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Grace, mercy and peace be to you from
God our Father, and from our Lord Jesus Christ.
The governor again said to them, “Which
of the two do you want me to release for you?” And they said, “Barabbas.”
Pilate said to them, “Then what shall I do with Jesus who is called Christ?”
Prayer: Dear Lord Jesus, bless all of us with your Holy
Spirit, to me that I may preach well, and to all of us that we may hear well.
Amen.
In our Lent sermon tonight, we’re going to continue from
where we left off last week, where we were looking at the event where Jesus
goes to Herod.
We read that Herod had mocked Jesus and sent him back to
Pilate dressed in a royal robe of some kind. So now that Jesus has been
returned to Pilate, this is what we read in Luke 23:
Pilate then called together the chief priests and the rulers
and the people, and said to them, “You brought me this man as one who was
misleading the people. And after examining him before you, behold, I did not
find this man guilty of any of the charges against him. Neither did Herod, for
he sent him back to us. Look, nothing deserving death has been done by him. I
will therefore punish and release him.”
You remember in our readings last week, that Pilate had
tried to rid himself of having to deal with Jesus, and so when he had heard
that Jesus was from Galilee, he sent him off to Herod. Herod also didn’t know
what to do with him, so he sent him back to Pilate.
And Pilate gathers together all the people again. And he
says: You brought me this man as one who was misleading the people.
In our passage last week, we read that the chief priests had
said: He stirs up the people, teaching throughout all Judea, from Galilee
even to this place. When they say he was stirring up the people, it didn’t
so much mean that he was simply getting them excited—that would have been no
crime. When Pilate says that they had brought Jesus to him as one who was
misleading the people, he also doesn’t mean that Jesus had simply made some
mistakes in his teaching. What he was talking about was that Jesus was being
accused of leading the people in a revolution. He was being accused of misleading
people or stirring them up against the established order.
But of course there was no proof that Jesus was doing
anything of the sort. Remember though that Jesus says: I am the way, and the
truth and the life. No-one comes to the Father except by me. This saying of
Jesus is a great comfort to Christians, but to outsiders it is a real stumbling
stone. Paganism has always believed that there a multiple roads to God, and
that experience is more important than truth. You can have two people who have
some kind of religious experience, but say conflicting things. Pagan unbelief
says, “Who cares about the conflict? You can’t criticise the experience. That
man or woman is a holy man or woman.” This is not what Jesus teaches. He
teaches only one way to God, and that is through him.
And so, would it be any surprise to us that those who don’t
follow the words of Jesus are going to criticise him for misleading
people? When King Ahab saw Elijah, he said: Is it you, you troubler of
Israel? And he answered, “I have not troubled Israel but you have.” In the
same way we could say about Jesus: It is not Jesus who is misleading people,
but everyone else is misleading people.
Back to Pilate – Pilate once again proclaims Jesus’
innocence. He says: After examining him before you, behold, I did not find
this man guilty of any of your charges against him. Neither did Herod, for he
sent him back to us. Look, nothing deserving death has been done by him. I will
therefore punish and release him.
Even though Jesus is innocent, Pilate says that he will
punish him. Here, he means a flogging. It’s as if he is saying: I understand
that you want him to stop preaching, but he hasn’t really done anything to
deserve death. How about I give him a flogging? Hopefully, I’ll scare him enough
that he won’t say anything more.
The punishment is unfair and unjust—it is simply to appease
the crowd. However, we need to remember here that Jesus is the lamb of God, and
he is carrying the sin of the world. And our sin can’t be dealt with by a
simple flogging, and then it’s done. It is worthy of death, just as God said in
the Garden of Eden to Adam: If you eat of that tree, you will surely die. Yes,
Jesus is innocent, but he is carrying our sin, and he is doing it for us. He is
making atonement for us, he is making a sacrifice for us.
Now, we come to the text which we read earlier from Matthew
27. We read: Now at the feast the governor was accustomed to release for the
crowd any one prisoner whom they wanted. What we are talking about here is
a arrangement that the Romans had with the Jewish people to keep them happy,
and to give some kind of appearance that they were good and generous rulers. So
when it came around that the Jewish people were celebrating the Passover, at
they were at this time, the governor would release a prisoner. This did three
things: firstly, it gave the people the opportunity to release someone who was
unjustly imprisoned, and possibly to right a wrong that had been committed by
the Romans; secondly, it gave the Romans a chance to keep the people happy; and
thirdly, it made the Romans look good.
Once again, we see how part of the way in which the Romans
ruled the people was every now and then to give them what they wanted. So just
as Pilate had threated to flog Jesus and release him, to keep the crowd happy,
so also we see that there were other customs in place to keep the crowd happy.
We read: And they had a notorious prisoner called
Barabbas. In John’s gospel we read about him: Now Barabbas was a robber.
This is true, but he wasn’t a pickpocket. This is a serious robber, like a
highway robber, or like an Australian “bushranger”, who would be happy to kill
anyone who got in his way. In Mark’s Gospel we read: Among the rebels in
prison, who had committed murder in the insurrection, there was a man called
Barabbas. Do you hear that? He had committed murder in the insurrection. An
insurrection is an uprising, or a rebellion, or the beginnings of a revolution.
Luke says that he had been thrown into prison for an insurrection started in
the city and for murder. Luke even gives us the impression that he was one
of the people who was instrumental in leading this uprising, and that he was
one of the front-runners. After all, Matthew says that he was a notorious
prisoner.
And so what do read that happens? We read in Matthew: 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?” We also read: For he knew
that it was out of envy that they had delivered him up.
Here we see that Pilate has a plan. He knows that Jesus is
innocent. He doesn’t want to send a man to his death who doesn’t deserve it.
And so what is he going to do? Well—he thinks—maybe if I can get them to
release Jesus, according to this custom. But here’s the problem: The custom was
that there would be released whatever prisoner the crowd wanted, not whom the
governor wanted. If a mother tried to pull this trick with their child, and
said, “I’ll buy you whatever icecream you choose”, and then the mum tries to
wrangle it in such a way that the child should choose her favourite, so that
she could also have a lick, the child would smell the rat a mile off. “No,
mum—you said I could have whatever icecream I wanted. I don’t want Rum and
Raisin. I want to choose the icecream that I want!”
And so this is a similar trick that Pilate is trying to play
on the crowd. To release Jesus was his idea, not theirs. And yet, he thought if
he gave them a choice between someone they simply didn’t like, and a hardened
criminal like Barabbas, they would obviously choose to keep Barabbas in jail.
Think about a notorious criminal that we might know—we all know what prisons
are like. The worst thing about going to gaol is not simply having your freedom
taken away, but being stuck in there with all kinds of bloodthirsty characters.
Barabbas is probably someone a bit like Chopper Reid. He thinks, if I gave them
a choice between Jesus and Chopper, surely they would want to keep Chopper back
in the clink! Surely, people must think: Don’t let Barabbas out! We don’t want
him back loose on the streets! Pilate thinks that common decency would prevail.
He sensed that it was out of envy that they had delivered him up. Hopefully,
this choice between Jesus and Barabbas would put them to shame, and they would
see just what fools they had been.
At this point, Matthew interrupts all of this “action”, and
he tells us about a little event which only he tells. We read: Besides,
while he was sitting on the judgment 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.”
Pilate is not only being pulled in all directions by the
crowd, but now his wife gets involved. There are many dreams in the bible—we
might think particularly of Joseph in the Old Testament with his dreams. But
then also there are many dreams in the Gospel of Matthew. When we read about
Jesus’ birth, we read about Joseph having many dreams: about taking Mary to be
his wife, about fleeing from Bethlehem to Egypt, about coming back from Egypt,
and about settling in Nazareth. Also, we read about the Wise Men being warned
in a dream not to return to Herod. Here, we have Pilate’s wife suffering much
in her dream about Jesus. She wakes up, and is frightened, and warns her
husband not to have anything to do with Jesus.
Isn’t it strange that here is a Gentile woman who perceives
much more about what is going on than the crowd and the priests? Through this
dream, her conscience is pricked, and she realises that there is something big
going on here.
Sometimes people make too much a thing about dreams. Pagan
people have often look to dreams as messages from whatever spirits they
worship. Sometimes, in the bible, we see God also send people messages in a
dream. But we also have to be careful that we don’t look for this, and try and
use techniques to play games with our sub-conscious. If we dream, we dream. If
we don’t, we don’t. Sometimes a dream brings to mind someone we know—well, we
should pray for them. Or maybe a dream makes us worried about something—well,
we should pray about it.
Take for instance, St Peter in the book of Acts falls into a
trance. But that doesn’t mean that we Christians should work ourselves into a
trance in order to get a message from God. That’s called shamanism—that’s what
witch-doctors do in Africa and Siberia and South America. It’s a form of witchcraft
that we should avoid like the plague. The same goes with dreams—if you want to
hear God’s word, read and listen to his word in the Scripture. Don’t go chasing
after dreams, because the devil can mess with people in their dreams too.
In the case of Pilate’s wife, all we read about is that
dream terrified her conscience. And she says: Having nothing to do with that
righteous man. This is the wrong message. Yes: he is a righteous man. But
even though we are unrighteous, this righteous man—who is also the righteous
God—wants everything to do with us. The fact that we are ungodly, and Jesus is
righteous, the fact that we are sinners and Jesus is perfect, does not mean
that we can have nothing to do with him. Rather the opposite—Jesus is laying
down his life for you, so that you can be with him, both in this life and in
the next. He forgives your sin, so that you can have your whole lives—and the
next life—with him.
Now we come back to the crowd. We read: 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 for
you?” And they said, “Barabbas.” Pilate said to them, “Then what shall I do
with Jesus who is called Christ?” They all said, “Let him be crucified!” And he
said, “Why, what evil has he done?” But they shouted all the more, “Let him be
crucified.”
We see here that Pilate’s great plan has back-fired on him.
He thought that this would be the opportunity to release Jesus. But instead,
they choose to have Barabbas released. Now that his plan hasn’t worked, Pilate
is stuck. The very fact that they have called for Barabbas, now gives them the
opportunity to call for Jesus’ blood. Pilate is stuck in a corner. He says: What
shall I do with Jesus who is called Christ? They say: Let him be
crucified. Pilate protests Jesus innoncence. He says: Why, what evil has
he done? But the cat is now out of the bag. The horse has bolted. All the
crowd have to do now is keep shouting louder and louder, so that they
eventually win. Pilate’s protests are drowned out.
This is often the way it is. Truth can only be attacked with
noise, noise, noise. If the truth is inconvenient, all we can do is make sure
that the truth is drowned out, and that the falsehood or the error is
proclaimed louder and louder. This is why it seems to us so often in the world
that unbelievers and those who have false beliefs are more energetic and have
more passion and fire in their bellies than believing Christians. But you see,
energy and passion and fire is all they have. Jesus doesn’t pray to his
Father: Sanctify them with your energy, with your passion, with your fire.
Instead he says: Sanctify them with your truth; your word is truth.
So the crowd chooses to have Barabbas released and Jesus
crucified. Just as a final thought for our sermon this evening, we see here the
corruption of the human will. Because we are sinful, fallen human beings, every
part of us is corrupt. Our bodies age and get diseased. Our hearts are full of
all kinds of evil thoughts. Genesis says: The LORD saw that the wickedness
of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his
heart was only evil continually. This includes our will. Our sin always
wants to hide itself and protect itself—it never wants to be exposed. And so
our hearts do not choose forgiveness. It is Jesus who chooses us.
Some Christians make a mistake in this regard. They think
that Christian conversion is about choosing to follow Jesus, or making
a decision to follow Jesus. But this isn’t the case. Jesus is the one who
has made a decision from the foundation of the world to have you as his
follower. He has called you through his word and Holy Baptism. Jesus said to
his disciples not long before he was arrested on the night when he was
betrayed: You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you
should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide.
Jesus has died for the sins of the whole world. That means
he has died for your sin. He has called you through his word, and he has
baptised you, and he constantly gives you the opportunity to hear his word of
forgiveness spoken to you by your pastor in the church. This is what you should
put your trust in, because this is Jesus’ words. Don’t put your trust in your
decisions, and in your will—the human will is corrupt. In our reading tonight,
the crowd freely chose to release a criminal and to crucify its Saviour. That’s
what human will does.
However, once we have been converted, then Jesus sends us
his Holy Spirit to change and shape our will, so that we choose things which
are pleasing to him. This is something that is only begun in this life, though.
Even as a Christian we will find ourselves doing things that we wish we hadn’t
done, and things that we don’t want to do. St Paul says: I do not understand
my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate.
Jesus here in our reading shows us what our hearts and our
wills really are. Our sinful flesh, and our sinful hearts, want to see Jesus
out of the picture. Like Pilate’s wife, our sinful hearts and our dreams want
to have nothing to do with this righteous man. When Peter’s boat was breaking
from all the fish Jesus had allowed him to catch, he said: Depart from me,
for I am a sinful man, O Lord.
Jesus was crucified because people just you and me wanted
him crucified. And now he says to us: I know that wanted me dead. I know that
like my disciples you would rather run away. But I have died for your will. I
have died not because the world wanted it, but because you need it. And so,
now, do not be afraid. What is more important is not want you want, but what
God wants. We read in Isaiah 53: It was the will of God to crush him. In
the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus said: Father, if it is possible, let this
cup be taken away from me. Yet, not my will, but your will be done.
Thank you, Jesus, for your perfect will, for submitting to
your Father’s will, and even letting yourself be submitted to the will of the
crowd, so that you could go to the cross to purchase and win me and all
believers. Teach me your will, O Lord! Your will be done on earth as it is in
heaven.
Lamb of God, you take away the sin of the world—Have mercy
on us! Amen.
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