Two Crowds

Luke 19:36-37 A crowd of disciples welcomes Jesus into Jerusalem as He rides a borrowed colt. They praise God for “all the miracles they had seen.” This is the crowd at Palm Sunday who are also recorded in Luke 19:48 as having hung on His words. Another, smaller group was not there to welcome Jesus, did not recognize the source of the miracles and certainly did not hang on His words. These people who were in effect His enemies. They sought to trouble Him and used several tactics: These were:
1. To question His authority
2. To attempt to trap Him in His speech
3. To confound Him with confusing religious issues
Jesus did not fall for their tactics and in fact continued to turn the traps back on the people who set them. His enemies only captured Him through Judas as he obeyed Satan and betrayed Jesus to His enemies.
Once arrested and convicted under cover of darkness, the attitude of the crowd began to turn against Jesus. And, as the tide itself turns, the progression is deliberate and sure. The soldiers who arrest Him, the crowd at the home of the High Priest, Peter, the soldier guarding Jesus, the Chief Priest, the teachers of the law, Pilate, Herod, Herod’s soldiers, the crowd all begin to believe the lies of the enemies.
Only when Jesus has submitted to His captors does the turning tide become swift. What appears to be weakness to all around, gives basis to the enemies claims about Jesus. He is called blasphemer, not God, imposter, evil.
What appears to be powerlessness to all around, gives courage to the soldiers to ruthlessly abuse Jesus.
What appears to be capitulation, to all around, give justification to the crowds’ choice to crucify Jesus and free a murderer.
The crowd has believed the reasoning of the enemies of Jesus. They have found a powerless, dejected and weak Jesus is no the kind of miracle man they can defend. The crowd; from recipients of miracles and teaching; to the mob of curses and death, has become the embodiment of all Jesus came to rescue.
He rescued the people of the crowd and took them out of the crowd and made them followers, a great throng, a peculiar people.