The Crowds

Delivered at First Baptist Church, Gainesville, GA 

Monday, Holy Week, 2013

As we mediate on our role/our place in the narrative of Holy Week - I want to focus our attention on three passages of scriptures – three short scenes from Palm Sunday to Easter.

            The first passage comes from Palm Sunday – from Jesus’ entrance into the city of Jerusalem.  Luke 19:36-37:

As he rode along, people kept spreading their cloaks on the road. 37As he was now approaching the path down from the Mount of Olives, the whole multitude of the disciples began to praise God joyfully with a loud voice for all the deeds of power that they had seen,

            Jesus has finally arrived on the outskirts of Jerusalem as the city prepares for one its largest festivals of the year – Passover.  Luke tells us Jesus has been resolutely headed towards this moment for months.  His entire ministry has focused on being in Jerusalem at this moment in time. 

            Jesus draws on the symbols of a king when he has his disciples bring the colt for him to ride into the capital.  Into an occupied city, Jesus communicates his messianic role for everyone to hear.

The community notices.  The turbulent mass of humanity crowding into the narrow confines of occupied Jerusalem quickly hear of this symbolic act they respond – not through some Facebook or twitter organized, Arab spring induced revolution – but through a spontaneous expression of faith.  The palm branches come up, the coats get laid down and Jesus journeys into the city ready to face all that lies ahead. 

Like the largest growing religious demographic in American – the nones – those are spiritual, but not religious – the crowd on Palm Sunday recognized a spiritual moment as it occurred and they responded.  It met a strong spiritual and political need in their lives.  They wanted to see a new messiah overthrow the Romans.  Underneath it all, they sensed something of God was happening and they had to respond. 

Their response was instantaneous – there was no real thinking involved – they heard and saw Jesus and moved.  Their response was also conditioned.  The crowd responded to this symbolic act with an equally conditioned symbolic act – placing their coats and waving the palm branches. 

Crowds are like this – we respond instantly in conditioned ways.  Go to any mass gathering of people – a sporting event, parade, New Years Eve – and watch as individual lose their identity and follow the crowds where ever they go. 

We see another aspect of the Holy Week crowd later in the week in Luke 21:37-38:

“37 Every day Jesus was teaching in the temple and at night he would go out and spend the night on the Mount of Olives, as it was called. ³⁸And all the people would get up early in the morning to listen

This view of the crowds during Holy Week doesn't get as much attention as those heady first day of Palm Sunday.  Once again, though, we see the crowds responding out of their base needs to Jesus.

After overturning the market of goats and doves inside the temple, the infamous name of Jesus has begun to spread to wider and wider circles within the Jerusalem population.  Not only has this Jesus from Galilee come riding into the town on the symbolic kingly colt – he has also begun to challenge the status of their religious systems as well.  This is someone we want to hear. 

Jesus has awakened a deep desire with the masses of Jerusalem for something beyond the status quo religious experience.  His rebellious actions and his radical teaching on the Kingdom of God attracts people who are looking for something new and different in their lives when nothing ever is new or different. 

When Jesus teaches – the crowds in Jerusalem listen spellbound – Luke says.  There is something so attractive – it forces them to break their normal habits.  They get up early to make sure they have a spot in the temple when Jesus arrives to teach. 

The more people who want to hear Jesus – the greater the crowd builds.  Crowds are like this – once one person finds something – others want to find it as well.  Once again – we lose our individuality – the crowds don’t build in the temple courts because it each individual wants to hear Jesus – as much as they build because no one wants to miss what others will experience.  No one wants to be the one to say – I didn’t hear it. 

This is the same reason the Cabbage Patch dolls sold out in the 1980’s and tickle me Elmos in the 1990s.  It’s the same reason videos go viral.  Once something seems to be a trend – more and more people want to experience it. 

A final crowd scene from Holy Week I want to share is found in Luke 23:23-24.

Jesus has been arrested.  Pilate calls together all of the Jewish leaders and the “people.”  The crowds.  The Jerusalem population.  These are the same people who proclaimed Hosanna on Sunday, who got up early to hear his spell binding teaching on Tuesday.  Now - by Friday morning they stand before Pilate and .   “kept urgently demanding with loud shouts that Jesus should be crucified; and their voices prevailed. 24 So Pilate gave his verdict that their demand should be granted.

The common question we ask – that I often ask – as I see this transformation of the crowds is “What happened.”  How did this massive crowds go from  worshipping Jesus on Sunday to getting up early to find a place to hear him in the temple on Tuesday to shouting crucify him on Friday? 

I’m not sure that is the best question – though.  I’m not sure if   anything really happened.  In fact – as we look at the response of the crowd all week – they have remained the same. 

·         Instantaneous- The crowds have responded without thinking.

·         Conditioned – The crowds have responded in culturally conditioned ways.

·         Trending – the crowds have responded by following the trends of the moment.

We see all three of the crowd responses on Friday as well.

The crowds have shown up instantaneously - early without really knowing what all had been happening all night long – the last supper, the night of prayer, the arrest, the false trials before the Sanhedrin, Pilate and Herod.  Somehow the word has gotten out about a trial and they have come to watch.

The crowds have been conditioned – as much as their ears tingled with Jesus spoke with such radical new teachings – when they stand before the chief priests and the Jewish leaders –they are conditioned to respond as led.  And they do. 

The crowds follow the trends – As soon as one person begins to shout for Jesus to be crucified they all do.  Crucify Jesus, give us Barabbas.  It makes no sense – but crowds don’t often make sense, do they?

            I understand the draw, the allure, the hope of the crowd.  I live with a 16 year old and a 12 year old – a 10^th grader and 6^th grader.  Every day seems to be shaped in some way by the crowd.

This morning the first conversations revolved around a new video app for smart phones called the Vine.  It’s produced by twitter and it makes it easy for kids to produce a short video and share it with the socially.  The videos from this weekend were high school friends drunk in a family’s basement.  The other conversation had to do with cussing in middle school – when everyone seems to be rebelling with their language and the desire to not stand out.

My daughters are struggling with how to navigate high school when the crowd seems to be moving in one direction and our values carry them in another.

Its not only my daughters, though.  I have this same urge – to not stand out.  To be just one of the many when it comes to what I wear and how I speak and what I do.  We fought this urge so hard when our kids were little – everyone seemed to buy their little girls specific kinds of clothes or brands.  We want to be accepted.  We want to be part of the crowd.

The crowd of the Holy Week story is not just another character in the narrative – it is our story.  This is the story we live every day.  How we dress.  What we think. Our politics.  Our beliefs.  Our transportation.

The Gospel of Jesus – though is not a crowd sourced religion.  Jesus doesn't speak to us as a crowd – he speaks to us an individual.  He calls us by name.  Jesus doesn't save us as part of a family or community or even a church – he saves us one at a time.

The Gospel of Jesus resists crowd things and responding.  Jesus calls us to a life of self-sacrifice – a life defined by the cross.  Jesus doesn't invite us to join the crowd - Jesus invites us to come and die. 

“Whoever does not carry the cross and follow me cannot be my disciple.”

This is how Paul puts it in Galatians 2: 

I have been crucified with Christ; 20 and it is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me.

This week – as you mediate on the events and people of Holy Week, I invite you to put yourself among the crowds.  See how you respond.  And in the end – I invite you to walk past the crowds and join Jesus on the cross. 

      Jesus invites us to come and die – so that you can escape the crowds and truly live!