Mark 15:1-15 – Jesus or Barabbas

“So Pilate, wanting to gratify the crowd, released Barabbas to them” (verse 15).

At many times and in many places we are given a choice of two roads. These are not the roads more traveled and less traveled of Robert Frost but rather the way of the fool and the way of the wise. They are held in front of our faces every day and throughout each day.

Pilate offered the Jerusalem Jews such a choice today, saying, “Being the generous guy that I am, I will magnanimously release to you one prisoner I am holding. I have before you on the one hand the noted murderer and thief, Barabbas. On the other hand, the one who calls himself the ‘King of the Jews.’ For one day and one day only, I, Pontius Pilate, friend of the Jews, (sorry about that spending money from the Temple for an aqueduct thing – oh, and for bringing the dreaded sacrilegious images into town) am willing to let you, the Jews, have a say in things.

So who shall I release a gesture of my goodness? Barabbas, or Jesus? Don’t answer yet! (Let me get my Applause-meter set up, and we’ll be ready to go in a jiffy.)”

However, it is not Pilate but the Jews who are the choosers today. They are the ones given the choice, and they choose to release Barabbas, thus condemning Jesus to die.

You, too, are given a choice today: in reality many, many choices. They will not come as the Great Show-down, as the Great Contest of the Thumbs (up or down), and they will not appear on the grand stage before a studio audience to cheer you on.

No, they will occur with you as the defendant, lawyers, jury, judge, witnesses, and bailiff. They will sneak silently into your life, the unannounced saboteurs of Satan and weapons of the world. They will disguise themselves as mere “Entertainments,” “Little White Lies,” “Things I Owe Myself,” “Things Everybody’s Doing,” “Harmless Pleasures,” “Necessary Urgencies,” and the like.

Sometimes they will provoke the Voice of conscience to be heard within your soul, and other times, depending on how sensitive you’ve trained your spiritual equipment to be, they will fly below your radar as the stealth technology of the Devil.

But they will come. And you will be tempted to choose to release them back into your life instead of Jesus Christ.

How often do you (frequently after the fact) recognize that the Choice has been offered to you and that you’ve chosen to leave Christ in the hands of Pilate, condemned to be outside of your life? How often have you chosen, yes chosen, to release the murderer and thief back into your life because he served your purposes?

We want to gratify the crowd or gratify ourselves, and it is this gratification of anyone but God Himself that is our undoing. For we do not think at the time that the murderer we have released back into the world has been sent to murder Christ in us, one tiny knife cut at a time. We do not believe that the thief we have given back to the world is the one who has been commissioned to steal a part of our souls.

And so our days are filled with a procession of murderers and thieves we have released back into our lives so that when we come to the end of the day and replay the video it looks like Mardi Gras with its grotesque litany of sins and sinners parading across the streets of our days.

In fact, each day is a Good Friday. There is Christ on trial, and you have the power to gratify the crowd, release Barabbas and deliver Jesus, or to release Jesus and send Barabbas to his just rewards.

Here is Jesus Christ on trial in your life, and you have the power to release Him back into your life, to give you life. And you have the power to release the Pandora’s box of petty murderers and thieves who say they are your friends but are only biding their time until the night when they can imprison and torture you.

Look! There are Christ and Barabbas before you this day: whom will you choose to release?

Prayer: Gethsemane, garden of remembrance, the point at which our
Salvation hung as a millstone around thy neck.
Brave defender, oh blessed redeemer,
In whose hands our fate rests as yet,
How may we understand that perfect love?

Golgotha, the place of the skull, looming in the foreground,
Oh mighty sorrow as pain of love,
When looking to the heavens above,
You spoke the words that change our fate,
Father, not my will, but thy will be done.

A bitter cup, yet quiet heart of strength, and love, and peace,
Oh perfect prince, oh king of kings, may our hearts be meek.
As a lamb before its shearers may be silent, you uttered not a word.
On pain of death you bore with strength the sins of every man.

As the blood and water flowed, salvations plan was sealed,
That as we give our hearts to you, the wounds of sin are healed.
And as we wander in despair, as all who go astray,
May you, oh Lord, grant us the strength of heart to pray,
Father, not my will, but thy will be done.

(M.G. Ellison)

Point for Meditation: What kinds of choices between Christ and the world come before you each day? How aware are you of these choices? Do you set aside part of each day to evaluate how well you have chosen Christ today?

Resolution: I resolve today to spend time considering and evaluating the choices I have made today for Christ or for Barabbas.

Jesus Before Pilate – U. S. Public Domain