How Soon the Crowd Turns by Cheri Holdridge (with an assist by Kurt Young)

    We are in the midst of another presidential primary race, in case you missed it. My husband and I enjoy politics. We started dating during the 1996 Presidential campaign and had one of our first dates at a campaign event in Bowling Green. When I invited him back to my place to watch the Convention on TV, Kurt knew he had found a woman who shared his love for politics. He was hooked.  Actually Kurt, a true believer, thinks of the convention as a little boring to watch.  Mind you he is trying to get to go this year as a delegate.

    But my, my, my, being caught up in a political campaign season can give you whiplash, can’t it?  The popularity of a candidate can turn on a dime. The crowd can be with you one day, and then next day, you wake up, and you at the bottom of the pile. How soon the crowd turns.

    It’s the same with heroes. They have their day. But it usually does not last for long. I’m told a historian named Gene Smith wrote a book about Woodrow Wilson, called When the Cheering Stopped. The book tells about how Wilson was such a hero after World War I, but it did not last for long. “It was the story of President Woodrow Wilson and the events leading up to and following WWI.

    When that war was over Wilson was an international hero. There was a great spirit of optimism abroad, and people actually believed that the last war had been fought and the world had been made safe for democracy.

    “On his first visit to Paris after the war Wilson was greeted by cheering mobs. He was actually more popular than their own heroes. The same thing was true in England and Italy. In a Vienna hospital a Red Cross worker had to tell the children that there would be no Christmas presents because of the war and the hard times. The children didn't believe her. They said that President Wilson was coming and they knew that everything would be all right.

    “The cheering lasted about a year. Then it gradually began to stop. It turned out that the political leaders in Europe were more concerned with their own agendas than they were a lasting peace. At home, Woodrow Wilson ran into opposition in the United States Senate, and his League of Nations was not ratified.

    Under the strain of it all the President's health began to break. In the next election his party was defeated. So it was that Woodrow Wilson, a man who barely a year or two earlier had been heralded as the new world Messiah, came to the end of his days a broken and defeated man.”  (from www.sermons.com, sermon titled: “When the Cheering Stopped”)

    Have you seen heroes rise and fall like that?  How soon the crowd turns.
This is what happened to Jesus during the last week of his life, the week we are entering now, that we can Holy Week.

    It began on a Sunday, the day we call today Palm Sunday. We gave you each a palm branch today and I want you to take it home with you and put it somewhere that you will see it every day, so you can be reminded that this is Holy Week.
So today I just want to remind us all, of the story of that week.

    First, a little background:  Jesus’ ministry had lasted about three years. He had been preaching, teaching and healing all over the area of Galilee. The crowds had been following him all over the countryside of Galilee. He could hardly get a moment to himself. Do you remember? Sometimes he would try to go to the other side of the Lake to pray  --to get his Sabbath moments. But the crowds would always follow him. He was so charismatic – so full of the spirit of God – they could not leave him alone.

    In that last week of his life, he and his disciples went to Jerusalem which was the capitol. It was the seat of power – both political and religious power.  When he got to the edge of the city, the crowds gathered again. An impromptu parade and celebration erupted.

    They threw down their coats on the path in front of him which was a ritual for royalty, for heroes, for the mighty. They grabbed branches from the nearby palm trees and waved them in celebration. They shouted “Hosanna” which is a word of praise and celebration for a hero.

     They said “Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord.” They were announcing that Jesus was God’s servant. They were making bold statements of faith. He was their hero. Their savior. He was greeted in much the same way we greet a returning hero, like Woodrow Wilson was greeted after the first World War.

    The crowd was filled with hope. This Jesus might really be the Messiah they had been waiting for. The world might really change. That was Sunday.  But guess what happens by Friday?

    By Friday, the crowd turns on Jesus.  By Friday, everything changes. But not in the way we had hoped.   You see, they begin to doubt. They get scared. They have second thoughts.

    Do you ever put your hope in a leader, or a hero, and then your friends, or your boss at work, or your mom, or someone else you respect, says, “You are crazy!”?  That leader is no good. You have been duped. That one is a fraud! He is bad news. You are going down the wrong path.

    And then you start to second guess yourself?   That’s what happened.  The chief priests began to work the crowd. They spread rumors that Jesus was a trouble maker, that he was a false prophet, that his ways were undermining the good family values of their religious tradition. They told the political authorities that Jesus was trying to take away their political power. They certainly did not like that. They said he wanted to be the King. Everyone knew that Caesar was the supreme ruler.

    Even more than that, I think those who had listened to Jesus, might have started thinking about the hard things Jesus called them to do. He said crazy things like: love your enemy, forgive the person who hurts you, share your wealth with the poor, and stand up for the oppressed. I think the crowd began to have second thoughts about whether or not they really wanted to follow this savior that called them to the way of radical love.

    And so there came a time when the crowd got to make a choice about Jesus fate. You see, every year at this festival time, the Governor, who was Pilate, had a custom of releasing one prisoner back to the community. So Pilate stood before the crowd and offered Jesus back to them. They had a choice, they could either choose to have Barabbas released, or Jesus.

    Pilate’s wife tried to persuade him to release Jesus. She had a dream and knew that Jesus was innocent and she did not want Pilate to be involved in executing Jesus. But Pilate had to follow custom and let the crowd decide. He asked them: “Which one do you want me to release?”   They said: “Give us Barabbas.”

    And when Pilate asked, “What should I do with Jesus, the one called the Messiah?”  The crowd shouted, “Crucify him!”  One day they were waving palms and shouting praises, and five days later they were shouting “Crucify him.” How soon the crowd turns!

    I wonder why?  Why does public opinion change so quickly? How does that happen?   We see it happen all the time with public figures, don’t we? Just watch the TV news, or any entertainment show. Our fascination with political leaders, sports figures, and entertainment stars, shifts with the wind. Do they change, or do we?

    Do you think Jesus changed?  Not a chance.  I believe Jesus was consistent from the day he was born. He was clear about his mission and his purpose on this earth: to bring God’s love, justice and healing to this earth.  The crowd changed. We change.

    I imagine him walking around with this glow of compassion, mercy, healing, and justice just spilling out from him, everywhere he went. Jesus did not change.
So it must have been the crowd that changed.  We change.  We say we want to follow Jesus.

    We come here every Sunday, and we pray and we nod our heads and say “Amen!” We mean it, don’t we? We are sincere. We are not lying. I do not believe we mean to be hypocrites. I don’t intend to be a hypocrite.  But we are all fragile human beings and so we fall short.

     We say we want to follow Jesus with our words, but then with our actions, we fall short. We betray Jesus, in little ways and big ones.  I say I want to love Jesus with my actions, and then when I get tired, I snap at my husband and my children and I have to ask for their forgiveness. I say I want to be a forgiving person, and I want others to forgive me, but then when someone hurts me, I can’t forgive them. I hold a grudge and I avoid that person. Because I know they are not really sorry. She is a mean person and does not deserve to be forgiven.

    But darn it, Jesus even forgave people who did not deserve it. And God calls us to leave the judgment to God. Because anger and judgment, when we carry them around in our hearts, they just eat us up. They don’t hurt the other person. So we need to ask God to help us find a way to let go, and leave those people to God, and leave our hurt to God. That’s what it means to follow Jesus.  Jesus would stand up for those in the crowd who didn’t have a voice, who were beat up and bullied.

    You see, I think we want to be part of the crowd that praises Jesus by living our lives in his way. We don’t want to be part of the crowd that turns our back, and sends Jesus to the cross, condemning  him to his death.

    But we are fragile human beings. We are weak. Our allegiance to a hero or to a leader, well, it blows with the wind. We are prone to shift our attention one way or another, depending on our mood. We are the crowd, easily swayed by the message of the day.

    Just watch the political polls in the next few months. They will go up and down, for one candidate and another, over one issue and another. As a people, we will be all over the place.  And you and I will be too.

    This is Holy Week. This is a good week, a perfect week to renew our commitment to follow the way of Jesus. The way gets really hard this week. But we know that Easter is coming. We know the end of the story.  And Easter is the best message of all. But don’t skip ahead to the ending.  This is a great story, but you need to experience the lows of the week, to get to the end.  Don’t skip the betrayal and death. 

    I want to encourage you to check The Village website every day this week, or check our Village Toledo Facebook page. I am going to post a short Holy Week devotional message each morning – something to encourage us to pray and remember the importance of this week together.  We will also be celebrating the events of Holy Week with our friends at Park Congregation United Church of Christ. 

    And please take your palm branch with you and use it as a reminder to pray this week. Let’s ask God to help us be part of the crowd that stays with Jesus. Let’s not turn away from Jesus’ way of love, but stay right there with him. Every day this week, as life brings us little challenges, and big ones, to make choices, let’s consider: which choice brings us closer to Jesus? Will I be loving, compassionate, healing and just with my actions? Will I walk in the way of Jesus with my choices? Will I be shouting “Hosanna” and proclaiming Jesus as the hope of the world with my actions?

    Or will I be sending God’s gift of love to his death on a cross with my choice? We can do that too.  It’s easy to get caught up in the crowd and make that choice. I know how easy it is. But we don’t have to.  With this most holy of weeks, we can choose love. We know how the story ends. So in this Holy Week, by our actions, let us choose love.
Amen.