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Satisfying the Crowd

“Wanting to satisfy the crowd, Pilate released Barabbas to them.” Mark 15:15

    I guess deep down inside all of us is the desire to please or satisfy the crowd.  Working with young people all my life, the phrase “peer pressure” is  probably blamed for too many of our problems, yet it is very real and has a powerful impact on the decisions our young people make.  And it’s not just the young people.  We as adults, if we admit it, have the same desire to satisfy the crowd.

    In the coaching profession, one reason you play the game is to please the crowd.  Nothing feels better as you walk off the field after a win than to hear someone say, “Good job, coach” or “I really enjoyed that one!”  It feels good.

    I guess there’s nothing wrong with wanting to please the crowd unless that desire stands in our way of doing what is right, or from a Christian perspective, doing what God calls you to do.  The problem is that our desire to please others sometimes blinds us to the truth and keeps us from making right decisions.  Pleasing the crowd gets you votes if you’re a politician…it keeps your job if you’re a coach…and it gets you pats on back at social events.  But sometimes Jesus calls us to go against the crowd…to do the right thing for Him in spite of the consequences.

    In the fifteenth chapter of Mark, Pilate releases a notorious criminal, Barabbas, instead of Jesus because he wanted to “satisfy” the crowd.  In this case, the Jews were stirring up trouble once again in Pilate’s jurisdiction.  Rome had warned him that his job might be on the line should these uprisings continue.  Before him stood Jesus, an innocent man.  Pilate knew this, yet to satisfy the crowd, he compromised what he knew was right and allowed Jesus to be crucified.  Now we might say, “It was God’s plan…Pilate had no choice.”  Maybe he didn’t.

    But what about us?  Do we have a choice?  We, too, will have to make decisions at some point about pleasing the crowd or following Jesus.  The time is coming.  For many of us, those times have come and gone and will come again.  And there will be consequences.  We won’t always get pats on the back for doing the right thing.  The only thing we know for sure is that He will be with us.  Jesus will be there during those tough times, and as the book says, “He Always Holds Up The Heavy End!”  Thanks be to God.

In Christ,

Billy

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