Our scripture reading is from the Gospel of Matthew, chapter
27. Now at the feast, the governor
was accustomed to release for the crowd anyone prisoner whom
he wanted, and they had a notorious prisoner called
Barabbas. So when they had gathered,
Pilate said to them, Whom do you want me to release to you?
Barabbas or Jesus, who is called Christ, for he knew that it was
out of envy that they had delivered him up.
Besides, while they were sitting on the while he was sitting on
the judgement seat. His wife sent word to him, have
nothing to do with that righteous man, for I have
suffered much because of him. Today in a dream now the chief
priests and the elders persuaded the crowd to ask for Barabbas
and destroy Jesus. The governor again said to them,
Which of the two do you want me to release to you?
And they said Barabbas. Pilate said to them, then what
shall I do with Jesus who was called Christ?
And they all said, let him be crucified.
And he said, why? What evil has he done?
But they just shouted all the more, let him be crucified.
So what? Pilot saw that he was gaining
nothing, but rather than a riot was about to begin, he took the
water and washed his hands before the crowd, saying, I'm
innocent of this man's blood. See to it to yourselves.
And all the people answered, his blood be on us and on our
children. Then he released for them
Barabbas, and having scourge Jesus delivered him to be
crucified. This is the word of the Lord.
Though these words are familiar, it once again it's good for our
souls to slow down and embrace the tension, the anxiety, the
friction in the city of Jerusalem at this time.
The tumultuous events that have been in play by God's perfect
design, but playing out in real time for all who are in all four
of the gospel narratives. Jesus.
After the longing of spending the Passover with his beloved
disciples. They go into the garden at
night, they pray, they intercede, they fall asleep.
Jesus is in agony, sweat like blood.
In the middle of the night, as Jesus was was praying in
Gethsemane, the great crowds comes full of chief priests,
religious leaders and the elders.
They arrest him. One of his disciples, Jesus,
betrays him with a kiss. He's dragged away, but not
before the chief priest servant is.
Remarkably, his ear is cut off, and then Jesus feels it shackled
and LED into a kangaroo court of Caiaphas, the high priest, with
the scribes and the elders, the so-called religious leaders, the
shepherds of Israel, have established a kangaroo court
from which they try Jesus, they spit on his face, they slap him,
and they mock our Savior. And then, and then Peter denies
the Lord three times before the cock crows.
As the morning rises, Judas can't live with himself for what
he has done. He takes the 30 pieces of
silver, throws him in the temple and kills himself, hangs himself
out of great disgust and guilt for what he has done.
The chief priests then, of course, lead him away, lead
Jesus away to pilot. And here is where Barabbas and
and Jesus and Pilate all intersect.
It seems chaotic. It seems unnerving and full of
fear and anxiety. And yet Jesus is that perfect
peace plan is coming full into play.
Our sovereign Lord is in control of it all and no one else can
see it. But he knows his eyes are fixed
like Flint on to the cross. So here is Barabbas in this
moment. He is recorded in all four of
the Gospels. He's not a good man, not at all.
In our text, he's he's said to be a notorious prisoner and
others abandoned, an insurrectionist, one who was
against the empire of Rome, a murderer, violent, deserving
punishment under Roman law, waiting for his crucifixion.
We can't imagine what it must have been like for him in that
dark dungeon cell guarded by Centurions.
But hearing the turmoil, hearing that yelling, the crowd, and all
of a sudden his name being called out a little bit later,
the guards come. He thinks this is it.
He's on death row. This is it.
The most horrific, barbaric, intentionally designed tool of a
massive, suffering Jesus. It's going to be on that cross
that Barabbas should have been on.
And then Barabbas is set free. We can't imagine what he did.
What did he think? What happened when those lock
was turned and he was set free? The guilty man who expected
death, deserved death, now has life.
The chains are gone and he is free.
It's a picture of God's Amazing Grace.
It's unfolding right there. We all can see it.
It's it's obvious though, Barabbas in the real time of it
all and no one else could see what was in play, but he got we
could get the taste of the substitutionary atonement that
God is at work and Barabbas becomes this living object
lesson to all absolutely guilty deserving the cross and yet the
innocent is now condemned and the guilty is set free.
What was he thinking? Did he run to his family and
friends? Did he did he celebrate?
What did Barabbas do? We just don't know, but we do
know this he did not earn any of it one drop.
It was all completely grace. Miraculous, stunning grace.
He did not earn 1 drop of this. And it makes it so clear as we
think about not. Sometimes we say that Jesus died
for us, but we can't forget that Jesus died instead of us.
We deserved that death. Barabbas deserved that death.
It wasn't just dying for us, it was dying instead of us.
What we deserved when one thing we do know, we don't know how he
celebrated or what he did after he was set free.
But we do know Barabbas was never the same.
How could he? Everyone who intersects with
Jesus. Prominent important people to
commoner, unknown, faceless people are changed as a result
of their intersection with Jesus.
Every disciple, including Judas Caiaphas, the high priest
Malchus who was the servant who had his ear cut off and then
miraculously healed. Every Roman centurion pilot
pilot's wife is even mentioned. She knows he's a righteous man,
tries to warn her husband, but it's too late.
Herod Simon of Cyrene, who carried the cross.
No one. Whoever intersected with Jesus
remained the same. Not one.
They were all changed or rejecting Christ, doomed.
But they were never, ever the same.
We wonder what did happen to Barabbas.
What happened to this man? It is, we hope he came to
Christ, but history does not record.
The Scriptures do not let us know what then happened to
Barabbas. We do know that if he did not
come to Christ, he was only set free in the physical sense.
He was only released from prison.
But he didn't have a new heart. His heart of stone was not
transformed by grace to have a heart of flesh.
We do know that if he was free, but he wasn't transformed, He
may have received freedom, but he did not receive all the
riches of Christ. And our justification,
sanctification, salvation, future glorification, union with
Christ, everything that we get to experience as a believer, the
freedom of it all. If he did not come to Christ, he
was just a man out of prison, but not free from the shackles
of sin. For we know that we in Christ
have what is called the great exchange.
We take on His righteousness. We give Jesus all of our sin.
We hope Barabbas had that. We hope Barabbas would
understand later on that he who knew no sin became sin so that
we might become the righteousness of God as Romans 5
amazingly plays out. Therefore, since we've been
justified that with faith we have peace with God through our
Lord Jesus for why we were still weak at the right time.
Christ died for the ungodly, for one would scarcely die for a
righteous person, though perhaps a good person one would even
dare to die. But God shows us love for us,
that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
We have now been justified by His blood.
Much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God.
We think of all the passages, the wretches of being Christ,
the penal substitutionary atonement that came.
We see Barabbas is the foretaste of that is this picture of this,
and it points to this reality that's very painful.
We, each of us, we are Barabbas. We are the ones that deserve.
We are the violent criminal that in our heart we've murdered
people. During this Holy Week, have you
not been more keenly aware of our sin and our desperate need
of all the ways that we have murdered people?
In our hearts we are like Barabbas and we have been set
free by Christ and deed. What a gift that we have.
So though history does not record, though the Scriptures
don't tell us what did happen with the freedom that came to
Barabbas, what is it that he did?
How did Christ work in his life after his freedom from prison?
We do not know. But maybe the better question
for you and for me is, what did you do with the freedom?
What did I do with the freedom? What do we as the people of God,
what have we done with our freedom?
Thanks be to God for His Word.