Week 3 Friday — That First Easter... I Was There
Day 19: The Crowd at the Trial
Day 19: The Crowd at the Trial
Matthew 27:15-26; Acts 2:36-38
Introduction
Nobody came to that trial planning to call for a crucifixion.
Think about who was in that crowd. Jerusalem was full for Passover — hundreds of thousands of pilgrims who had traveled from across the known world to celebrate Israel’s deliverance from Egypt. Many of them had heard Jesus teach. Some had been fed by Him on a hillside. Others had watched Him heal. A few days earlier, crowds very much like this one had lined the road into the city waving palm branches and shouting “Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!”
These were not bloodthirsty people. They were ordinary people — caught in an extraordinary moment, being pushed in a direction by voices louder and more organized than their own.
The chief priests and elders had worked the crowd before Pilate even appeared. Matthew tells us they “persuaded the crowd” to ask for Barabbas and to call for Jesus’ destruction. By the time Pilate came out and offered them a choice, the choice had already been made for them. All they had to do was repeat what they were hearing — louder and louder, until it became the only thing anyone was saying.
“Crucify him!”
It’s the easiest thing in the world to say what the crowd is saying. And one of the hardest things in the world to say something different.
We know. We’ve been in that crowd. You may be in it right now.
Scripture
¹⁵ Now it was the governor’s custom at the festival to release a prisoner chosen by the crowd. ¹⁶ At that time they had a well-known prisoner whose name was Jesus Barabbas. ¹⁷ So when the crowd had gathered, Pilate asked them, “Which one do you want me to release to you: Jesus Barabbas, or Jesus who is called the Messiah?” ¹⁸ For he knew it was out of self-interest that they had handed Jesus over to him.
²⁰ But the chief priests and the elders persuaded the crowd to ask for Barabbas and to have Jesus executed.
²¹ “Which of the two do you want me to release to you?” asked the governor. “Barabbas,” they answered.
²² “What shall I do, then, with Jesus who is called the Messiah?” Pilate asked. They all answered, “Crucify him!”
²³ “Why? What crime has he committed?” asked Pilate. But they shouted all the louder, “Crucify him!”
²⁴ When Pilate saw that he was getting nowhere, but that instead an uproar was starting, he took water and washed his hands in front of the crowd. “I am innocent of this man’s blood,” he said. “It is your responsibility!” ²⁵ All the people answered, “His blood is on us and on our children!”
— Matthew 27:15-18, 20-25 (NIV)
³⁶ “Therefore let all Israel be assured of this: God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and Messiah.” ³⁷ When the people heard this, they were cut to the heart and said to Peter and the other apostles, “Brothers, what shall we do?” ³⁸ Peter replied, “Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.”
— Acts 2:36-38 (NIV)
Reflection
The Sound of a Crowd
Nobody decided to crucify Jesus. They just went along with it.
That’s the mechanism Matthew exposes with one quiet sentence: “The chief priests and elders persuaded the crowd.” The persuasion didn’t require logic or evidence. It required momentum. One voice, then another, then the pressure of everyone around you saying the same thing — until dissent feels not just difficult but impossible. Until the question isn’t “What do I actually think?” but “What happens to me if I say something different?”
The crowd didn’t reason their way to “Crucify him.” They were carried there. Swept along by the current of what everyone else was doing, amplifying a verdict they hadn’t formed themselves, until their own voices were indistinguishable from the noise around them.
And when Pilate pressed them — “Why? What crime has he committed?” — they didn’t answer the question. They couldn’t, because they didn’t have an answer. They just shouted louder. Because that’s what crowds do when the question gets too hard: they increase the volume and hope the noise becomes its own justification.
The crowd didn’t crucify Jesus out of hatred. They crucified Him out of the path of least resistance.
And then came the moment that should chill every one of us: “His blood be on us and on our children.” Spoken as a declaration of mob solidarity. A way of saying — we own this, collectively, so no single one of us has to own it individually. Diffused guilt feels like no guilt at all. That’s the lie the crowd told itself as it dispersed back into the city.
We Are Like Them
We are never more like the trial crowd than when we let the loudest voices in the room do our thinking for us.
It happens in every arena of our lives. The group chat that turns on someone and we add our voice to the pile-on rather than ask whether it’s fair. The workplace culture that agrees something is acceptable and we go along rather than be the one who raises a concern. The political tribe that has decided what faithful people believe and we adopt the package wholesale rather than think each issue through before God. The church culture that has an unspoken consensus about who is in and who is out — and we stay quiet rather than be seen standing with the wrong person.
We don’t usually make a decision to join the crowd. We just fail to make a decision not to. And in the absence of a decision, the current takes us.
Social media has made this worse, not better. The mechanisms that once required a crowd gathered in a courtyard now operate at scale, at speed, with algorithmic assistance. The pressure to amplify what everyone is already saying — to add our voice to whatever is loudest — has never been more constant or more invisible. We shout “Crucify him” with a share button, a retweet, a laugh react, a silence that the algorithm reads as assent.
The crowd’s sin wasn’t passion. It was the abdication of conscience to consensus.
But here is where the story takes a turn that should take our breath away. Seven weeks after the crucifixion, Peter stood up in Jerusalem — in front of a crowd that included many of the same people who had been in that courtyard — and told them plainly: “God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and Messiah.”
He named what they had done. Directly. Without softening it.
And they were cut to the heart.
“What shall we do?” they asked. And Peter’s answer was not condemnation. It was invitation: “Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins.”
The crowd had called His blood down on themselves. And Peter offered them exactly that — the blood of Jesus, not as judgment but as forgiveness. The worst thing they had said became the ground of the best thing they could receive.
Three thousand people from that crowd said yes.
We were there in the courtyard, carried by the current, adding our voice to what everyone else was saying. We are there now. But the same Peter who was warming himself by a courtyard fire — and who found his way to a beach and a commission — stood up and told that crowd that the blood they called down was available to them as mercy. It is available to us too.
Grace Note
“For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith — and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God — not by works, so that no one can boast.” — Ephesians 2:8-9 (NIV)
The crowd couldn’t save themselves by shouting louder. They couldn’t undo what they’d done by feeling bad about it. Salvation wasn’t available to them through better crowd behavior or stronger individual conscience. It was available through grace — the unearned, undeserved gift of the very One they had handed over. That’s still how it works. We don’t find our way out of the crowd by trying harder. We find our way out by receiving what the crowd rejected: Jesus, Lord and Messiah, whose blood covers exactly what we called down on ourselves.
Prayer Prompt
Jesus,
I confess that I know the sound of the crowd. I’ve added my voice when I should have stayed silent. I’ve stayed silent when I should have spoken. I’ve let the current carry me to places I never consciously decided to go — and told myself it wasn’t really my fault because everyone else was going there too.
Forgive me for the times I’ve let consensus replace conscience. For the pile-ons I’ve joined, the silences I’ve kept, the tribal packages I’ve adopted wholesale rather than bringing each one before You. For the ways I’ve let the volume of the room drown out the quieter voice that knew better.
Thank You that the blood the crowd called down became the blood that covers them. That Peter stood up in front of that same crowd and offered mercy instead of judgment. That You make the same offer to me — not because I’ve managed to stay out of the crowd, but because Your grace is larger than the worst thing I’ve shouted.
Give me the courage to be a different kind of voice. Not louder — clearer. Not angrier — truer. Help me think before I amplify. Help me stand before You before I stand before any crowd. Amen.
Response
1. Audit Your Crowd: What groups, feeds, or communities are currently doing your thinking for you? Where have you adopted a consensus without examining it before God? Pick one specific area — political, cultural, relational — where you’ve gone along with the current without deciding to. Bring it to Scripture and prayer this week. Ask: Is this what I actually believe, or is this what my crowd believes?
2. Find Your Dissenting Voice: Think of one situation — current or recent — where you went along with something you knew wasn’t right, or stayed silent when you should have spoken. You don’t have to fix the whole thing today. But take one small step toward the voice that knew better. A private conversation. A quiet word. A decision not to amplify next time. Practice being the person in the crowd who doesn’t shout louder when the question gets too hard.
3. Receive What the Crowd Rejected: The crowd rejected Jesus and then discovered His blood was available to them as mercy. Today, receive that mercy specifically for the ways you’ve been carried by crowds — online, in your community, in your own heart. Read Acts 2:36-38 slowly. Hear Peter’s offer as directed at you. Repent of the specific consensus you’ve adopted that you know isn’t His. And receive the gift that covers it.
To read all the posts in this devotional series, visit: That First Easter... I Was There
© Steve Peschke / This Is The Way