Ashamed, I Hear My Mocking Voice Call Out Among the Scoffers…

The above lyric is from one of my favorite hymns, "How Deep the Father's Love for Us."  After our study of John 12:2-19 this past Sunday, I have thought about how Jesus heard people shouting "Hosanna" on Palm Sunday and then "Crucify Him" on Good Friday.  We typically think that the Palm Sunday crowd is the same group of people as the Good Friday crowd.  

I was intrigued by some thoughts that Kevin Deyoung shared about this.  

"It is almost certainly the case that these crowds were not made up of the same people. Notice that a large crowd had come to the feast, heard that Jesus was coming to Jerusalem, and they went out to meet Him. We read later in vs. 17 that the crowd that had been with Him when He raised Lazarus from the dead, continued to bear witness of Jesus. These are people who had either seen Jesus and were at some stage enamored with Him, or these were Galilean pilgrims who had come and had followed Jesus ministry. By contrast, later when the crowd calls “crucify Him,” it’s not the pilgrims, but rather those in Jerusalem, and more specifically, John mentions the chief priests, the officers and other Jewish leaders.  The sin of this crowd then, was largely the sin of omission rather than commission.  It is not so much what they did but what they didn't do.  Many of the people likely stood in guilty silence, failing to confess Jesus as their King, rather than chanting with bloodthirsty cries to crucify Him." 

Which crowd do you think you would have been in? Sadly, I would have been a good candidate for both crowds. I have come to the conviction that every sin I commit is, in its essence, a non-verbal expression of "crucify Him".  Sin is a declaration of self-rule and when I sin, I am clearly wanting nothing to do with Jesus' Lordship over my life at that moment. I can very much identify with the lyric, "Ashamed, I hear my mocking voice call out among the scoffers."  But I am as guilty of the sin of omission as I am the sin of commission. How often I have had the opportunity to confess Jesus as my Lord and Savior and share the gospel with others, but I made a willful choice to remain silent because of the fear of man.  

I could not be more thankful that Christ's death paid the price for all of my sins and that I can joyfully sing the last verse of "How Deep the Father's Love for Us", 

"I will not boast in anything,
No gifts, no power, no wisdom. 
But I will boast in Jesus Christ,
His death and resurrection. 
Why should I gain from His reward? 
I cannot give an answer. 
But this I know with all my heart,
His wounds have paid my ransom." 

-pb