April 13 | Crowd
Read Mark 15:1-20
Crucify Him! Can you imagine? Even knowing it was coming… to hear the voices of the very people you will die for raised in unity calling for your death?
James Cone wrote a book called The Cross and the Lynching Tree in which he compares the horrific practice of lynching to Jesus’ death on the cross.
Between 1882 and 1968, 3,446 black men and women were brutally lynched. Often, a crowd watched. As though it were entertainment. They took photos. They sold postcards.
Once again, I want to cry, “Not me! I would never!” But the reality is, many lynchings happened on Sundays. After church. So there would be a crowd.
We must confess, with Jeremiah 17:9, “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?” We must confess that the hearts of humanity have not changed all that much in the last 2,000 years.
As we approach Good Friday, we need to recognize that we are the crowd. We need to understand our deep need to be remade and that the only One who can remake us is the One who looks at a crowd like us and loves us anyway.
Today, in these last days of Lent, allow yourself a moment to confess the gravity of your sin, and the sin of the world.