Lots of people are testifying these days. We’ve got trials in California and New York and Georgia and Washington D.C. Politicians and government officials and even just ordinary people caught up in things are all either pouring their hearts out or nowhere to be found. Some are practically begging for a chance to tell their story while others have to be dragged kicking and screaming to the witness stand under threat of subpoena or fear of being brought up under perjury or obstruction of justice charges. There are as many motives for mouthing off as there are people and positions, policies and passions. And some are just going along with the crowd.
Jesus was heading for a trial of his own. And when the time came for people to testify, it’s amazing how many people were nowhere to be found. The same people, mind you, who were shouting their heads off as he came into Jerusalem that long ago day at the beginning of the Passover festival. It’s easy to speak up when there aren’t any consequences, isn’t it. It doesn’t take a whole lot of motivation to join the crowd shouting “Hosanna! Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord! Peace in heaven, and glory in the highest heaven!” [Lk 19:38]
Many people lined the roads that day who hadn’t a clue about who Jesus was. Jews came from all over the world for the three great pilgrim festivals, and it was the custom to line the roads to greet all the people who were coming up to Jerusalem to celebrate. But there were enough of Jesus’ disciples there for them to start shouting a different shout, one especially for Jesus, identifying him as a king. And that’s when the Pharisees started to object. Because mobs are dangerous. Now, this wasn’t a hostile mob, mind you, and so the danger wasn’t like the protesters the people of Minneapolis saw in 2020, or the riots in Paris earlier this year. But things can all too easily get out of hand, as they do during spring break and after soccer matches. And if people actually started believing that the prophecies of the Messiah were coming true, why, who knew what chaos might occur!
So the Pharisees try to get Jesus to reject the applause, to defuse the potential for a riot, to keep things on an even keel, to maintain the status quo. They might not all have even been actively hostile, either... just worried about the potential for mob violence, worried about what might happen if the Romans decided to crack down on the festivities, worried about - well, worried about losing control.
What they didn’t know was that things were very much under control.
Jesus had set this up just so that the people seeing him come into town would begin to get the idea that something important was happening. He was riding on the donkey just the way the prophet Zechariah had described, and the disciples were shouting praises to a king. This was a time for people to get on board, or at least to start paying attention to what God was doing in their world.
Timing is everything. There are times when God seems to be absent, times when we wonder, “God, why don’t you do something about this?” And the people of Judea had been wondering where God was for quite some time now. They hadn’t had a genuine, bona fide prophet for over four hundred years. The short-lived Maccabean kingdom had been crushed a hundred years before and the Jews were once again living under a brutal and greedy occupation. Where was God?
The time was now. The time had come for God to act. Jesus wanted the crowds to notice him. The time was now, God was in control, and people were going to sit up and take notice whether the authorities were able to silence the people or not.
Some of the people were just shouting because everybody else was. When the parade was over, they went home and took up their lives again, the way I might after cheering myself hoarse over a game. Believe it or not, I have done that - the year my high school basketball team went to State, and twenty years later when the Minnesota Vikings went to the Super Bowl. I sat on the edge of my chair and hollered out loud. I got caught up in the excitement. But it didn’t really matter to me when they lost. And I’ve not done it since. There are more important things in my life. (Sorry, guys, but it’s true!)
Some of the people were shouting because they believed Jesus was the Messiah. They had heard him teach, seen him heal people and cast out demons, maybe even had heard about Lazarus being raised from the dead. And now with him actually riding a donkey into Jerusalem, why, that must be the sign! That was the promise coming true! They were going to get rid of the hated Romans and be in charge of their own destiny again. Of course they shouted “Hosanna!”
But where were they the following Friday, after the donkey had been returned and the palm branches dried up and blown away?
Where were they the following Friday morning, when the High Priest Caiaphas called for witnesses to testify to what Jesus had said and done?
The only people who took the stand were hostile, a prosecutor’s dream. They swore upside down and sideways that Jesus had spoken against God, against the temple, against the law. What were their motives? Some of them might have been trying to curry favor with the council. Some could have been grabbing for their fifteen minutes of fame. Some witnesses might even have been paid. And some people just like to make trouble. But not one of them was forced. Not one of them was there under threat of punishment: imprisonment, or fines, or beatings. Of their own free will, each one of them bore false witness against the Son of God.
But where were the ones who might have witnessed on behalf of the defendant? Where were the ones who knew what Jesus had done? Where were the disciples who had hitched their wagons to his rising star? Where were the people whose lives he had changed, whose sight had been restored, whose children had been healed? Maybe they just didn’t know. After all, Jesus had been arrested in secret for the very reason that so many had been touched by his ministry. But no one there at all? By morning the news should have been all over town. Jerusalem was a small town, after all, and at least twelve people knew what had happened.
To be fair, it may well be that the temple guards kept out anyone who might speak favorably for the defendant; after all, it was a rigged trial. It may well be that some disciples would have been happy to tell the ruling council, the Sanhedrin, that Jesus had told them not to rebel against the authorities, told them to pay their taxes, told them that he hadn’t come to overturn the law but to fulfill it. It may be that there were people who were ready to testify on Jesus' behalf.
But I don’t think so.
And the reason I don’t think so is because by late morning, after Jesus had been condemned by the Jewish authorities, dragged off to Pilate for the expected rubber-stamping of the verdict, bounced like the political hot potato that he was over to King Herod and then back again to Pilate, the crowd in front of the governor’s palace had gotten quite large. There was certainly room for Jesus’ fans to pack the place - if they had wanted to.
But no. If his followers were there at all it was in numbers too small to make a difference, with voices too timid to be heard and hearts too uncertain to take a stand.
So when Pilate gave the crowd their choice between the murderer Barnabas and the teacher Jesus, there was no question as to which side would carry the day. Pilate didn’t have to ask them to raise their hands to be counted, or for the ayes to move to the right and the nays to the left. No, a voice vote was all that was needed, and the voices crying out for death outshouted whatever faint cries might have been raised for the now stripped and beaten king.
Jesus’ disciples were silent.
Jesus hadn’t silenced them, the priests and Pharisees hadn’t silenced them, not even the Romans had silenced them. They had silenced themselves, with fear, before ever a threat was made against any of them but Jesus himself.
But God was still in control. The faithlessness and fear of God’s people did not frustrate God’s purposes. As a matter of fact, God knew exactly what we were like, knew exactly how frightened the people would be, and used that fear to accomplish something even greater than a popular uprising. He redeemed the world instead.
And the words Jesus had spoken spoke the week before were true. Because the stones did cry out. Just a few short hours later, Matthew tells us, “The earth shook, and the rocks were split.” [Mt 27:51]
No, God was not stopped when his people stayed silent. God is never left without a witness, even when many if not most of his people run away when the going gets tough and it looks like there might be some discomfort or maybe even danger in standing up for the Gospel.
"The heavens are telling the glory of God; and the firmament proclaims his handiwork. Day to day pours forth speech, and night to night declares knowledge. There is no speech, nor are there words; their voice is not heard; yet their voice goes out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world." [Ps 19:1-4a]
No, God does not need us. But God has chosen us to be the bearers of his word. God has chosen us, the Church of Jesus Christ, to testify on behalf of the son of God in front of the court of the world. That is one of the reasons we have been given the Holy Spirit: “to be His witnesses.” [Acts 1:8] And as Paul wrote to Timothy, “God did not give us a spirit of cowardice, but rather a spirit of power and of love and of self-discipline. Do not be ashamed then of testifying to our Lord ... but share in suffering for the gospel in the power of God.” [ Tim 1:7-8]
We have been given this gift so that we might be more like the one Isaiah referred to when he said, “The Lord GOD has given me the tongue of a teacher, that I may know how to sustain the weary with a word.... Who will contend with me? Let us stand up together. Who are my adversaries? Let them confront me. It is the Lord GOD who helps me; who will declare me guilty?" [Is 50:4,7-9]
Is there something that you care about so much that you always find yourself talking about it? Is it your children, your work, your hobby, your favorite team? When you speak, what compels you?
As Christians, it is the love of Christ that should compel us to testify on Jesus’ behalf. Don’t wait for a subpoena, or you may find yourself on the wrong side of the bench when the verdict is handed down. We are to witness to and for the gospel of Jesus Christ not out of fear or out of self-interest, but out of love - love for Jesus, love for truth, and love for the people who are wandering around lost in the darkness.
