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Holy Trinity Anglican Orthodox Church
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Choose Your Messiah |
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Matthew
27:1-26 Palm
Sunday March
16, 2008 Many people see the story of Barabbas as a minor historical detail about Pilate offering a choice of which prisoner to release at Passover. In reality it is a about a much greater issue. Each prisoner represents a different and opposing view of the Messiah, of the will of God, and, indeed, even of God Himself. So the story of Barabbas is not about choosing a prisoner, it is about choosing your Messiah. One of the choices is Jesus. If it were possible to lay aside, for the moment, His Divine nature and look at His actions from a purely human perspective, what kind of person would we see? The single most notable thing we would see is the remarkable goodness about Him. He spent His life doing good. He was the kind of man who healed the sick, and fed the hungry, and raised the dead. He was the kind of person who associated with the humble and poor. One of the chief complaints his enemies raised against Him was that He received sinners. That does not mean He joined them in sin. It means He welcomed them as the Father welcomed the Prodigal. Even His enemies could find no sin of which to convict Him. His life was righteous and holy from the moment of conception. Never an unkind word passed His lips, never an evil thought crossed His mind. Tempted He was, like as are we, yet without sin. “Get thee behind me, Satan,” was His constant response to the tempter. He was a man of peace, and hope, and love. He was good. The other choice is Barabbas. Matthew’s Gospel calls him a “notable prisoner.” Luke 23:19 gives more detail. In Luke we learn that Barabbas was guilty of sedition. He had taken part in a revolt, a revolution against the Romans. He was one of a small group of Jews who wanted to get the Romans out of Israel by violence. He is also called a murderer. In other words, he had actually acted on his beliefs. He had murdered Romans, and possibly Jews also, in his battle. Specifically, Barabbas was a Zealot. He believed Israel had to be free from the Romans to be true to God. He believed the Messiah was to be a military leader in a war against the Gentiles so he and his kind could inherit the earth and dwell in it in peace forever. That was his understanding of the will of God. That was his religion. More than that, Barabbas was a false prophet, for he believed himself to be God’s anointed one, the messiah, come to lead the revolution. Even his name tells us this, “Barabbas,” “Son of the Father.” He thought he was the Son of God. He completely misunderstood the nature of God, the nature of the Kingdom of God, and the nature of the Messiah. Jerusalem was full of these false prophets, and false messiahs. Barabbas was just one of many, and the only reason we know his name is because he was freed and Christ was killed. So here we see a choice. It is not just a choice between two prisoners, it is a choice between two Messiahs, two religions, two Sons of God, two Gods. The Jewish leaders, working in secret so the vast numbers of Jews who supported and followed Jesus would not know what was happening until it was too late to stop it, had an opportunity to choose Jesus or to choose Barabbas. Why did they choose Barabbas? Because they wanted the kind of Messiah Barabbas offered. To them, Jesus was the wrong kind of Messiah. He did not fit their view of what the Messiah should be. Frankly, they shared the views of Barabbas. They wanted the Romans dead and the Gentiles conquered. That was a major part of it. But even more, and worse, they wanted to keep their religion, not Christ’s. Somewhere along the way many of the religious leaders of the Jewish faith had turned aside from God. They were put in positions of leadership, power, and influence, and, slowly, their positions became more important to them than God. They began to treasure their influence and power above God, and to use it for selfish purposes rather than to serve God and His people. We are not surprised at this today, for we see it often in both the civil and ecclesiastical authorities of our own time. Not all the Jewish leaders were like this, of course. That is why Jesus was tried in secret, at night, with only certain members of the leadership invited to the trial. It was this select group that plotted and accomplished the murder of Jesus. It is very important for us to see that. Their religion was a perversion of the true Jewish faith as given in the Old Testament. Their religion was one of outward show, a religion of ceremonies and outward forms. They truly believed that if the sacrifices were offered in the proper way, on the proper day by the proper people, God would be pleased and Israel would be blessed. They ignored the inward person. To them, the human heart could harbor greed, hatred, violence, pride, envy, lust, and a general godlessness, yet still be O.K. with God. If the ceremony is all God cares about, why should a person cleanse his heart? This is the kind of religion held by those who brought Jesus to Pilate, and this is the kind of religion Barabbas represented. This is the kind of Messiah he wanted to be. Jesus demanded purity of heart. He demanded that we keep the spirit of the Law as well as the letter of the Law. And the spirit of the Law is love. “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart and with all thy soul and with all thy mind.” “Thou shalt have no other gods before me.” “Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.” Notice Jesus didn’t say love ourselves first, and out of our self-love we will be able to love God and neighbor. It is not as though we don’t love ourselves enough, so that Jesus died to restore our self-esteem. Our problem is that we love ourselves too much. Thus, our Lord told us to Love God first of all, and our neighbors as ourselves. I mention this because there is a terrible tendency to reverse this order in the contemporary mind. Yet there is something more. Barabbas’ religion was for those who thought they made themselves righteous by their works, that is by keeping the feasts and the fasts and the sacrifices and the thousands of ceremonies and man-made rules about things that don’t matter. By doing these things, they believed, they had atoned for their sins and earned the favor of God. Jesus’ religion was for those who realized that ceremonies and rituals alone could never purge their souls of the terrible stain of sin. Jesus’ religion was for those who knew that, rather than being righteous in the eyes of God, they were sinners and criminals against His holy law. His religion was for those who knew they could offer nothing to God, but could only hope to receive grace and mercy from Him. His religion was for those who understood that something much more precious than all the bulls and goats on earth, even more precious than their own lives, would need to be sacrificed if it were to make any difference in the state of their eternal souls before Almighty God. In Barabbas’ religion, God owes us much because we are good. In Jesus’ religion, we owe God more than we can ever pay because He is good. Now it crosses my mind that people are still choosing Barabbas. People still want the easy religion he seems to offer. They want a kingdom of this world. They want health and prosperity and peace now. They want to be able to achieve peace with God through rituals and ceremonies, often nothing more than a quick prayer on Thanksgiving Day, without the restrictions of biblical morality and godly living. They want God on their own terms. They want to able to stand before the gates of Heaven one day and say, “Let me in God. I’ve earned it. Let me in, God, I’m good enough.” God help them, I fear they will be turned away. Let us not go with them. Let us trust God’s grace rather than our ceremonies. Let us serve Him rather than our own desires. And, Great and Holy Father, grant us grace that we may always choose Christ. Amen. The Rev. Dr. R. Dennis Campbell, Vicar, Holy Trinity Anglican Church,
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