Luke 23:13-25
Pilate then called together the chief priests, the leaders, and the people, and said to them, “You brought me this man as one who was perverting the people; and here I have examined him in your presence and have not found this man guilty of any of your charges against him. Neither has Herod, for he sent him back to us. Indeed, he has done nothing to deserve death. I will therefore have him flogged and release him.”
Then they all shouted out together, “Away with this fellow! Release Barabbas for us!” (This was a man who had been put in prison for an insurrection that had taken place in the city, and for murder.)
Pilate, wanting to release Jesus, addressed them again; but they kept shouting, “Crucify, crucify him!” A third time he said to them, “Why, what evil has he done? I have found in him no ground for the sentence of death; I will therefore have him flogged and then release him.”
But they kept urgently demanding with loud shouts that he should be crucified; and their voices prevailed. So Pilate gave his verdict that their demand should be granted. He released the man they asked for, the one who had been put in prison for insurrection and murder, and he handed Jesus over as they wished.
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Often in life, we
get exactly what we deserve. Those who work hard are rewarded, and
those who don't are not. Lately, there has been much discussion
about this, much of it sparked by the Occupy Wall Street
protests—people don't feel like they get what they deserve. They
see a system tilted against them, so that no matter how hard they
work, they will never get ahead. They see a corrupt system, in need
of serious reform. We rebel against the times we do not get what we
deserve—when we've worked hard, we want to see rewards offered.
It's what is fair.
I have had a
lifelong tendency to disobey the speed limit. It's simply part of my
identity—I can come up with all sorts of people and cities and
other things to blame, but the simple fact is that my right foot
seems heavier than my left. Guilty. So it wasn't too shocking when
I was driving across Alabama quicker than the state of Alabama would
prefer and I saw a trooper coming the other way cross the median and
head my way. I knew I was caught red-handed, so I had pulled over
before he had even managed to turn his lights on. He told me how
fast he had clocked me and asked if I knew what the speed limit was,
and I replied that I did, and soon I had a very expensive souvenir of
my trip to Clean Water U. But I couldn't protest too much—I earned
it.
Every once in a
while, though, we are given a gift of grace, something that we do not
deserve, and it should startle us. When I was sixteen, and had been
driving for several months, I worked in a large subdivision with many
stop signs and a low speed limit. I had been told by my parents that
if I ever received a speeding ticket, I'd lose my license for six
months. Soon, however, that fear wore off, and I drove faster and
faster and coasted through more and more of those stop signs. Wasn't
long before those same blue lights were behind me, and an officer was
asking me if I knew what I had done.
Perhaps it was the
abject fear he saw in my face, or maybe he was just feeling merciful
that morning, but for some reason he let me off with a warning, and
the sense of relief and gratitude that washed over me was immense. I
was so grateful to not have to face my parents' collective wrath for
being punished for something I was absolutely guilty of doing.
Perhaps you, too,
have a similar story of not being punished for something you
deserved. If you do, you can relate, in some small way, to the
relief Barabbas faces today in our Gospel reading.
The question of
Barabbas' guilt is never raised—the people of the crowd don't even
seem too concerned with who he is and what he is done—they are just
doing as they are told by their leaders, chanting for the death of
Jesus while also crying out for the release of Barabbas. In other
Gospels, we are told that it was the custom of Pilate to release one
prisoner, and the people choose this guilty insurrectionist over the
teacher who challenges them to love God more than they love anything
else in the world. Barabbas certainly isn't going to argue too
much—he gets freedom instead of a death he might have deserved,
while Jesus receives a death he does not deserve. Never has such a
perfect man had such an unfair fate cast upon him. But he doesn't
say a word, doesn't cry out against the unfairness of the system,
doesn't try and convince the people, or Pilate, of his innocence.
Like a lamb before the slaughter, Jesus says nothing.
It's so unfair.
And we are the
beneficieres of this unfair story. For we, just like Barabbas, stand
guilty as charged of sin, of loving other things more than we love
God. We have plenty of things to blame, but at the end of the day we
are responsible for the sinful choices we have made, and we are
guilty, just like Barabbas. Each of us is guilty of a different
crime, but at the end of the day, we have chosen self, chosen world,
over God.
It's not to say
that we're terrible people, that we deserve a public death—but it
does mean that if we had to stand before God just as we are, we would
have no claim to eternal life.
Enter Jesus, the
lamb to the slaughter, the perfect Son of God. He doesn't say
anything before Pilate, before Herod, before the crowd, because this
is how it was always going to go. From the time God spoke the world
into being, from the time God spoke to Abraham, from the time the
angel spoke to Mary, it was always heading here, to a violent death
on the cross, taken on behalf of every sinner who has ever lived. In
dying on the cross, Jesus opened up a door to life that we do not
deserve—he made eternal life possible with God, even though we
cannot make a case for it based on our own actions—Jesus makes our
case for it, and when we stand before God upon Judgment Day, we will
not be seen as a tarnished, guilty sinner, but rather we will be
covered by Christ. We are worthy because He is worthy. Each sin
disappears, and we are made new.
So, like Barabbas,
we have been freed from the weight of our sin. It would be nice if
we could live a perfect life from this point forward, but we
can't—we'll continue to sin, but because we are in Christ, we still
have hope for eternal life.
The so-what of all
this, the purpose of it all, is not simply to get us into eternal
life with God. The point of it all is that each one of you has been
transformed by the grace of God. Christ is our Lord and Savior, the
only way to salvation, and we are called to live a life that reflects
that.
We don't know how
Barabbas lived, but we know that he had the chance to re-write the
end of his story.
I don't know where
you go from here, but I will leave you with this question: Are you
living a life that reflects the freedom, the life, the hope that you
have found in Christ taking the punishment you deserve and leaving
you the gift of eternal life in its place? Does everything you do,
in every moment of your life, re-tell the story of Christ's offer of
salvation and redemption? Or does it keep telling the story of the
prison of sin from which you have been freed?
Let us pray.
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