John 18:39
“But you have a custom…”
This very custom of pardoning a criminal signifies God’s pardoning of Israel. The guilty party is spared the penalty of the crime. In offering this to the Jews, Pilate twists the knife of irony. That these many law-instructed men missed the obvious – here at the Passover – as they clamor for the death of Jesus, blinded by their hatred, is nothing short of astonishing. Sin will play us for fools, always and in every way. When we set ourselves up against God we will fall for the silliest things. Look, for example, how the so-called world of science has convinced itself that all of life – in all its splendid diversity, beauty, and complexity – came into being by mere chance. And, yet, chance isn’t a thing; it has no power. They’ve exchanged the truth of God for a lie and they’ve embraced something utterly ridiculous. Something has never come from nothing and never will and yet this is the flawed premise of modern science that hates God.
We see this same twisted irrationality in its more murderous form with abortion. The world calls it “choice,” to murder a baby in the womb. Yes, indeed, in their tortuous logic, devoid of all intellectual honesty, they insist that an abortion is morally good because it’s a matter of a woman’s choice. But a pregnancy isn’t a choice – it’s a consequence of the choice to have intercourse, which, alas, is known to sometimes result in pregnancy. So, they blind themselves to the obvious in order to keep their sin and then murder the consequence.
And so Pilate offers a trade – the just for the unjust – and it’s rejected by those that know not their sin. This is the state of man in an inglorious nutshell. This is the central point of history, like it or not. This is how God planned the whole of life under the sun. All of humanity, telling itself that it’s okay and knows right from wrong and isn’t as bad as the Bible says it is, calls for the crucifixion of Christ.
This is all so much more theological poetry from God. He provides the sacrifice. He provides his Son. He doesn’t leave it to our good works and religious observances. Absolutely not! Through this – the gospel – the righteousness of God is revealed in that there is no way for sinful, rebellious, arrogant man to gain the Kingdom of Heaven unless God provides. All other religions assume that there is enough good in us that we can in some way or another impact God’s decision. They tell us that if we do enough good works, have enough love in our hearts, etc., that we can ascend into heaven. God throws all that rubbish in our faces. Pilate, that governor of Rome, that man of the world, is prompted by the Almighty to offer men the rational – Jesus instead of Barabbas. He puts Him on display in His sinlessness and men despise Him because of it. The religious leaders hatred is clear, just as ours is. We like to talk about “haters” today but the real hatred is the hatred of God’s authority and goodness. We hate God’s authority because we don’t want to be told what to do. We hate God’s goodness because it shows us the contrast of our dark, prideful, greedy, selfish hearts and his perfect one.
Barabbas’ name means, “son of the father.” Yes, and God pardons us just as He sends Barabbas home that day and gives his Son in our stead, to face the death we deserve. And if we don’t repent of our sin and our claim to ultimate authority we are as the crowd was: yelling for the death of God so that we might continue in our ways. You see, it isn’t that a man or woman has done a sin or two, it’s that they would murder God in order to keep those sins. At the end of every sin and every refusal to repent is the sinner yelling at God, “I wish you were dead!”
We take heart, though, that God provides even in the face of our intransigence and malice. He sends Jesus for usl and if we repent, like Barabbas, we can walk off on that day and Jesus goes to the cross for us.
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