Crowds can mislead us away from the truth. The sad reality is that many of the people in the crowds that followed Jesus didn’t follow Him for the right reasons.
They didn’t follow Him because He was the truth. They followed Him because of what they had heard from others. Sometimes, what they heard brought them to the truth. Still others drew them away from the truth. In Mark 13:6, Jesus warns:
Many will come in my name, claiming, ‘I am he,’ and will deceive many.
Today, we can see the impact that crowds can have in misleading others about Jesus. Without using their names and calling them out, we know that there are groups (crowds) who mischaracterize and actually damage the message of the Gospel. And they often do so in Jesus’ name.
They do this by distorting the truth about Jesus. The truth that Jesus is the one God sent to make all right with the world. The eternal Son of God, being in every way equal to our Father in heaven. The One whom if we accept and follow with our whole heart, we can be healed from eternal and spiritual death.
Not because of anything we’ve done or that we could possibly earn, but simply and completely through His sacrifice – His death on the cross. Grace that is undeserved, given to us freely by a God who loves us and desperately wants to reconcile us to Himself.
There are many ways, though, that this message of truth is polluted, corrupted, and twisted. Either people twist His identity into something it isn’t. They twist the impact and significance of His death and resurrection. Even calling into question the truth of that death and resurrection. Or they twist the means by which it is that we enter into relationship with Him.
Scripture is very clear on His identity, the significance of His death and resurrection, and the means by which we enter into relationship with Jesus. Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 2:2:
For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified.
Jesus, Himself, tells His disciples in John 14:6:
I am the way and the truth and the life. No-one comes to the Father except through me.
In the world that Jesus entered, crowds often had the impact of being an obstacle to true faith and relationship with Him. The same thing often happens today.
Which brings us back to the question: What is our response to Jesus’ authority? What do we do with this knowledge that He holds the power to life and death in this life, and in eternity to come?