preferences. Otherwise, we may entrust ourselves into our own hands rather than the care of God. Discipleship requires a disbelief in our own capabilities.
“Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding.” (Prov. 3:5).
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