Follow Me

Follow Me

We all like to think we’re not quick to join the crowd. We don’t really care what others think.

We like to think we’ve raised our kids to be individuals. We want them to “be themselves.” “Make their own paths.”

I’ve heard so many people say it. “I don’t care what anyone else thinks.” “My kids are confident enough to be themselves.”

And we all want to believe this. We all want to be the one who steps up. Takes a stand. Marches to the beat of the “right” drum. Stands up for the weak. The oppressed.

But if we’re honest, we’ve all succumbed to peer pressure. I certainly have caved on too many occasions to count. I want to do the right thing. I want to be that one voice in the crowd that takes a stand. But too often, I shrink back behind one of the oppressors, and I am silent.

I follow the crowd. Too many times. Do you?

Jesus says “Follow me.” Not once. Over and over. But Jesus went to the cross.

Luke 14:7 says, “And whoever does not carry their cross and follow me cannot be my disciple.”

Wow. The other times, it doesn’t sound so scary. “’Come, follow me,’ Jesus said. ‘and I will send you out to fish for people.’” But still, Jesus asks us to follow Him. He commands us. And we hesitate. But the Bible tells us in Mark 1 that His disciples didn’t hesitate. Verse 18 says, “At once they left their nets and followed him.” And later in verse 20, after Jesus saw James and John, preparing their nets, and called them to follow Him as well, “they left their father Zebedee in the boat with the hired men and followed him.” I would like to know their minds the day Jesus told them to follow Him. Was there even a hint of struggle? Leaving the lives they knew, the families they loved. Was it difficult, or did they simply just go, without looking back?

But they were human, and even having walked with the living, breathing Jesus Christ, they too followed the crowd for a time. I love Peter. He was all in from the beginning. He had no doubts. He truly believed that he was stronger than the rest. In Matthew 26:33, he says “Even if all fall away on account of you, I never will.” Jesus must have snickered inwardly. I would have. Jesus knew. It is so easy sometimes to say it, but then it is so difficult to actually do it when push comes to shove. Peter was quick to follow the crowd when things got tough.  

It is so difficult to not follow the crowd. We have a longing, a need even, to belong. Our need to belong is unfortunately sometimes misplaced on the wrong things. We want to be in the group, the club. We want the relationship, the job, the friendship. These things will always leave us woefully unsatisfied. But still, the need to belong persists.

The crowd always gets it wrong. Look at our culture. Our world. Slavery. Holocaust. Gold Rush. Crusades. Hate. Riots. Crucifixion. The crowd always gets it wrong. It may look pleasing for a time. Or it may temporarily solve our problems. Or we may look “cool” for a moment. But the crowd always gets it wrong.

On Palm Sunday, Jesus entered Jerusalem humbly on a donkey, a sign of peace, with a ragtag group of followers. The crowd cheered for him, shouting “Hosanna! Hosanna!” (Rescuer, savior). So maybe the crowd gets it right sometimes. Or maybe not. Maybe they were right for the wrong reasons.  The crowd wanted someone to rescue them from their bondage to the Romans. They didn’t understand. They should have understood. Jesus was perfectly clear. Jesus came, lived, died, and rose to free us from bondage. But not from the Romans. Jesus wanted way more for us than that. He came to free us from ourselves. At the end of the week, the crowd thought that Jesus hadn’t delivered. Truth is, He delivered so much more than they imagined.

Less than a week later, that crowd was shouting, “Crucify him!” They hated him more than they hated Barabbas. They wanted his life more than that of Barabbas. And where were his loyal disciples? Matthew 26:56 tells us that when Jesus was arrested, “…Then all the disciples deserted him and fled.”

And the leader was too weak to lead. Pilate believed Jesus to be innocent, but he followed the crowd also. Mark 15:15 says, “Wanting to satisfy the crowd, Pilate released Barabbas to them. He had Jesus flogged, and handed him over to be crucified.” He followed the crowd.

Lots of people are going to tell you to follow them. Uncle Kracker says, “Follow me/Everything is all right/…/And if you want to leave I can guarantee/You won’t find nobody else like me.” Everything won’t be all right. And there actually are lots of people like him. People who will lead you in the wrong direction. Or maybe the right direction for the wrong reasons. Either way, don’t follow them. There is only one worthy of following.  And it will be down the narrow path. The path of persecution and suffering. But the path of a Love like no other.

I’m not going to try to analyze Frost’s poetry here. His most famous poem is often greatly misinterpreted by readers. But let’s just take the couple of lines (the most famous lines) and assume the role of the narrator, thinking of taking the road he deems less taken. “Two roads diverged in a wood, and I,/I took the one less traveled by/And that has made all the difference.” Frost doesn’t seem to have been pondering a theological question of what would happen if he followed Jesus instead of the crowd. In fact, I would seriously doubt that question was on his mind. But if we read these lines of “The Road Not Taken,” we can certainly use them to see that Jesus is the road less taken, and it will make all the difference. It won’t be easier. There will be brambles and weeds and all the other pitfalls and entanglements of a road less traveled. But in the end, it will make all the difference.

So follow Him. Follow Him to the cross and to wherever else he leads. And know this. When you mess up, and you will, He will be there to pick up the pieces of you and to put them all back together, better. Peter, so quick to tell Jesus he would never leave him, was also so quick to leave. Three times after Jesus’s arrest, Peter denied that he even knew Jesus. Then when he made eye contact with the arrested Jesus and remembered that Jesus knew Peter’s weaknesses even before he knew himself, Peter “wept bitterly” (Luke 22:62). But in John 21:19, after Peter’s betrayal, Jesus said to him, “Follow me!” Follow Him