Fickle

 January 20, 2023

Knowing who one’s friends are is important…and tricky. Mark 12:37 says, “the common people heard [Jesus] gladly.” It’s not surprising, since his message was one of encouragement. He elevated the common man, and regularly skewered the elites and establishment, earning him praise from the former and enmity from the latter. 

There is a lesson here: When those with power and privilege praise you, it’s time to worry. The Bible tells us this world is unrepentantly hostile to the Gospel. It may speak peace, but it is never our friend. The problem is, the common man who heard Jesus gladly are notoriously unreliable. Fast forward to Mark 15:13-14. 

Jesus is on trial before Pilate, his life hanging in the balance. The politicians and religious leaders have colluded together in a remarkable alliance of otherwise mortal enemies to put an end to this pesky trouble maker who threatened to disrupt their cozy elitist world.

“Now at the feast he was accustomed to releasing one prisoner to them, whomever they requested. And there was one named Barabbas, who was chained with his fellow rebels; they had committed murder in the rebellion. Then the multitude, crying aloud, began to ask him to do just as he had always done for them. But Pilate answered them, saying, “Do you want me to release to you the King of the Jews?” For he knew that the chief priests had handed Him over because of envy. But the chief priests stirred up the crowd, so that he should rather release Barabbas to them. Pilate answered and said to them again, “What then do you want me to do with Him whom you call the King of the Jews?” So they cried out again, “Crucify Him!” Then Pilate said to them, “Why, what evil has He done?” But they cried out all the more, “Crucify Him!””         —Mark 15:6-14

Do you catch the irony? Those who heard him gladly were now clamoring for his death. We can’t claim that it was exactly the same crowd both days, but crowds are usually made up of common, ordinary people who as often as not, blindly follow the demands of the very people who oppress them. It is not without reason such crowds are often called “sheeple.” That the oppressed should demand that the oppressors crucify their best champion is testimony to the blindness of the crowd. As T.S. Eliot mused, “When the whole world is running headlong towards the precipice, one who walks in the opposite direction is looked at as being crazy.”

The older I get, the less interested I am in being popular, accepted, appreciated. It’s nice, but it’s no measure of my faithfulness to Christ. It is much more important to me to do my best to make sure that as much as I am able, my life measures up to the Gospel. I can trust neither the crowd nor the the academic nor the politician to have my best interests at heart. God alone does that, and for it, this world crucified his Son.