On Noticing the Crowd (in all of us and all of us in the crowd)
Mark 11:1-11
Every year at Palm Sunday we like to reenact the excitement of that ancient tickertape parade that greeted Jesus on his entry into Jerusalem. And every year we wonder about the fact that the same crowd that shouted ‘Hosanna’ and cheered, became the crowd that yelled out ‘Crucify Him’ How did the change happen?
Various explanations are usually given. One is that the revolutionary types in the crowd – the Zealots – were looking for a certain kind of Messiah who would lead them to battle and victory over their enemies. And when Jesus turned out not to share their agenda they turned on him. This is often how movies tell the story.
Some put the spotlight on the Jewish Leaders and their ability to manipulate the crowd.
A third approach, in a recent TV version, is very aware of the way Jews have been blamed down the century and persecuted and killed by Christians, and it focuses on Pilate and the Roman leaders. After all they were in charge and finally killed Jesus, and so this movie shows Pilate manipulating things behind the scenes. So rather than blaming the Jews it blames the Romans…. Who killed Jesus?
Paul Nuechterlein says this about these various interpretations:
“… blaming anyone — Jews, Romans, the Jewish Sanhedrin, Pilate — …. is completely beside the point of this whole story. In fact, when we try to blame anyone, we are exactly missing the point. For the Christian Gospel isn’t about this group or that group needing forgiveness. It’s not about this person or that person needing forgiveness. It’s about all of us needing forgiveness — not just the persons there that fateful Good Friday, but about every crowd of persons through the ages who have needed scapegoats to come together.”
I think he’s so right [worth repeating] Not only is blaming entirely wrong in that it is the underlying reason why Jesus got killed in the first place, but in doing so (blaming) we hide from ourselves the fact that the clue to the story of Christ’s entry into Jerusalem and his death lies nowhere, if it doesn’t lie with the crowd.
Today is Palm Sunday. The crowd gathers for the first time in the Passion story to see the latest source of excitement – Jesus the healer-prophet from Nazareth – potential messiah material. Who knows what he’ll do? After all, the Messiah is due any time now. It’s a year of Jubilee (or near enough).
Have you ever been at a big protest, a large rally? Anyone go to the Town Hall last week? Did you feel the ‘esprit de corp’, the exhilaration of joining together – in a righteous cause? I did – and for the record I think it is righteous cause. But I also think that for the crowd, any cause feels like a righteous cause. I wonder how it would have felt to be a pro-stadium person in that crowd a week ago. Funnily enough, no one spoke up.
I wonder if some people on the parade into Jerusalem began to wonder what the story was though, when their hero turns up on a donkey – the first century equivalent of a Mazda Familia – trots into Jerusalem on his little donkey, weeping. It doesn’t quite fit with the hype. If Jesus thought of himself as kind of messiah, as the new priest of Israel, coming ‘in the Name of the Lord’, anointed to bring Israel back to her true calling. If that’s what Jesus was thinking, then he certainly had none of the optimism that was normally required of a politician. He offered no stirring speeches. He just wept and trotted on by.
And, I guess, at some point the uncertainty, turned a corner in that crowd. It’s really interesting to see how the New Testament notices some of the anatomy of the process – how the crowd grows and turns against Jesus.
The Jewish leaders play their role, but not without the crowd. Matthew 15:10 says that Pilate observes that the whole thing is driven by envy, it’s a kangaroo court. It was, says Matthew, ‘out of envy’ that the chief priests handed him over. Not so much that they wanted something he had, but that they wanted him not to have what he had – his authority. So they joined ranks against him. It was their crowd and Jesus cannot be allowed to continue to exercise authority. The Chief Priests need their crowd. So they stir up the crowd against him. But Pilate sees all this. Pilate also knows the power of the crowd. So he offers them an alternative scapegoat. Anyone will do. Even the worst enemy. Barabas was a militant rebel against Rome. He was also an enemy of the priests. The religious leaders were busy trying to keep Rome on side. Barabas was a revolutionary. And yet Barabas, and Pilate and the Priests end up joining hands. They are swallowed up, effectively in the same crowd. They become the crowd. There’s a telling little comment about the way the crowd swallows up everyone. It comes in Luke 23:12, following the part in the story where Pilate sends Jesus to Herod, who sends him back again. “That day Herod and Pilate became friends with each other; before this they had been enemies.”
In the beginning, on Palm Sunday, Jesus has friends who cheer, and enemies who lie in wait. And, however it happened, over the next 4 or 5 days there is a coming together of nervous and threatened people. In the end they make peace. They all join hands, Pilate, the Priests, the Zealots and revolutionaries, Herod, even the disciples. Peace comes over Jerusalem, because they all find a common enemy, a scapegoat, someone to blame/cast out/, in this case kill. This is the key that our Easter story exposes to the light of resurrection day.
In the end the crowd swallows up us all. We find our cultural enemies. Even if it’s as trivial as people we talk about in little groups [or even just think about] who make us feel better about our self and our group. As Nuechterlein puts it, the crowd in the passion story is “every crowd of persons through the ages who have needed scapegoats to come together”. That’s why the whole story matters to us… because we were there (when they crucified our Lord), as part of the crowd that makes up all of human history. If we don’t understand the role of the crowd (not just Pilate or any particular individual) then we don’t understand how we are in the story.
There’s no one to blame. Because to blame would be to miss the point of the story. Human nature is to blame. Human nature is in the rude spotlight of Jesus Christ. On Palm Sunday Human nature is about to be healed.
Bruce Hamill (Caversham and Green Island 5.4.09)