To Pilate, Jesus was interesting and innocent (Mark 15:5, 14). But at the end of the day, Jesus was inconvenient. Pilate valued his reputation for keeping the peace and his career as a Roman governor over and above giving justice to this innocent man. He didn’t want to kill Jesus, but he did want to spare his life enough to defy the crowd. That says something to us about Jesus—that there is no neutrality with him. It also says something to us about ourselves—that we are vulnerable to changing our thinking and making decisions in order to satisfy a crowd.

In March of 2020 I began a preaching series through the Gospel according to Mark. As if coordinated, crowds gathered on the pages of Scripture and on America’s streets. In fact, it took the tumult of that summer to help me see that crowds were a main character in Mark’s account. The Word of God is living and active, discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart (Heb. 4:12). And, as we discovered, that extends to the thoughts and intentions of the crowd.[1]

This new sensitivity to crowds was on time. Several insightful books sought to wrestle with the nature of their influence: The Madness of Crowds: Gender, Race, and Identity, by Douglas Murray is one example. Even more close to this month’s theme at Christ Over All, in his book, The Psychology of Totalitarianism, Mattias Desmet explores what he calls mass formation, “a kind of group hypnosis that destroys individuals’ ethical self-awareness and robs them of their ability to think critically.”[2] Understanding crowds is crucial for saving civilization. But that’s not the first reason why I wrote about crowds for my church.

Following Jesus in a Crowd

Crowds are mentioned by Mark thirty-three times. They exert tremendous influence on the shape of events. As Greg Morse writes, crowds “[possess] the power to make the timid brave, the good better, or the bad devastating . . . When passions are shared, they swell, exciting actions to the status of legend or infamy. The power of assembly can build a better society or destroy it.” Ironically, the crowd that shouted at Jesus’s trial before Pilate did both. Their only two words? “Crucify him” (Mark 15:14).

It is easy to lose our minds and our souls in a crowd. From the first century to the twenty first, many have. So, let’s reflect on crowds together that we might hear and heed the words Jesus said to a more docile crowd:

If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. . . . For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul? . . . For whoever is ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of him will the Son of Man also be ashamed when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels. (Mark 8:34–38)

Crowds are not the problem. Neither is shame. I see two crowds in Jesus’ warning: an adulterous and sinful generation and Jesus with his holy angels. Shame is the currency for both. In order that we might not lose ourselves or our souls in the crowd of this age, let’s consider how crowds work.

How Crowds Work Leaders

Apart from the influence of a crowd on a Roman governor, Jesus would not have been delivered to death. How did that happen and what can we learn?

This Jewish crowd was gathered between two opposing characters: Pilate and the chief priests. The Jews were an occupied people, and Pilate—the fifth Roman governor over Judea—was charged with keeping order in his region. When the chief priests delivered Jesus to Pilate with calls for his death, Pilate was perceptive enough to know what was behind their call. They envied Jesus’s popularity (Mark 15:10). What the chief priests unwittingly failed to realize is that Pilate did not like being used, especially by Jewish leaders. He despised them, and they despised him. Once Pilate marched a legion of soldiers into the temple with blasphemous banners.[3] He killed priests as they conducted their sacrifices. He built the Jews an aqueduct twenty-three miles long, which was nice of him, but then charged the temple for the cost. He was a cruel governor and a weasel. He also perceived their envious motives and took Jesus to be innocent (Mark 15:14). For that reason, he belabored the trial. He asked Jesus several questions and worked angles to both keep peace and to keep from sending Jesus to his death (Mark 15:2, 4, 9, 12). As they say, “the enemy of my enemy is my friend.” Pilate didn’t want to kill Jesus.

So, why did Pilate send Jesus to his death? Here’s one way to answer that question: because of the crowd. How it happened teaches us something about how crowds get worked by leaders and how crowds in turn work leaders.

On the day of Jesus’s trial, a crowd gathered to demand that Pilate “release for them one prisoner for whom they asked” (Mark 15:6). This was customary and expected. For Pilate, though, this was an opportunity to leverage the crowd’s energy against the will of the chief priests. So, he asked, “Do you want me to release for you the King of the Jews?” (Mark 15:9). Knowing the chief priests delivered Jesus over from envy, he perceived that the crowd may have their own mind about Jesus (Mark 15:10). Perhaps he thought the crowd would choose against the priest’s demand.

How Leaders Work Crowds

Crowds are easily stirred. They are vulnerable to manipulation. And we are personally more vulnerable to manipulation when we’re in one.

Read More