FAITHFUL UTTERANCES: Crowd Control

By Dr. Froswa’ Booker-Drew

I love Easter. It’s not about colorful eggs, beautiful baskets, or pastel new clothes.

For many of us, there is a tradition that we adhere to not recognizing the greater story we are called to beyond Sunday. For those of us who have grown up in church, we’ve become accustomed to the Easter sermons and services. It can become routine for us to just go through the motions without really being aware and present.

We know the scriptures and the story and yet, if we are not careful, we can miss out truly seeing what God has before us.

We’ve been taught that the priests of Jesus’ time were responsible for bringing Him to the Roman empire for execution. Before his crucifixion, Jesus rode a donkey into Jerusalem, and a large crowd gathered and laid palm branches and their cloaks across the road, treating Jesus like a king. The hundreds of people shouted, “Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest heaven!” (Matthew 21:9)

Yet, the next crowd mocked and spit on him. Jesus goes from being celebrated to being singled out, equated to a criminal. “Those who passed by hurled insults at him, shaking their heads and saying, “So! You who are going to destroy the temple and build it in three days, come down from the cross and save yourself!” (Mark 15:28) The religious, church-going people who saw Jesus in the temple since He was a child, who saw his acts of goodness, were the very ones who plotted to kill him.

In such a short amount of time, the crowd went from lov- ing Jesus to loathing Him.

It’s easy for us to feel anger and bewilderment at the crowd that participated in his harm. Some of these very people witnessed or heard about the miracles that Christ performed. Those experiences did not change their behavior when they were with the crowd. They saw what they wanted to see at that moment. We view this story as something in the past when there are examples of this in our congregations today.

We believe that because we are Bible-toting, Scripture-quoting, and church attendees we would be different. Every day, we have opportunities to witness Christ in our midst and demonstrate love through our words and actions. If we choose to focus our attention on the crowds that make the most noise, we could miss our breakthrough and our blessings.

Several accounts in the Bible demonstrate after Christ’s resurrection He encountered many of those who spent time around Him. Despite the time they spent with him and the many miracles they witnessed, they did not recognize him. (John 20:15, John 21:4, Luke 24:13-35) Because of their limiting views and inability to believe what He told them, they could not see Him. I wonder how many of us today miss out on seeing Him.

Just like the people from Biblical times, we have the propensity to side with the loudest group because it’s the “in” thing. We will allow popular culture to influence our decision-making instead of searching the scriptures and Godly wisdom to inform our views. We will attend church on Sunday only to crucify people with the words that we say to others or type on social media on Monday.

There is a danger in our society of groupthink. Too many of us are more committed to political parties and social statuses than we are to living out what we say we believe. Jesus did not call us to conform to the world’s vision.

There are opportunities daily to be the hands and feet of Christ and when we allow our sight to become jaded with the world’s opinion or perspective, we can miss the chance to do something transformative and eternal.

What crowd is in your ear the loudest, possibly drowning out the voice of God?

Don’t go to church on Easter Sunday only to miss Him the rest of the week.

Dr. Froswa’ Booker-Drew is the President of Soulstice Consultancy, LLC and the Founder of the Reconciliation and Restoration (r2fdn.org) Foundation. The author of 4 books including Empowering Charity: A New Narrative of Philanthropy, Dr. Booker-Drew is also the host of the Tapestry Podcast.