The Crowd and The City

The weirdest things catch my eye. It doesn’t matter how many times I’ve read a particular passage or heard it taught, sometimes things just get shiny to me. I’m a scripture squirrel. The passage in Matthew 21 is great example. Every Palm Sunday for as long as I can remember, I’ve heard about Jesus on a donkey. And the shouts of the people. Waving palms and a coat strewn road. It’s a short, action packed moment that makes for incredible cinematic production.

Matthew 21:7-11 reads this in the English Standard Version of the Bible with parenthesis added for clarification:

They (the disciples) brought the donkey and the colt and put on them their coats, and He (Jesus) sat on them (the coats). Most of the crowd spread their cloaks on the road and other cut branches from the trees and spread them on the road. And the crowds that went before Him and the crowds that followed Him were shouting, “Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest!” And when He (Jesus) entered Jerusalem, the whole city was stirred up saying, “Who is this?” And the crowds said, “This is the prophet Jesus, from Nazareth of Galilee.”

There is a lot in there. Physically, spiritually, symbolically, prophetically. And I’ve been blessed to have had some really amazing teaching on so much of this. Scripture is alive and this is what draws me back even when I want to run away. This year as the Pastor was reading this section my head wrapped around two words and stopped. I know he was preaching a hot one and I know I’ll have to go back and watch it on the website. Pray for that man. He has me in his congregation. All I heard was, “The crowd. The city.”

I looked in Strong’s concordance to see if there was a difference between Crowd and City. Is there ever! “Crowd” has several meanings: a throng (as borne along); by implication, the rabble; by extension, a class of people; figuratively, a riot:- company, multitude, number of people, people, press. Crowd here is not necessarily a description with a positive connotation. “City” is a stark contrast in it’s meaning: a town (property, with walls, of greater of less size):- city. So what?

There is a greater difference between the crowd and the city and it’s more glaring than the number of words in the definition. The crowd was worshipping. The city was questioning. Jerusalem, home of the Temple of the Lord, the City of David, The holy City did not recognize the very Savior it was established to welcome. This immobile establishment was stirred up by crowds of rabble during the high Holy Days. The city would have been chaotic to begin with due to the influx of visitors coming to sacrifice. The Temple was a well oiled machine of consecrated commerce and the Who’s Who were ready to do business. But the entry of Jesus was different because it was unexpected: they could not capitalize on the event.

Why did the crowd respond to Jesus as they did then? They had already come prepared to worship. They had arrived at Jerusalem with their hearts already in a state of repentance and surrender for the sacrifice of doves and lambs. These outsiders, these out of town guests, day trippers, commoners had not come to do business with money changers. They had come to worship their God. When the heart is prepared, the Savior is evident.

The Church needs to return to the exuberance of the Crowd. Even as they boldly shouted they were showing that boisterous worship can still be orderly. The City asked and would then go on to crucify Him. Too often we are so focused on being the city on the hill to the lost that we forget the identity of our worship. If we are truly ushering The Savior into the temple, we won’t casually hand Him off to church bureaucracy. Jesus doesn’t need to be crucified again, Yet we betray Him time after time. Judas was also in the Crowd except his heart was in the City. What does our thirty pieces of silver resemble?

Most of the Crowd participated. Today the crowd is smaller than ever. Less and less come in pursuit of worship. Most do not witness to the cities that desperately need Jesus. They do not lead Him through the streets in a genuine show of sacrifice. How many of those people who threw their cloaks got them back unscathed? What was the condition of the clothing upon return? Dusty. Dirty. Hoofprint laden. Torn. Pieces of palm branches embedded into the fibers.

What extremes will we go to so that Jesus can override our exterior trappings and change them? Change us? They didn’t realize the final Passover Lamb was passing over their cloaks. They didn’t know that from the top of the hill of Gethsemane as Jesus was dying, He would see the trees bereft of the palm fronds they were currently offering.

Last month my best friend died suddenly of a heart attack. For all the goofiness we shared over the decades, not once did he choose Jesus as his savior. He was Jewish; he’s waiting on a savior the first time around. We talked about scripture sometimes but not once did I ever really put pressure on him about deciding eternity. It’s eating me up. While I shouted and laid my palm branches, my friend was still siting in the city wondering what the commotion was about. Ultimately, I was no friend. Maybe he made a decision at the last seconds of his life. I don’t know. This Holy Week is the loneliest I’ve been in a very long time.

I haven’t posted a blog in quite a while. It’s not that I wasn’t writing because I was. The tone of what I had was whiny. Self serving. Selfish. It’s very easy to just type and post, type and post. I see bloggers with that modus operandi constantly. Being the Cyber Sanhedrin has no cost, no true sacrifice. To shred others brings lots of readers. To teach lightly draws the masses with itching ears. To ignore the actual Word of the Lord and simply sound spiritual is politically correct. None of those things, I repeat, NONE of those things leads others to repentance and salvation.

Do we, do I, simply want to be a city on a hill with constant questions about who is who? Or do we, do I, want to be free of the city walls and my external trappings to worship exuberantly, in Spirit and in Truth? The Crowd answered the City but they didn’t know the whole answer. They said He was a prophet from Nazareth of Galilee. They knew where He came from and thought they knew who He was. The even thought they knew where He was going since they were leading Him into the Jerusalem. If that Crowd could worship in that way how much more should we worship knowing the entirety of the Gospel?

The City has its purpose. My purpose wasn’t to bash the City. The problem presents when the establishment is the final goal. The final goal of Christ was the Cross and then the empty tomb. We should be ready to give an answer for the hope that is within us according to 1 Peter 3:15. The Crowd was ready. Where do you stand?