Crowd Appeal

After years of constant fame, John Lennon confided to a friend, "I am so very sad. I've even considered suicide." 

These words from one of the Beatles, the most famous pop group of the 1960s. John had money and worldwide fame, yet these things still left him sad and lonely. John told others that he wrote the song HELP! as a personal and desperate cry for help. 

Everybody loved the Beatles, but crowd love is often no love. The group traveled globally, living in hotels they could never leave because everyone wanted a piece of them. They were prisoners of their aura. Suffocated by their fame.

Crowds are cold and distant. They only want gratification for their momentary whims. You see this after sports teams win a championship. The very first question asked at the press conference is, "Do you think that you can repeat?" 

All through the Gospel narratives, you see the crowd being "amazed" by what Jesus said and did. He would take the religious leaders to task, and the crowd was amazed at his teaching. He would heal a demon-possessed man, and the crowd was stunned. 

Yet where did all this wonder lead them? If you look at the scene where Pilate brings Jesus before the mob and asks the crowd, "Who do you want me to release to you, Jesus Barabas or Jesus king of the Jews?" the crowd screams for Barrabás. 

Pilate even gives them another chance to let Jesus go when he says, "What do you want to be done to this man?" The crowd, urged on by the religious leaders, works into a furor and shouts, "Crucify him!" 

Yet again, Pilate gives the multitude an out by washing his hands of the matter and saying, "I am innocent of the blood of this man.” What was the crowd's reaction? “His blood be on us and on our children!" And it has been. 

We who have believed in Jesus the Messiah are to be separate from the crowd. We are not to go along with them. Of course we are not to be like the disciples who fled the crowd the night Jesus was taken to trial. We are to be ready to confront mobs in Jesus' name. 

Crowds are fickle. Don't trust them. Dare to stand alone. The cause is just.