Jesus and the Crowd

One of the hardest lessons that I have to learn and re-learned as a young seminarian and priest is not trying to please everyone. It was hard to accept it, because I think many of us, especially priests, are trying our best to serve and care for others. In this “service” industry, field, and vocation, we tend to have people with the personality that like to please others. It tends to be the natural go-to mode for people who are typically in the caring fields!

Nevertheless, it is impossible to care and be liked by everyone. This was something that was very hard for me to learn first hand as a young seminarian and later as a young priest, too. I just thought that if I do a good job and as best as I can, people will appreciate and like the result, but that was not always the case. As a matter of fact, even the Savior of the world was not able to do the same thing! Even with His genuine love and caring intentions, the people who cheered for Him on Palm Sunday were perhaps in the same crowd that condemned or became  silent when He was sentenced to death. We cannot simply judge ourselves and our worthiness, especially our vocation, mission, and purpose on the general populace’s opinions, voices, thoughts, or judgments.

It is hard to learn to be your genuine self; because as human beings, we do have the desire to fit in, be accepted, and recognized by others. In a popularity-centered and outspoken world, everyone seems to try their hardest to stand out as well to be liked and approved by the general populace. Our young people are trying very hard to be noticed and liked so much that much of their self-worth is based on trendy popularity and acceptance of their everchanging circles or peers. Older generations do it, too, but in different — and perhaps more “analog” and subtle — ways.

That is why the development of self-understanding and personal identity was one of the main emphases of seminary and priestly formation. Why? To be honest with you, one of the earliest lessons that I learned the hard way was to realize that the people who are quickly to praise you will tend to the the people who will turn and condemn you when they do not like what you are doing! It was hard for me to accept at first. It is still hard now to accept that reality but to live by popular opinions and likes are to die by them. I have given many young people this similar advice, but I think it also applies to all of us: “Those who like you because you are popular or likeable to them in some ways will quickly leave you when you are not.”

Jesus knew who He was and did not have to prove Himself to anyone! He did not want to simply be a popular figure, a worldly revolutionary leader, and admired teacher, or someone who won the heart of the people. He wanted their genuine faith and conversion of heart according to the truth. He cared less for a dependent relationship based on what people thought or wanted Him to be for them because He cared about their true freedom, liberation, salvation, and redemption from the enslavement to sin. The Lord was not held back by being someone popular for the people because He genuinely and personally loved them too much beyond the typical noises and humanistic matters.

He cured the sick, forgave sinners, healed the broken-hearted, cared for the forgotten, ignored, looked down, and abandoned by society, and freed the captives from worldly standards and judgments because He cared for their souls and eternal well-beings than just what meets the eye and popular according to humanistic standards. He did not just want to be a popular leader but to lead them toward eternal life so they can understand what joy there is to be children of God. He did not come to start a social or earthly revolution in order to be an earthly ruler or king, He wanted them to be free to be who they were truly called to be in the Kingdom of God. He came to free and save us from all typical worldly standards because He was faithful to His mission. Jesus did not have to be pretentious or worried about others’ opinions and their likes because He knew who He is and wants to free us to become who we are meant to be!

Opinions are easily formed and persuaded. The general populace are easily influenced and changes its own mind very often. Even when the crowd seems to agree on things, it is usually controlled, motivated, or manipulated by the vocal and influencing voices while the rest of the the people are just going along. The bigger the crowd, the more people tend to take on the “herd” mentality, going along with what seems to be popular or with other people, hence gettting easily persuaded by the ones who can influence and be in control. Therefore, we cannot choose to judge our self-worth and base our identity on the approval of what is popular, noisy, or vocal. To simply chase and allow ourselves to be defined by what people think will pull us apart, make us spineless, and lost because we no longer know who we are, understand what we are called to be, and lack the courage to live according to what is given to us by God.

If you do not believe me, look at what the crowd did to our very own Savior and Redeemer! In such a short time, they went from welcoming Him to crucifying Him. In a a timespan of a few days, they went from a positive attitude and reception to a negative and condemnation to death — and not only an ordinary death, but the cruelest and harshest punishment given to grave criminals and enemies of the people. In my own life, too, I have seen similar things happened to me and to priests that I know. The ones who were thought to be “holy” or popular amongst the people could rise and fall in a short time. The ones who were thought to be respected by many can lose the support of their followers in a short flip of a dime. But this is not something that is particular to the priesthood or the religious realm, it also can be related and seen in our very own society as well (if not more prevelant). Hence, to be defined by others is to have nothing at all; to live by popularity is to die by it, too.

When one chases the “high” feelings of being accepted, praised, or happy, one crashes harder in times of “low” valleys of not receiving them. Too many people are trying too hard to be “somebody” and crash hard when they are not content just being ordinary people — “nobody” in the eyes of this world. In a sad way, we have allowed and set up our young people for failures and self-hatred because we tell them that they are not good enough being a “nobody” who are regular, ordinary, or typical like everyone else. We have wired many of our young people from a young age to chase after worldly recognition, success, and achievement and nothing should stop them from achieving those goals.

We have taught our children that everything and everyone is instrumental and secondary to their own personal happiness and desire. God has often pushed away, people and relationships get cheapened, and everything is for grab or can be manipulated at all costs. We let go and let the world won us and them over, dictating and forming ourselves, our children and young people to live and die by popular opinions of the crowd! We have ignorantly wired our young people for a life of emptiness, codependency, discontentment, and even self-loathing. We have allowed our children to be defined by the things of this world and the voices of this society telling them what they have to be, selling them cheapened versions of freedom and love, objectifying and degrading them to be chess pieces or instruments of success. We have told them that it is more important to become what they think they want or what the world wants from them than what the Almighty who created them out of love and desires them to be in love!

It takes a lot of magnanimity, courage, humility, as well as trust, to truly let go and believe in the Almighty and His love for us and for others! It is hard but so important to love ourselves and others in each of our own brokenness, yet helping each other along the way toward the One who loves us. We love one another too much to leave the other behind to be as our society or the world wants them to be because they are more worth than that these false and cheapened voices say that we are. We pray for one another, lift each other up in hard times, challenge the other become what God wants of them as sons and daughters of the Heavenly Father, disciples of Christ Jesus, and instruments of the Holy Spirit.

We cannot remain as we are in the world and expect to be truly happy and fulfilled. This is not what our hearts were made to be nor where we meant to find our true joy! We cannot follow the world and its shallow standards and expect to be content because its ego-centeredness ways only tell us that we need more without telling us what we really need. Only in the eternal, everlasting, unfailing, genuine love of God can we find our rest and true self-worth as we were created and meant to be! He desires to give His all to us, and only in giving Him our everything can we be at rest with ourselves and content with what is going on around us, seeing others as gifts and treasures in themselves instead as problems to avoid or things to be used.

Instead of trying to rebel and run away, we must recognize that we have to run toward Him. Instead of worrying about losing our freedom in order to do what we like, we understand self-donating love, personal gift of self, and loving responsibility that free us from enslavement to lesser things. To truly be free is to be free to love without fears, reservations, manipulation, or objectification as we are able and grounded in what He calls us to be! When we hear His voice and understand our calling, we are able to serve and give ourselves genuinely and without reservations because love is real and it holds nothing back. True love gives wholeheartedly because it is transparent, genuine, and self-giving just as the One who truly loves us has given us everything of Himself, much more than what we can expect and imagine, without holding anything back.

No matter what is going on in your life and mine right now, do not be afraid of rising above the noisy world and its crowd to truly become what God wants us to be! Our Savior and Redeemer taught us how to not be dictated by these voices. We have seen what the crowd can do from the very example of our Lord‘s life, hopefully to not let ourselves be dictated, manipulated, or defined by it. He taught us how to rise above the empty noisiness and everchanging opinions and not be controlled by it by being faithful to our theocentric vocation, mission, and purpose. It will not be a popular decision nor a road much taken but we will be able to walk the same journey of true selfless, sacrificial, and life-giving love that He has taught and given to us with His very own life’s examples. Therefore, let us not be dictated by the crowd but choose to become Christlike in how we choose to embrace, live, and radiate God‘s love in our very own lives.