And when they had all gone forth and had witnessed for themselves, they did cry out with one accord, saying:
Hosanna! Blessed be the name of the Most High God! And they did fall down at the feet of Jesus, and did worship him. [3 Nephi 11:16–17]
"Notice what just happened. The second time these people fell at Jesus’ feet, they “did worship him.” That didn’t happen the first time. The first time they may have fallen to the ground for any number of reasons: fear, awe, peer pressure. I don’t know. But the second time they fell to worship Him. Why the different reaction from the first time? The second time they cried out in unison, “Hosanna!” which means, “Save us, now!” Why were these people, the righteous remnant, crying out to Christ for salvation now?
"Let me suggest a possible answer. Although they had been obedient, perhaps they had not yet come to know Him as their Savior because they had not yet felt the need to be saved. They had led lives filled with good works. They knew Jesus as God, as Exemplar, maybe even as Friend. But maybe they didn’t yet know Him as Savior. Their prayer wasn’t, “Thank you for having saved us in the past and reminding us of that by your presence today.” No, the prayer was a current plea: “Hosanna!” or “Save us, now!” That suggests to me that they were just then coming to know Him as Savior.
"What had done that? What had turned them from good, obedient people to good, obedient people who now knew Jesus Christ as Savior? What had caused them to fall down at His feet to worship Him? It was physical contact with the emblems of His suffering..... We have that experience every Sunday when we partake of the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper. We eat the broken bread, a token of His slain body. We drink the water, a symbol of His spilt blood. These are striking symbols intended to shock us, to evoke in us a deep sense of gratitude. Every Sunday you and I have physical contact with the emblems of Christ’s suffering.
"Remember the transforming effect that experience had on the people in the Book of Mormon? They were now prepared to be organized anew into a church community, to hear and put into practice the teachings of the Sermon on the Mount, to learn how to serve those who were powerless: the sick, the disabled, the children. This group transformed their society from one that had been divided by race and class and opportunity into a society in which,
"they had all things common among them; . . . there were not rich and poor, bond and free, but they were all made free, and partakers of the heavenly gift . . . . because of the love of God which did dwell in the hearts of the people. [4 Nephi 1:3, 15]
"It began with a group of people who came to know Christ as their Savior because of the transforming experience of having physical contact with the emblems of His suffering. And we do that every week! I believe that our meaningful participation in the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper will elicit the same response in us. We will cry out to Christ in our hearts, “Save us, now!” and we will fall down at His feet to worship Him.
As Elder Jeffrey R. Holland has taught:
It is the wounded Christ who is the captain of our soul—he who yet bears the scars of sacrifice, the lesions of love and humility and forgiveness. Those wounds are what he invites young and old, then and now, to step forward and see and feel. . . . Then we remember with Isaiah that it was for each of us that our Master was “despised and rejected . . . ; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief” (Isa. 53:3). All this we could remember when we are invited by a kneeling young priest to remember Christ always. [Jeffrey R. Holland, “This Do in Remembrance of Me,” Ensign, November 1995, 69; emphasis in original]
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