The crowd in Jerusalem was a fickle bunch. On Palm Sunday
they welcomed Jesus as a new king coming to lead the Jews to throw off the
oppression of Rome and establish Israel as God’s great kingdom on earth. By
Friday morning they were yelling for Pilate to crucify Him. How could they
change so fast? I know the easiest answer is that the Sunday crowd and the
Friday crowd were not the same. Maybe that’s true, but if it is, what happened
to the Sunday crowd? Why didn’t they show up on Friday when the heat was on
Jesus?
Actually, this kind of sea change is often seen in
congregations. Pastors are welcomed with great fanfare. They are invited to
lead the congregation. The church believes that he can get the congregation off
a plateau or bring it back from near death. The people can’t wait to see their
church return and perhaps surpass its glorious past. They are sure that soon
things will right themselves and it will be just like the good old days. This
pastor is a leader and they know if they just have a leader their congregation
will succeed.
When Jesus entered Jerusalem the crowd were sure He was the
king they wanted. Even though they were greatly outnumbered by the Romans, a
King Jesus could heal their wounded and restore their dead to life. If their
supply lines got thin, Jesus could multiply rations like He did with the loaves
and fishes in Galilee.
It didn’t turn out that way. Instead of rousing the crowd
against the Romans, He went to the temple and deliberately irritated the temple
authorities. He even went so far as to disrupt their money-changing operation.
When He should have been getting people mad at the Romans, He criticized the
Jewish authorities that He needed to legitimize His kingship. Jesus was leading
a revolution, but not the revolution they wanted. So … “Crucify Him!” “Crucify
Him!”
The new pastor turns out not to be what they thought. He has
some strange ideas about how things ought to be done. He makes big changes in
the music. He brings in guitars and drums, and not just on youth Sunday, but
every Sunday. The choir is down to singing only once a month and the only time
the organ is heard any more is at a funeral. He’s got somebody leading some kind
of recovery group and a few of those people have been showing up in church. Somehow
he got the board to let him remodel the children’s area with all kinds of wild
color schemes and decorations. It looks more like a fun area than a classroom. And
there are so many kids running around making noises and messes … It’s not at
all like it used to be. Sure, the attendance is coming up, but those people
aren’t like us. They don’t know how to dress for church. They have tattoos and
some of them smell like tobacco. He doesn’t seem to care about the way things have
always been done and doesn’t think he needs the approval of the long-time lay
leaders. The church may be growing, but it’s not growing the way they want. The
pastor is a leader, but he’s not leading the way they wanted. Someone get up a
petition; let’s get rid of him. In effect, “Crucify him!” “Crucify Him!”
The Holy Week crowd got rid of Jesus and preserved the way
things were, but in a relatively few years the temple system was destroyed. The
local lay leaders usually get their way too, and while they may preserve the
traditions of their congregation, the church dies in a few years. Sometimes,
the pastor survives and leads another congregation to growth. Too often, he’s so
damaged that he decides to walk away from pastoral leadership.
Jesus was just doing what God sent Him to do, and the crowd
reversed itself. In the same way, the pastor was doing the Lord’s assignment
too, and the congregation turned on him. It’s a small consolation for the
pastor to realize that he faced the same thing Jesus did. The congregation,
like the Holy Week crowd, couldn’t trade their pipe dream of the future for
God’s vision. They couldn’t submit to God.
