Some years ago I watched a fascinating programme about child behaviour. Ten boys and ten girls (none of whom knew each other) were each invited to a location to live under the same roof for a limited time. Their behaviour was observed by psychologists, and the aim of the programme was to show how they formed relationships and interacted.
There were lots of striking things about the programme – but one thing that stuck with me was that in each group there was one troubled child, who found it hard not to get their own way, to observe guidelines or behavioural norms, or to form healthy relationships. And this one child made the life of the rest of the group very difficult indeed. No matter that 9 were broadly well-adjusted – it just took 1 to ‘spoil’ the group.
It’s just one example, but so often we see something similar in society. It only takes a small number of troubled people to cause a lot of damage for everybody else. Underneath the dramatic narrative of the Anointing at Bethany and the Triumphal Entry we see a similar pattern at work: among the disciples there is Judas (vv4-6); among the vast crowds there are the Pharisees (vv10-11,19).
For all the disciples’ journey with Jesus over three years, it just took one disillusioned soul to betray him. For all the enthusiasm and worship of the crowds, it just took a small number of determined opponents to get Jesus arrested, and then sway the crowds to turn against him.
Even Lazarus risked becoming collateral damage in this powerplay: it is a bitter irony indeed that the man who had just been resurrected now fears for his life simply for the impertinence of being very much alive (v10)!
Jesus, of course, knew all this. Although anybody else might also be seen as collateral damage in the face of frustrated ambition and corrupt power, he retains this extraordinary sense of being in control of a narrative which appears to be happening around him. Jesus’ divine identity is so great that he can even redeem the very things that are against him, the very people who want to destroy him. Indeed their plotting ultimately only served to achieve his purposes, and – in another moment of great irony – make the Pharisees’ greatest fear become very much a reality: (v19) ‘Look how the whole world has gone after him!’
Look indeed. And we still do – 2,000 years later, the world is still going after Jesus: some, sadly, to persecute, many more to follow. We too, are invited to go after Jesus: to meet him, to marvel at him, to worship him. And may the Lord stir our hearts today, as it did those crowds, to declare with our lips and our lives: ‘Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!’ Amen.