Part of the Crowd

What an incredible privilege to be in Jerusalem this particular week! Today we remembered the events leading up to Jesus’ crucifixion and resurrection. We found ourselves literally walking through the story as we began our day on the Mount of Olives and journeyed to the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, the very likely site of the crucifixion, tomb, and resurrection.

As we stood on the Mount of Olives facing Jerusalem, we remembered the crowds who welcomed Jesus into the city on a lowly donkey to the shouts of, “Hoshanah! God save us!” Many in that crowd were eagerly awaiting a political overthrow of Roman oppression by their Messiah, and they believed the time had come. This crowd totally missed the point of his arrival, and it caused Jesus to weep over the city. Jesus then enters Jerusalem through the Sheep Gate, not as a conquering king but as the sacrificial Lamb, amidst the crowds of people bringing in their own lambs for the Passover feast. What were the disciples feeling as they walked into the city with this crowd? Confused, afraid, disappointed? How many of the people who had been healed and touched by Jesus were in that crowd? Was Jairus there with his family and his daughter? What about the woman who had bled for 12 years, now restored to wholeness and community? Lazarus and his sisters? The Scriptures don’t say specifically but we have to wonder, why wouldn’t they be there for this festival?

What about the crowds who pressed in tightly as Jesus, beaten and bloody and close to death, carried His cross along the narrow streets of Jerusalem? What would it be like to be in that crowd? What would the scene have felt like, sounded like, smelled like? As we walked single-file through some of those same narrow streets today, we became that crowd. It was an experience of noise, confusion, tight spaces, a cacophony of languages and voices, along with an aromatic mixture of food, spices, tobacco, sweat, and garbage. We saw shops displaying colorful wares of every variety and we saw blood pooled in the streets from butcher shops. It was total sensory overload to be a part of that crowd, and that was the point.

We are not a people of history but of memory, and we all find ourselves somewhere in this story. I found myself asking, who am I in that crowd? Who are you in that crowd? Are we waiting for Jesus to bring political power to bear on a situation, to our shouts of “Hoshana”? Are we confused, disappointed, afraid by the way these events are unfolding? Do we feel His heartbreak and weep over a people who misunderstand His purposes and His ways? Are we those in the crowd giving testimony to the power of Jesus and His saving love? Are we those who are not afraid to face brokenness and tears, who can lay down our expectations of how the Kingdom comes? Are we, like Mary, just trying to catch a glance of Jesus and follow Him on his journey to the cross?

No matter how we may answer that question, we were reminded today that the message of Jesus remains timeless: even though we blow it, even when we miss the point and get it wrong, He is alive and He is still right in the middle of us. He came with a message of revolutionary love, powerful grace, and healing forgiveness. He came to turn the whole world right side up. And He is still doing it. Blessings from the city of our great King!

Shalom,
Debby Boggs