Tag Archives: Fickle

Life’s Chorus

May 1, 2025 Tom Vander Well Leave a comment

[The chief priests and Pharisees] looked for a way to arrest [Jesus], but they were afraid of the crowd because the people held that he was a prophet.
Matthew 21:15 (NIV)

In theatre, it’s called the Chorus.

Every major theatrical production has a Chorus. It’s where almost every actor begins their journey on stage. For me, it was the musical Mame my freshman year in high school. Craig got the lead as a sophomore because he was over six feet tall and the only dude in school who could naturally grow a full beard.

I was in the Chorus.

I was a minion switching costumes for each of the big production numbers. An anonymous party-goer at Mame’s New York City penthouse apartment in one scene, then suddenly a mint-julep sipping southern gentleman in a tux later in the show. A face in the crowd.

As I studied acting in college, I was taught the importance of doing a character study for any role I’m playing.

But what if I’m a member of the Chorus?

It’s a legitimate question. It’s a legitimate role.

In today’s chapter, the crowd plays a significant role.

The crowd welcomes Jesus to Jerusalem in a triumphant parade in which they shout His praises, wave palm branches, and spread their cloaks on the ground before His donkey.

The crowd has Jesus #trending. He’s who everyone is talking about. He’s all the buzz. So much so, in fact, that the religious leaders are indignant.

Later in the chapter, the indignant religious leaders try to trap Jesus in a debate. Jesus skirts His way out of the trap by leveraging his enemies’ fear of the crowd.

A third time (there’s that number three again) Matthew mentions Jesus’ enemies were so upset that they became determined to get rid of Him, but they were afraid of the crowd.

By the end of the week it will be a different scene in a different Act. The crowd will have switched costumes and will be calling on Pontius Pilate to crucify Jesus.

It’s easy to be dismissive of the Chorus in any musical, but it has a significant role to play. In the same way, it’s easy to pretend the crowd doesn’t exist in life, but it plays a larger role than I care to admit.

The number of “likes” and “comments” I get on social media from the crowd.

The movies, shows, and songs that the crowd is buzzing about.

The fashions and styles everyone in the crowd is wearing.

The fickle winds of popular opinion being tweeted, chanted, and shouted by the crowd online and in the media.

In the quiet this morning, I find myself wrestling with my own relationship with and participation in the crowd of life. I can’t escape it anymore than Jesus could escape it. He rode His donkey through the crowd shouting His praises. He knew the crush of the crowd following Him wherever He went for three years. He will feel the sting of the crowd turning on Him in the end. There is a Chorus in life whether I choose to recognize it or not. Sometimes I’m a part of it. Sometimes I’m on the outside being influenced by it.

As I ponder, I’m reminded of an observation that John made about Jesus and the crowd of Jerusalem:

Now while he was in Jerusalem at the Passover Festival, many people saw the signs he was performing and believed in his name. But Jesus would not entrust himself to them, for he knew all people. He did not need any testimony about mankind, for he knew what was in each person. John 2:23-25 (NIV)

I might not be able to escape the Chorus in my life’s production, but I can certainly be mindful of the role it’s trying to play in my story. I can be discerning. I can choose not to take the role when it’s offered. I, like Jesus, can choose whether to entrust myself to it or not. The further I get on this earthly journey, the more I think it wise to do so.

If you know anyone who might be encouraged by today’s post, please share.

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Chapter-a-Day

The Spectrum of Belief

March 5, 2024 Tom Vander Well 1 Comment

Even after Jesus had performed so many signs in their presence, they still would not believe in him.
John 12:37 (NIV)

We are just over halfway through John’s account of Jesus’ story. John now shifts the narrative to focus on the final days of Jesus’ earthly journey. Almost half of John’s account is the events leading to Jesus’ crucifixion and His subsequent resurrection.

In today’s chapter, John shares about the wake of Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead. Word spreads about the miracle. Lazarus and his sisters hold a feast to honor Jesus. Crowds are arriving for the Passover festival and the buzz is all about Jesus who raised a man named Lazarus from the dead. Everyone wants to meet both of them. It is on the wave of this #trending event that Jesus enters Jerusalem with crowds waving palm branches and proclaiming Him king.

As I sat back and looked at the structure of the chapter, it became clear to me that John prepares his readers for the final, climactic chapters by providing a survey of where people were on the spectrum of belief in Jesus.

It begins with Lazarus and his sisters, who have every reason to put their faith in Jesus. In particular, however, it is Mary who acts with humility and foresight in pouring perfume on Jesus’ feet and wiping them with her own hair. Jesus explains that she is preparing Jesus for His own burial. Mary not only believes, but she may be the only one who seems to understand what is about to happen to Jesus.

Next, John makes sure to mention Judas, his indignation at Mary wasting perfume that cost a year’s wages to give Jesus a foot bath. The money could have been sold and given to the poor, though John is sure to mention that what Judas really meant was it could be sold and put into the ministry’s money purse where he would have access to it. He will, instead, find another way to make 30 pieces of silver. Even among Jesus’ disciples was one who was on the unbelieving end of the spectrum.

Next are the crowds of Jews who have been recurring characters in John’s account. In the wake of Lazarus’ return from the grave, they are clamoring to get close to both Jesus and Lazarus. Of course, John has already made clear in the aftermath of the miracle of the Filet-o’-Fish Feast that the crowds are fickle. They’re all in on believing when it’s about free food or an entertaining spectacle, but they will move to the unbelieving side of the spectrum and chanting “Crucify Him!” in just a few days.

Then there are the religious leaders known as the Pharisees. They and the Chief Priests are hell-bent on killing Jesus, and now they add Lazarus to the hit list. How ironic that they want to kill the man who was just raised from the dead. These are the people on the extreme end of the unbelief side of the spectrum.

John then mentions Jesus’ disciples, himself included, and confesses that while they believed Jesus, they really didn’t understand what Jesus was doing or saying until after all of the events he’s recounting actually happened. So add to the spectrum those who believed, but didn’t really understand what it was that they were believing.

John also introduces us to a group of Greeks who were in town for the Passover festival. These were non-Jewish (a.k.a. Gentile) adherents to the Jewish faith but who weren’t fully circumcised converts. What’s fascinating about John adding this group to the mix is that by the time John wrote this account, the biggest controversy among the rapidly growing Jesus Movement was whether the large number of Greek Gentiles who were becoming believers must become Jewish converts before they could be considered good Christians. In response to this group of Greeks who want to meet Jesus, Jesus says “And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, I will draw all people to myself.” John’s first-century readers would have found these Greeks on the belief side of the spectrum to be very important to the mix, and a foreshadowing of the conflict within the Jesus Movement years later.

John then makes sure to mention that, despite all of Jesus’ signs and miracles, there were many unbelievers entrenched on the unbelief side of the spectrum. He seems to acknowledge those who would refuse to believe no matter what Jesus did or said.

John then mentions the Religious Leaders who secretly were on the believing side of the spectrum but who would not publicly acknowledge this. They fear the institutional union leadership who would have them kicked out (and maybe added to the hit list) if anyone were to find out they were believers.

In the quiet this morning, I can’t help but hear John’s unspoken question in the subtext. He’s given me all these different people and groups at various places on the spectrum from disbelief to belief. “So, Tom, where are you on the spectrum? With which person or group do you identify?”

Of course, that’s the important question. I have to believe that it’s the motivation for John writing this primary source account in the first place. I find it fascinating that John places this belief spectrum right before the final events of the story. It’s as if John is taking my spiritual temperature leading into the climax. As a life-long disciple, I find it worthwhile to ponder this question anew, especially in this season of Lent when believers all over the world are introspectively walking through the climax of the story together.

I enter another day of this earthly journey with Jesus’ words from today’s chapter ringing in my ears: “For I did not come to judge the world but to save the world.”

I’m back on Facebook for those who liked to read my chapter-a-day posts there! Facebook refuses to give me access to my old, hacked account, but I have started a new account. Please search for me on Facebook and friend me. If Facebook won’t let you friend me, please go to my Facebook profile and “Message” me, which should then allow me to friend you. Cheers! -Tom

If you know anyone who might be encouraged by today’s post, please share.

Chapter-a-Day

The Crowd

April 21, 2017 Tom Vander Well Leave a comment

But the chief priests and the elders persuaded the crowd to ask for Barabbas and to have Jesus executed.
Matthew 27:20 (NIV)

I have read the story of Jesus’ trial and execution countless times along my journey. It is packed with so many fascinating and meaningful moments that it’s hard to focus on one thing for a blog post like this. As I read a chapter each day I try simply to have my heart and mind open to what resonates most deeply with me in this moment, and this morning what resonated with me was the crowd.

Perhaps it’s because of the preponderance of media that gets focused on crowd events and all that we’ve witnessed in recent months and years. I’m thinking of all the marches, riots, demonstrations, and protests I’ve seen reported on the news and in social media recently. Whenever a crowd gathers it gets attention. We seem to have a lot of crowds.

There is a entire branch of sociology and psychology dedicated to understanding crowd (or mob) mentality. Interestingly enough, consensus among scholars is as hard to come by. I was intrigued, however, by the theory of Gustave Le Bon who boiled it down to three things:

Submergence: In the anonymity of the crowd individuals lose their sense of individual self and personal responsibility.
Contagion: Having lost their sense of self, individuals unquestioningly follow the predominant ideas and emotions of the crowd.
Suggestion: Ideas and emotions of the crowd are primarily drawn from a shared racial unconscious, uncivilized in nature, and limited by the moral and cognitive abilities of its least capable members.

Three things came to mind as I thought about the crowd shouting for Jesus’ execution.

First is the fact that five days earlier the crowd was shouting “Hosanna” as praising Jesus as “king” as He entered Jerusalem. Now the crowd has been persuaded to shout for Jesus’ blood. Wow. That’s a major drop in approval rating in just five days. It’s amazing how fickle crowds can be.

Which leads me to remembering a passage from John’s biography of Jesus. In the second chapter we find that the crowd of people believing in Jesus and following Him was growing rapidly. Jesus was trending in all the major outlets. The crowds were growing and His popularity was skyrocketing, but John records that Jesus “would not entrust Himself to them, for He knew all people.”

Which is why, perhaps, Jesus continued to remain silent as He stood by Pilate and witnessed the crowd that had turned on Him. Wednesday’s post about silence and spiritual authority comes back to mind. What a contrast we see in this picture. The lone figure of Jesus standing silent, bloodied, yet resolute in His mission against the submergence and contagion of the crowd whipped into a frenzy at the suggestion of Jesus’ enemies.

This morning I’m reminded of my desire to follow Jesus’ wisdom as it relates to crowds. I need to avoid entrusting my self to any crowd. This applies even to seemingly good crowds, for I’ve witnessed and been prey to crowd mentality even in nice neighborhoods, churches, social groups and communities.

I want my life, my beliefs, and my daily decisions to be guided by something more solid than the ever shifting mentality and emotion of a crowd. I want to be wise and discerning as I watch the crowd mentality emerge and “trend” in my social groups and in the media (including Facebook, Twitter, and all the other social media outlets). I want my life to be focused on my mission, my role, and my responsibilities. That’s hard to do if I am unwittingly submerging my thoughts, emotions and actions to the crowd around me.

Chapter-a-Day

As [Jesus] went along, people spread their cloaks on the road. When he came near the place where the road goes down the Mount of Olives, the whole crowd of disciples began joyfully to praise God in loud voices for all the miracles they had seen: “Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord!”

What a difference a week makes. At the beginning of the week crowds were hailing Jesus as the new king coming to Jerusalem. By the end of the week crowds were shouting for his death so insistently that Pilate was forced to go against his better judgement and have Jesus crucified.

Crowds are fickle. Ask any celebrity or politician (is there a difference?) who surfs the waves of popularity. One day the public adores you, but in a moment they will turn. And, it doesn’t even take being guilty of something. It only takes gossip, rumor, and innuendo to quickly turn the tide of public sentiment against you.

Which brings me to another observation John makes in his biography of Jesus:

During the time [Jesus] was in Jerusalem, those days of the Passover Feast, many people noticed the signs he was displaying and, seeing they pointed straight to God, entrusted their lives to him. But Jesus didn’t entrust his life to them. He knew them inside and out, knew how untrustworthy they were. He didn’t need any help in seeing right through them.

Jesus knew not to trust in His trending popularity. He knew that He was ultimately be rejected. He knew the prophecies. He realized from the beginning that the crowds would ultimately turn against Him. More often than not He was trying to escape the crowds get away by Himself or with His inner circle.

I find it fascinating that in all of His teaching Jesus never made any public plea for followers. There were no membership drives. No information cards in the back of the synagogue to fill out, and no mailing lists. The truth is that there is as much, in not more, evidence of Jesus discouraging those who asked to follow Him than the opposite.

What I’ve come to realize in my own experience is that being a follower of Jesus is not about fame, it’s about faith. It’s not about celebrity, it’s about service. It’s never about recognition, but about repentance. It’s never about being lauded, but about loving sacrificially as we’ve been sacrificially loved.