Who Was Really in That Mob?

Years ago, when I was home from college over winter break, I went into Manhattan with two friends to be in Times Square on New Year’s Eve. The crowd was enormous—packed so tightly that we were literally jammed together like sardines. We had been warned, so we brought nothing with us except our subway tokens for the ride home, because you could actually feel hands brushing against you, trying to pick pockets in the crush of people.

At first, it was all celebration—laughter, music, anticipation, everyone caught up in the energy of the moment. But then, suddenly, something shifted. Without warning, we were lifted off our feet and swept away by the movement of the crowd. We didn’t decide to move. We didn’t even know what had changed. We were just carried—physically carried—several feet away from where we had been standing.

It was a little frightening, how quickly it happened. How easily the energy of a crowd could shift. How little control we actually had once we were inside it. And I think that kind of image is often what we have in mind when we tell the story of Jesus’ final days.

We imagine a crowd caught up in excitement on Palm Sunday, shouting “Hosanna!”—and then, just a few days later, that same crowd swept up in a darker energy, shouting “Crucify him!”

And through that telling, we are invited—rightly—to reflect on our own capacity to be carried along, to lose ourselves, to participate in harm. But the more closely I read the gospel accounts—especially when we place Palm Sunday and the Passion side by side—the less convinced I am that the story is quite that simple.

In today’s gospel, Jesus enters Jerusalem riding on a donkey. The crowds spread their cloaks on the road, wave branches, and shout, “Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord!” We’ve come to hear “Hosanna” as a word of praise. But its original meaning is much more urgent: “Save us, we pray.” It is a cry from people who are desperate.

And that desperation makes sense. In Jesus’ time, Judea and Galilee were under Roman occupation. The region was economically strained, politically tense, and marked by deep inequality. Heavy taxation and daily hardship shaped ordinary life. Galilee was not some peaceful countryside; it was a place of unrest. And into that world, Jesus came—healing the sick, restoring dignity, challenging systems of exclusion, proclaiming a kingdom that lifted up the poor and unsettled the powerful. Of course the crowds gathered. Of course they cried out, “Save us!”

But here’s the question we need to hold this morning: do we really believe that those same desperate people—those who had experienced healing, hope, and dignity—suddenly turned into a violent mob just a few days later? I’m not so sure.

When we follow the timeline of the Passion carefully, the events unfold quickly and quietly. Jesus shares a final meal with his disciples in the evening. He goes out into the night to pray. He is arrested under cover of darkness—so dark that torches and lanterns are needed. He is taken to the high priest in the middle of the night. By the time Peter denies him and the rooster crows, it is just becoming dawn. And then, early in the morning, Jesus is brought before Pilate.

So we have to ask: who would have even been there? Who would have known what was happening? Who would have been awake, gathered, and ready to shout for his execution? It seems unlikely that the festival crowds—the ordinary people who had come for Passover—would have even known about this trial unfolding at daybreak.

But there were others who would have known. Those whose power was threatened by Jesus. Those invested in maintaining control. Those connected to the temple leadership and political authority.

In Matthew’s account, we hear that it is the chief priests and the elders who persuade the crowd. And when we look closely, we see that the voices calling for crucifixion are not some spontaneous uprising of the masses, but a group shaped and stirred by those in power. In John’s account, this becomes even clearer: it is the chief priests and the temple authorities who call out, “Crucify him!” And when Pilate asks, “Shall I crucify your king?” they respond, “We have no king but the emperor.” It is a stunning moment—one in which allegiance to power overrides everything else.

So was it the people who turned on Jesus? Or was it the powerful protecting their position? Was it the desperate who cried “Hosanna,” or the threatened who cried “Crucify”? I want to suggest this: Jesus was not executed by the powerless people who longed for him. He was executed by the systems of power that feared him.

And this matters, because it reshapes how we understand what is happening in this week we are entering. Palm Sunday is not the story of a fickle crowd. It is the story of a collision—a collision between two kinds of power.

Paul names this beautifully in Philippians. Christ, “though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself.” This is a very different kind of kingship. Not domination, but self-giving. Not coercion, but love. Not violence, but surrender.

And that kind of power is deeply threatening, because it exposes the systems we rely on. It reveals the ways we prefer control over compassion, certainty over mercy, dominance over love.

So, am I letting us off the hook by saying the crowds didn’t turn? In one sense, yes. I don’t believe this story is meant to condemn ordinary people as inherently fickle or cruel. And I certainly don’t believe Jesus was killed to satisfy an angry God.

But in another sense, I’m not letting us off the hook at all. Because the deeper question is not whether we were in that crowd. The deeper question is which kind of power we are aligning ourselves with.

Are we willing to cry “Hosanna”—“save us”—and actually receive the kind of salvation Jesus brings? Are we willing to be mended by the grace that brings salvation? A salvation shaped like humility, like mercy, like self-giving love? Or do we, when it really matters, find ourselves siding with the powers that promise control, certainty, and strength?

Because every time we choose power over love, every time we prioritize control over compassion, every time we align ourselves with systems that diminish others, we participate in the same movement that led to the cross.

So as we enter this Holy Week, I want to leave you with this image. Imagine the road into Jerusalem again. The cloaks spread out. The branches waving. The cries of “Hosanna” rising in the air. And then imagine that same road just days later—quieter now, emptied of celebration, marked by the slow, painful movement of a man carrying a cross.

The question is not whether the crowd changed. The question is whether we will.

Will we stay on the road of power? Or will we follow him on the road of love? Because that road—the one that leads through self-giving and mercy—is the only one that leads to life.