Wednesday, February 28, 2007
John 18:37-40 Pilate therefore said to Him, "Are You a king then?" Jesus answered, "You say rightly that I am a king. For this cause I was born, and for this cause I have come into the world, that I should bear witness to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth hears My voice." Pilate said to Him, "What is truth?" And when he had said this, he went out again to the Jews, and said to them, "I find no fault in Him at all. But you have a custom that I should release someone to you at the Passover. Do you therefore want me to release to you the King of the Jews?" Then they all cried again, saying, "Not this Man, but Barabbas!" Now Barabbas was a robber.
PICTURES FROM THE PASSION -- JESUS AND BARABBAS
Can you see it? Can you see the two men offered by Pilate standing before the mob? Maybe from outward appearances they wouldn't look that much different from each other. If anything, Jesus would have appeared to be in worse shape given the things He had been through leading up to this point. However, the lives of these two men couldn't have been more different.
Standing before the mob was Jesus, the King of Truth. Jesus had only ever spoken and done truth. In Him there was no sin. On the other side stood Barabbas, a robber, an insurrectionist and a murder. When Pilate offered to release one of these men to the crowd, the choice should have been easy. Jesus was no criminal. Jesus had no place being on trial before Pilate with His life hanging in the balance. Jesus is the one who needed to be released from His unjust captivity. However, the crowd chose Barabbas. And so, the innocent man was condemned to die in place of the guilty criminal.
As sinners, we all stand like Barabbas before God. We are all robbers, insurrectionists and murders. And yet, God chose to punish and kill Jesus in our place so that we might go free. He did not hand His Son over to die because of hatred, as the mob did; He handed His Son over to die because of His great love for us.
We are truly loved.
