Holy Week
“They cried out, “Away with him, away with him, crucify him!” Pilate said to them, “Shall I crucify your King?” The chief priests answered, “We have no king but Caesar.” So he delivered him over to them to be crucified. John 19:15–16 ESV
Wow… talk about a 180-degree change. I’m not talking about the weather.
On the first day of the week, a crowd went in front of Jesus from Bethany to Jerusalem and another crowd came out to meet Him from Jerusalem shouting, “Hosanna, Son of David!” They greeted Him as the Messiah King and called upon Him to save them.
Six days later a mob abandoned the same Messiah King. He was bleeding profusely dressed in a robe and wearing a crown of thorns. They beat him with a faux scepter. They declared their allegiance to the Roman Emperor in their hatred of Jesus: “We have no king but Caesar.”
It was like they had turned into the Israelites who wandered in the wilderness for forty years. Who complained about everything. Who accused God of seeking to kill them. Who longed for their years of slavery.
But in rejecting the King when He came, the Jewish mob laid waste to their future. They rejected the only one who could deliver them from sin and eternal death. Fair-weather citizens.
We count Him our king, even when beaten and bloodied. We know that He bears our sin and guilt.
O sacred Head, now wounded, With grief and shame weighed down,
Now scornfully surrounded With thorns, Thine only crown.
O sacred Head, what glory, What bliss till now was Thine!
Yet, tho’ despised and gory, I joy to call Thee mine.
The Lutheran Hymnal 172:1