“A very large crowd spread their cloaks on the road, while others cut branches from the trees and spread them on the road. The crowds that went ahead of him and those that followed shouted, “Hosanna to the Son of David!” “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!”” Matthew 21:8-9
“But the chief priests and the elders persuaded the crowd to ask for Barabbas and to have Jesus executed. “Which of the two do you want me to release to you?” asked the governor. “Barabbas,” they answered. “What shall I do, then, with Jesus who is called the Messiah?” Pilate asked.
They all answered, “Crucify him!”
“Why? What crime has he committed?” asked Pilate.
But they shouted all the louder, “Crucify him!”
Matthew 27:20-23
Crowds are strange things.
On Saturday, I attended the Alaska Governor’s Prayer Breakfast with keynote speaker Tyler Thompson, one of the lead writers of The Chosen, joining Governor Dunleavy and other dignitaries in honoring the King of Kings and Lord of Lords.
As it was the day before Palm Sunday and the start of Holy Week, there was a reverence and anticipatory tone in the room as the floor-to-ceiling window views of the Chugach Mountains gave us true perspective. Talk about edification.
And then we exited the ballroom.
As we turned toward Town Square, those same third-story windowpanes presented another reality. The Anchorage No Kings protest was in full swing.
Initially, I told myself that was the last place I wanted to go. Vitriol. Anger. Vulgarity. Emotions over logic. Not the after-dinner mint one wants to complement such a perfect feast of truth.
I’m convinced as ever that those in the No Kings crowd are irrational, emotionally animated, misdirected souls. But I’m equally convinced that Jesus loves them
But, as my wife has reminded me over the years, I have an incurable disorder she’s affectionately dubbed CSB or “conflict-seeking behavior.” In some ways, because my vocation exists in the political/religious intersection, this disease has given me energy and drive. But it gets me in trouble as well at times.
Stay away from that unhinged crowd. Don’t get tangled up and disoriented from the true and good and beautiful I had just experienced.
But I walked two blocks and entered the fray.
It became evident this was their congregation – complete with liturgy, worship music and even preaching.
Their signs spoke of another King, whom they wanted to crucify. It was stark. Was this really the city I grew up in? I mean, we’ve always had divisions – politically and culturally – but this just seemed different.
I kept thinking how cool it would be if we could get that many people to create signs, manifest passion and organize for the Alaska March for Life next month that Alaska Family Council is hosting. I know the majority of Alaskans don’t believe in abortion on demand, through the third trimester for any reason and on taxpayers’ dime. But the No Kings crowd seems to take their “religion” more seriously.
Just last month, a judge in Indiana molested the Religious Freedom Restoration Act by granting the ACLU’s claim that a law protecting the unborn “violates religious freedoms by burdening the ability to obtain an abortion in accordance with their sincerely held beliefs.”
These people don’t just make signs and chant slogans that lower our public discourse into the sewage – they believe it like those bending their knees in houses of worship.
The next day, as I came in late to my own church service, we had a guest speaker. A medical doctor. He had been kidnapped by the Taliban in Afghanistan while doing missionary work. His gentle, quiet words put another spin on the thoughts I’d been having about the Trump haters.
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The great Apostle Paul, the doctor noted, was one of the greatest “terrorists” to have meandered during Biblical times. He was the Osama Bin Laden of the day for people of “The Way.” They feared him and despised him. Until the road to Damascus. Until life was breathed into him by the Creator of the Universe.
This doctor, who had been convinced early on that his captors would end his life, ultimately began to see them not as terrorists, which they most certainly were on most measures, but as image bearers. Lost like the great Apostle. But grace has a way of catching up to us. It finds us – hunts us down, actually. We accept it. And then we extend it.
Because God demonstrated his own love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. That realization provides clarity when we so quickly look at others as lost. We were all lost once. Yet Jesus on the cross said, “Father, forgive them for they know not what they do.”
I’m convinced as ever that those in the No Kings crowd are irrational, emotionally animated, misdirected souls. But I’m equally convinced that Jesus loves them every bit as much as those who called out and worshipped the true King in the Dena’ina convention ballroom.
May that reality animate each of us more as we face the cultural, political and spiritual battles ahead.
The views expressed here are those of the author.
