The Psychology of the Crowd That Followed Jesus by Fr Nelson Lobo OFM Cap

 

WONDERING GURU

21^st Sunday in Ordinary Time

(Do we also behave like the crowd?)

                    (Joshua 24: 1-2a, 15-17, 18b; Psalm 34; Eph 5: 21-32; John 6: 60-69).

Introduction-In John 6 a large number of people begin a journey with Jesus. They have experienced His goodness. They are among the 5000 men plus women and children who enjoyed being with Jesus and witnessing miracles.  But their feelings and beliefs oscillate like the pendulum of the clock in no time. At the beginning they are excited with Jesus but their excitement soon turns into grumbling and disappointment. So, they walk off.  Let’s find out more about the crowd psychology.  Do we also behave like the crowd?

I. The Excited Crowd-They are so excited they want to make Jesus their king. Surely, Jesus will free us from the tyranny of Rome, just like Moses freed Israel from the tyranny of Egypt they assumed (Deut 18:15). Unfortunately, their excitement was based upon some false assumptions about Jesus—the assumption that Jesus has come to be their political leader, the assumption that Jesus has come to make life easy for them, the assumption that Jesus has come to give them what they want. How does Jesus respond to their excitement? First, he sent His disciples away. Why? Because they are vulnerable to the influence of the crowd. Like the crowd they too wanted Jesus to be a political revolutionary. They too wanted the earthly power and influence after upsetting the mighty Romans. This mind looks evident when the mother of James and John makes her request that each of her boys sit on the right and on the left of Jesus.  Therefore, Jesus sends them across the lake away from all this excitement and false assumptions.  When Jesus accused them of seeking Him for all the wrong reasons, when Jesus began to address their false assumptions, they became the grumbling crowd.

II. The Grumbling Crowd-We want you to be our king. That is what the crowd told Jesus. They were believing in the Messiah they had conceived, not the One the Father has sent.  The Messiah they were expecting is actually standing before them revealing Himself as He truly is. If they will accept Him as He really is, if they will abandon their own agenda and allow Him to truly lead, everything else will fall into place.

The crowd was not convinced. They asked: “What miraculous sign then will you give that we may see it and believe you? Moses gave our forefathers manna in the wilderness! Can you do something similar?” They have just experienced one of the greatest miracles ever recorded in human history but that was not enough. They want something more from Jesus. It was commonly assumed by the Jews at that time that when Messiah would come, he would give manna like Moses did.  So, Jesus corrects these people on a couple of crucial points: First, God was the one who gave the manna, not Moses. Second, God, has now sent the true bread from heaven. Instead of trying to understand they start grumbling.  They grumble because he said that He came down from heaven. So they said to each other: “Is this not Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How can He say, “I came down from heaven?” Again, they are operating out of false assumptions about Jesus. They are beginning to draw back from Jesus. The grumbling crowd becomes the offended crowd.

III. The Offended Crowd-They begin to argue among themselves. “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?”  In verse 52, they are no longer calling him Rabbi, and they are certainly not calling him Lord. They call him: “this man”. This is not what these people wanted to hear. They are repulsed by the very thought. Their law forbids the drinking of blood. So, many left Jesus. Jesus turned to the disciples in verse 67 and asked a question, “You do not want to leave too, do you?” He anticipated their answer but the question had to be asked. When the going really get rough, Peter’s answer is a powerful truth to remember. When our faith has been most shaken, we need to hold to those words, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. We believe and know that you are the Holy One of God.”

Close: We may not understand the circumstances we are experiencing. We may not understand why God is allowing us to go through what we’re going through. We may be tempted to toss in the towel and give up. But the truth is there is no place else to go. Jesus alone has the words of eternal life. If I turn to the world, I will come up empty. If I turn to material gain I will not be satisfied in my soul. If I turn to sensuality and pleasure, I may enjoy it for a season but it will only lead me into addictions. Where can I go but to the Lord. There is no place else to go.

"JESUS IS ALL THAT WE NEED"

To the LOST, He is the WAY

To the THIRSTY, He is the WATER OF LIFE

To the HUNGRY, He is the MANNA from Heaven

To the SINNER, He is the AUTHOR OF SALVATION

To the HEAVY LADEN, He is the REST

To the DISCOURAGED, He is HOPE

To the LONELY, He is COMPANY

To the IGNORANT, He is KNOWLEDGE

To those in DARKNESS, He is the LIGHT

To those CONFUSED, He is the COUNSELOR

To those who are SICK, He is the DOCTOR

To those who are WEAK, He is our STRENGTH