P ♰ C

by Jean Allen

I have never experienced this in any parish where I have attended the Passion Sunday liturgy but I discovered it is not an uncommon practice during the long Gospel reading, where, instead of the readers, the congregation are the ones who cry, “Let him be crucified!” and “His blood be upon us and on our children.” Just think about that for a moment.

At the beginning of the liturgy, the congregation is enthusiastically singing a Hosanna song and waving our palm leaves. Would it not be fitting for this same crowd to call for Jesus to be crucified as happened in the gospels? This is important because it was the same crowd in the gospels that sang enthusiastic Hosannas who later got caught up in calling for his crucifixion. It would feel repugnant if I had to say those words in the liturgy. My feeling is, “I would never have done that!”

But crowd-speak happens more easily than we think. We can easily get caught up in what everybody else is saying, feeling that if everyone else agrees on something there must be merit to it. This is what happened to Jesus. The crowd got caught up in celebratory hosannas perhaps because some followers thought that he was the Messiah on his way to conquer the Romans. It was a great crowd exaltation moment – such a wonderful experience in the midst of their shabby and humdrum lives. Such joy! Such hope!

But fast forward to this same crowd witnessing Jesus being arrested, spat upon, mocked and led to Pilate. What a disappointment! What a let down! What an imposter. One person grumbled, “He should be crucified,” and it didn’t take long for the outrage to spread. Jesus became the scapegoat for all the people’s crushed hopes and dreams. 

Ask yourself if you would get caught up in something like that if you were downtrodden and bereft of hope.

I fear we all would.