It was an excited crowd that lined the road and followed Jesus into Jerusalem on his "triumphal entry." The cheers were loud and enthusiastic. Generally Jesus had sought to discourage such acclaim, but this time he voiced no opposition to it. There were others who did, however. The Pharisees in the crowd considered the conduct of his disciples to be totally inappropriate, and they called upon him to rebuke them. But he replied, "I tell you, if these were silent, the very stones would cry out."
There is no reason to believe that his thesis was called to test. The people did not stop their cheering - later they did, but not then. He himself, of course, never expected to hear stones cry out with actual audible voices. Such powers have not been given them; they are dumb, silent, without voice. Jesus was simply saying, with the kind of exaggeration that was intended to make his point unmistakable, that cheering was in order at that time.
Some, uncomplimentarily, have accused Jesus of planting "cheerleaders" in the crowd that day. But though, as is always the case in a crowd, some no doubt cheered just because others were cheering, it is not at all likely that Jesus was guilty of this. He was not a manipulator of persons. He respected their dignity and freedom too much for that. But on this occasion he did receive and welcome their applause, and when some tried to get him to stop them, he replied, in effect, "Someone must cheer!"
In Recognition
Cheering was in order then, because it indicated recognition of the importance of his person: "Blessed be the King who comes in the name of the Lord!"
This had not been recognized everywhere he had been. Even the people of his home town had been blind to his greatness, and some in this Passover crowd were blind to it, too. But some were not, and as he rode to his tragic destiny, it was high time that those who grasped something of his greatness said so.
Harriett Beecher Stowe, in Uncle Tom’s Cabin, pictures Marie St. Clare as a self-centered and self-pitying person. She has a lovely, sweet daughter, named Eva, with whom she is frequently impatient and by whom she is often irritated. Then Eva dies, and Marie pities herself in her grief. Mrs. Stowe writes: "Marie was one of those unfortunately constituted mortals, in whose eyes whatever is lost and gone assumes a value which it never had in possession."1
Without a doubt, Jesus’ disciples saw him in a clearer light after he was crucified and resurrected. But some of them knew already that day when he rode a donkey into Jerusalem that it was no ordinary man they were following. And they tried to say so with shouts of praise.
It is unfortunate that we so often do not recognize greatness when it is present. It may be preoccupation with other things that blinds us to it, or it may be pride or self-centeredness or prejudice. But our story would be different if we perceived more accurately the true measures of persons and cheered when persons of the right kind were on the scene.
Especially are cheers for Christ in order. Time reverses some of the judgments of people and confirms others. In this instance, it is the judgment of those who cheered that has been confirmed, and so cheers for Christ are still in order today.
While Dr. Samuel M. Shoemaker was rector of Calvary Episcopal Church in New York City, he had an old building fixed up and began a mission to the down-and-out men of the Bowery. A famous cartoonist became interested in the Mission and drew for Dr. Shoemaker a moving poster, with a Bowery-type character standing against a wall, the Cross showing from round the corner, and the caption, "There’s a place near by, where a Carpenter still mends broken men."2
That’s cheering for Christ! The need of the world for Christ is so great today that someone must cheer for him. Someone must give voice to the recognition of his greatness and of his power to mend broken lives, to resurrect dead hopes, to set persons on the right path again, to enable them to live with dignity and purpose and wholeness, and to move our world in the direction of peace and brotherhood.
People need to hear this good news today. They need to be told what Christ can do, and so someone must cheer. But no stones are likely to do this. If it is to be done, it must be done by those who have recognized who Jesus is and what he can do.
In Appreciation
Cheering was in order that day in Jerusalem, too, because it gave expression to the appreciation which some felt for what Christ had done among them. Luke says, "The whole multitude of the disciples began to rejoice and praise God for all the mighty works that they had seen."
Dr. James Stalker was writing of John Knox’s contribution to Scotland, and he said that those who knew best what the moral condition of Scotland was before the Reformation would be the most likely to be thankful to Knox for the changes he introduced into the country. He said, "Had he done nothing more than what he did to promote decency, he would have deserved the eternal gratitude of Scotsmen."3
But it is so easy to take the contributions of others for granted, or even to overlook them. We are quicker to criticize than we are to commend, and so even wonderful ministries of the church frequently go unheralded, unappreciated, and uncommended. How often, for instance, do people in the church get excited about the church’s ministry to the homeless and hungry and helpless? How long has it been since you cheered because the church was challenging some form of evil? If it were an evil which your prejudice or selfishness made attractive to you, did you criticize instead of cheering? Have you cheered recently because the church was helping the illiterate to learn to read and write, the diseased to find health again, prodigals to return to the Father’s companionship, the burdened and sorrowful to receive new strength and comfort and hope?
We cheer sometimes about relatively insignificant things, why not about the things of real worth? Someone needs to cheer about these things! A cheer of appreciation might be just the thing that is needed to keep some person working for the right and good. And it might be the thing that is needed, too, to push out of our hearts the selfishness or greed or self-pity that is there.
Bishop Hanns Lilje writes with compassion of the men who were his guards while he was a prisoner of the Nazis during World War II. He tells of one pitiable old man whose job it was, among other things, to fasten his fetters before he went to sleep at night. One evening after he finished this task, the prisoner found himself unable to resist saying to him in a very polite and courteous voice, "Thank you very much." The old man stood still and stared at him for a moment, and then went on out of the cell. In a moment or two he came back again and said in an awkward rough voice, "No need to thank me for a thing like that!" Bishop Lilje replied with an expression which he knew was dear to the heart of any good German official, "Well, you have only done your duty!" He wrote later that if the man had not lost the power of expressing emotion and tenderness, he would have done so then. But this was beyond him, and so he strode out of the room shaking his head and murmuring to himself.4
There is something within most of us which responds to expressions of genuine appreciation, and something happens to us, too, when we are truly grateful for something another is or has done. We do not need, then, to wait for stones to do our cheering for us; we need to do it ourselves.
In Commitment
Our cheers, however, must not be mere sounds. Noise is not enough. There must be in them the authentic ring of commitment. Christ heard this ring in some of the shouts which came to his ears as he rode over the Mount of Olives, across the Kidron Valley, and into the city of Jerusalem. Some of the people, naturally, were not cheering from their hearts, but others were. They were presenting their hearts to him, and he welcomed their cheers.
Principal James Denney wrote once of hearing a certain man speak. He said, "He was in remarkably good spirits, spoke wisely, and wittily, and had a great reception: but there was not enough momentum in it." Then he went on: "Indeed there was no momentum at all. He spoke like a man who was happy in having an excellent case, not like a man with a cause."5
The cheer for which Christ listens is the one that tells him that the person cheering now has a cause, that he or she has recognized the claims of Christ upon his or her life, and has committed himself or herself to him.
Commitment involves belief. The one who is committed to Christ believes in him, has confidence in him, trusts in him. The committed person is also available for use by Christ, ready to go or stay, speak or keep silent, work or wait, depending upon which Christ wants him or her to do. This means that one is allied with him, has pledged allegiance to him, and no longer thinks of oneself as being independent of or completely separate from him.
That was what Christ was listening for that day, and it is what he is still listening for today, not for his sake, but for the world’s sake. So much of his work depends upon the availability of committed persons. One job after another goes undone for lack of persons to do them. Our world could be different, wonderfully different, if enough of us would make ourselves available to Christ, if we would put ourselves at his disposal.
Christ keeps listening for cheers which speak of commitment, of persons who are bringing themselves - all of their influence, every ability they have and all that they possess - to him and committing all to him. In a world that is crying out so painfully in its tragedy and need, someone must cheer today. Someone must say from the depths of his or her soul, "I believe in this Christ and in what he is trying to do in our world, and I commit myself to him."
Samuel Johnson once spoke regretfully of a passage which Oliver Goldsmith had expunged from his book, The Vicar Of Wakefield. The passage said, "I do not love a man who is zealous for nothing."6
There is plenty of zeal in the world today, but not all of it by any means is properly directed. And one of our needs is to examine the subjects of our zeal periodically to see if we are enthusiastic about the things we ought to be enthusiastic about.
A lot of cheering is being done today, but too few are seeing in Christ the One who supremely deserves their cheers. It is tragic, in addition, that some of the cheers raised for him are hollow and merely vocal. He is listening for cheers - indications of one kind and another - that testify that we recognize who he is and the significance of his cause among us. He is listening for cheers that express our appreciation for his work in our lives and in our world. And he is listening for cheers that have in them assurance of genuine commitment of ourselves to him.
It is not for stones to give these cheers; we need to do it!
1. Harriet Beecher Stowe. Uncle Tom’s Cabin, p. 301. New York: Harper and Row, Publishers (Perennial Classic edition), 1958, 1965.
2. Helen Smith Shoemaker. I Stand By The Door, p. 190. New York, Evanston and London: Harper and Row, Publishers, 1967.
3. James Stalker. John Knox: His Ideas And Ideals, p. 120. New York: A. C. Armstrong and Son; London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1904.
4. Hanns Lilje. The Valley Of The Shadow, p. 40. Philadelphia: The Muhlenberg Press, n.d.
5. W. Robertson Nicoll, Editor. Letters Of Principal James Denney, pp. 41-42. London, New York, and Toronto: Hodder and Stoughton Limited, 1921.
6. Quoted in The Expositor’s Dictionary Of Texts, Vol. II, p. 145.