GREAT THINGS ENTERPRISE
CLAUDE BLACK
Mark 3:8
Crowd Size
In December 2024, more than 60,000 fans attended Taylor Swift’s last Eras Tour concert in Vancouver, and another 389,000 watched the livestream concert on YouTube. Reporters interviewed one woman and her daughter, who traveled over three thousand miles to attend the concert. Hotels in the area were full. The concert was an economic boost for the city. Demand for tickets was so great for the tour that Ticketmaster’s system broke down. Fans purchased over 10.1 million tickets for the 149 shows on more than five continents over two years. As Miss Swift’s popularity increased, the crowd sizes swelled. Her shows usually ran over 3.5 hours during which she performed over 40 songs. The shows received favorable reviews, and fans were pleased by the experience.
In Palestine over two thousand years ago, St. Mark described an experience in the life of Jesus in which huge crowds came to him. “And Jesus withdrew with his disciples to the sea, and a great number from Galilee followed, and from Judea, and from Jerusalem and from Idumea and beyond the Jordan and around Tyre and Sidon, a great crowd came to him because they heard all that he was doing.” (Mark 3:7-8) Mark described how crowds came to Jesus from far afield. They came from Galilee; many made the hundred-mile journey from Jerusalem in Judea, from Idumaea in the ancient realm of Edom in the deep south, from the east side of the Jordan, from the foreign territory of the Phoenician cities of Tyre and Sidon on the Mediterranean coast, northwest of Galilee. The crowds came to see him, listen to his teaching, and be healed by him. There was no mass media, no YouTube, so news of Jesus’ ministry spread by word-of-mouth from one person to the next throughout Palestine.
As Miss Swift’s very successful two-year tour illustrates, huge crowds gather where the action is. In Palestine, the action was centered around Jesus, who taught a new message, demonstrated a new power, and brought healing to many.
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