The Palm Sunday Crowd
Palm Sunday is slowly fading from view as a festival day in the church. We’ve noticed that most folks who show up at church on Palm Sunday and then again on Easter morning, don’t go to communion on Thursday night or the Tenebrae service on Good Friday. They jump from Christ’s triumphal entry into Jerusalem to Resurrection morning, without ever hearing the story of what happened in between Sundays. Therefore, those of us who plan worship are increasingly focusing on the story of what did happen in between – especially the crucifixion of Jesus.
I trust, if you are reading this, however, that you do know and will meditate on the Passion Story. Having said that, I hate to lose sight of Palm Sunday because it raises some important questions. One is, “how easily do I let my judgment get caught up in the hysteria of the crowd?”
The poet, William Carlos Williams, wrote the poem “The Crowd at the Ball Game”. It’s a pleasant picture of a crowd cheering for the home team on a summer afternoon. Then, the poem turns darker as Williams refers to the crowd’s power to become “venomous”.
The flashy female with her
mother, gets it-
The Jew gets it straight- it
is deadly, terrifying-
It is the Inquisition, the
Revolution
And he concludes:
The crowd is
cheering, the crowd is laughing
in detail
permanently, seriously
without thought.
In our baptismal vows, we are called to resist the spiritual forces of wickedness and the evil powers of this world. One of those powers is the power of the crowd. It isn’t always evil. In fact, on Palm Sunday, it appears to be very good. But on Good Friday it isn’t.
Jesus worked with crowds, sometimes, but he never trusted them. I admit, I love to see a great crowd of people show up on Easter morning, but I trust the handful of folks who come out on Friday night a whole lot more.
Listen this week to the voices of the crowd and then listen to the voice in you that tells you the truth. Is the voice of truth and the voice of the crowd saying the same thing?
