Something about the story of Jesus’ life during the days between Palm Sunday and Good Friday has always bothered me. How could this crowd of people who so passionately loved, respected, and praised Jesus on Sunday change their minds so quickly? In a mere five days, we will read how this same cheering, palm-waving crowd suddenly calls out for Jesus’ execution. It never seemed right to me. So while I was preparing this sermon, I Googled the question “Why did the crowd turn against Jesus so quickly?”
The search returned over 9 million results. Apparently, I wasn’t the only one who wanted to know!
So why DID the crowd have such a quick change of heart?
To begin to answer that question, let’s talk about someone many people today worship and adore…
Justin Bieber.
Justin Bieber has been at the top of the celebrity popularity charts for the last four or five years. You can’t turn on the television, log onto the Internet, or open a magazine without seeing his face. Talented, good looking, charming, chaste, seemingly down to earth for a famous kid. Little girls, their mothers, and their grandmothers cry when he sings. He has a haircut named after him! Justin Bieber can do no wrong!
…Or so we thought.
Over the last two or three months, the now 19-year old Justin has had a hard go of things. He was photographed smoking. He yelled obscenities at the paparazzi. He got in a social media war with Lindsay Lohan. He broke up with his long-time girlfriend. He’s been cancelling shows and showing up late, some say because he’s partying too hard.
Until around the end of last year, headlines about Justin Bieber were likely to say things like “Justin Bieber – Pop Music’s Golden Child” and “Justin – too cute for words!” and “Justin’s just getting started!”
But by February, the headlines had changed dramatically:
“Is Justin Bieber a Good Boy Gone Bad?”, “Justin Bieber blasts critics!” and, maybe most on point, this actual recent headline: “We were all Justin Bieber fans, and now we hate him!”
In the short span of 2 months, Justin Bieber’s press WORLD WIDE had changed from cheers to jeers. Many of the same people who praised him in December were mocking him by February.
Why did we turn on Justin so quickly?
Is it because Justin allegedly parties too hard? Probably not – Rock stars have been doing that for years and we kind of expect it from them at this point. Don’t we all still love Elvis, Merle Haggard, and Keith Richards after all?
Is it because he fought with the paparazzi? I think we all have come to understand how celebrities are hounded by the tabloids. Frankly, I’m kind of impressed when someone stands up to them.
Well, maybe it’s because he said mean things about Lindsay Lohan? Doubtful. Let’s be honest, who DOESN’T say mean things about Lindsay Lohan?
All kidding aside, we’re not really that upset about any of the specific things Justin Bieber did. Based on everything we’ve seen and read and know, can we say his behavior is all that different from that of most 19 year olds? Frankly, we shouldn’t even be SURPRISED by it.
The only reason this crowd has turned on Justin Bieber is because he’s not behaving like the clean-cut, nice young man we all want him to be. In short, we are very disappointed in Mr. Bieber because he’s not living up to the unrealistic expectations we set for him. He was our hero, and he disappointed us. And when our heroes disappoint us, it makes us angry.
On Palm Sunday, as he rode into town on a donkey, Jesus was that crowd’s hero. But, oh, how he would disappoint them.
The Jews had waited a long time for the Messiah and they had not had an easy time of it. Their most recent tribulation, the Roman Occupation, was no picnic. When they saw and heard of the miracles Jesus had performed, especially the recent raising of Lazarus, they saw the potential for him to be that guy. They looked at some of the prophesies about the Messiah, and they expected Jesus to free them from Roman oppression and lead them into a new age. They expected a conquering hero.
But there was no overthrow of the Roman regime. There wasn’t even a good sword fight. There was just Jesus, humbly submitting to his arrest and subsequent torture. And in the short span of five days, Jesus’ press went from cheers to jeers too.
But, based on everything they’d seen and read and knew, that crowd shouldn’t have been surprised either.
See, these people waving palms and praising Jesus had conveniently ignored prophesies that talked about Jesus’ suffering, death, and resurrection. They didn’t listen to Jesus’ own words about his true nature. Not even his closest friends understood until about 2 months later! Apparently, even the donkey wasn’t enough of a hint.
The only reason that crowd turned on Jesus is because he wasn’t behaving like the messiah they wanted him to be. In short, they were very disappointed in Mr. of Nazareth because he didn’t live up to the unrealistic expectations they set for him. He was their hero, and he disappointed them. And it made them angry.
Some people believe the crowd turned against Jesus because God miraculously hardened their hearts to fulfill prophesy. I’m not going to go on record and say God didn’t do that, I wasn’t there. But I will say this. Even if He did, He sure didn’t need to.
This Palm Sunday story John tells may be a beautiful, miraculous example of fulfillment of prophecy, but it is also a difficult lesson on a dark piece of human nature.
It doesn’t take much for us to turn on our heroes.
But Jesus isn’t just our hero, is he? He’s not just some celebrity like Justin Bieber or even what we might call a “real” hero like Seal Team 6 or Nelson Mandella. Jesus is also our God.
So, could it be, that it doesn’t take much for us to turn against our God?
Could it be that all it takes for us to turn against our God is for him to ‘fail’ to live up to unrealistic expectations we set for him? Could it be true that when God disappoints us, it makes us angry enough to reject him?
Heck we don’t even have to be ANGRY to reject God. We just have to be mildly inconvenienced!
We reject God when we spend hours in front of the tv but not a single minute reading his Word.
We reject God when we don’t come to church because we didn’t feel like getting out of bed.
We reject God when we only talk to people we know in Fellowship because we don’t want to talk to people we don’t know.
We reject God every single day in a thousand little ways just because it’s easier than following him!
We have so little to lose by following Jesus – a little sleep, a little time, a little pride. These Jews…they had EVERYTHING to lose. Their livelihood, their homes, their lives. And then on TOP of that, this Jesus guy didn’t even turn out to be the big hero they expected him to be. So why should anyone be surprised that they rejected him?
If anything, we should be surprised that anyone still followed Jesus after the events of holy week. We should be amazed that the jeers once again became cheers. We should be stand in awe that, as the Psalmist tells us, “the stone the builders rejected became the cornerstone.” THAT is the miracle. Despite the overwhelming odds against it, enough people accepted God’s grace and moved beyond their fears and their disappointment so that 2000 years later, we are STILL waving palms in Jesus’ honor.
It’s human nature that we place unreasonable expectations on God. It’s human nature that we reject him in anger, in fear, and even in laziness. But if we accept God’s grace, we can move beyond all that and truly say that Jesus has become the cornerstone of our lives.
