What do you see?
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I have been saying for the last few years that John is a master storyteller.
John brilliantly weaves themes and types and shadows from just about ever corner of creation into his gospel.
He has arced his narratives in ways that call our attention back to the creation story, the temple, the sacrificial system, Back to the prophets and the writings.
Yet he does so with such elegant simplicity that children can read and understand the story.
But not only is he a master story teller, but he is also a master artists… painting vivid pictures with his words.
And this morning, I want our imaginations to grasp the picture John is painting for us as we move closer to the cross.
When you look at the sufferings of Christ, what do you see?
When you consider the words of scriptures as they describe for us the passion of Christ. What do you see?
We Jesus, stricken, smitten and afflicted,
We see the crown of thorns and we see the nails in his hands and feet.
But what else do we see?
We must realize that when we gaze upon the cross, on the passion, on the sufferings of Christ we are gazing upon the heart of the gospel.
we are looking at the center-point of time and reality.
As we move closer to the cross we begin to see with greater clarity
Our own sin
Our need for redemption
The unfathomable love of God
The abundance of his grace and the storehouse of his mercy.
As we move closer to the cross we see our hope and his exaltation being put forth in such a paradoxical beauty.
When we see his death, we see our life
When we see his wounds, we see our healing
When we see his hands and feet, we see our rebellion being atoned for
When we see him crushed, we see our forgiveness.
What do you see when you look at the suffering of Christ?
John is painting a picture for us, and what he wants us to see is far more striking more arresting than we ever thought possible.
What John wants us to see, what the Spirit of God wants us to see, is a realty that will possess our imaginations and cause our hearts to rejoice.
When we see the picture that John is painting, his theology quickly rushes our hearts into a state of doxology.
So by God’s grace our eyes, our hearts, our minds, our imaginations will be open to see the picture John is putting forward in our verses this morning.
Will will pick up the story in John 18:38-40…
Pilate said to him, “What is truth?” After he had said this, he went back outside to the Jews and told them, “I find no guilt in him.
But you have a custom that I should release one man for you at the Passover. So do you want me to release to you the King of the Jews?”
They cried out again, “Not this man, but Barabbas!” Now Barabbas was a robber.
Barabbas holds is very significant place in the picture John is painting for us. He is not just an extra in this story, he is not just a space filler… but he stands in the center, he stands connected to Christ.
All four Gospels not only associate Barabbas and Jesus, but they do so emphatically and with a deep theological message.
John tells us that Pilate tries to release Jesus, as he knew he was innocent, however he realized that the Jews were possessed, blood thirsty for Christ.
So he, as an act of desperation, offered the Jewish crowd a choice between a notorious and clearly guilty criminal and Jesus.
Who would they like to be set free as a Passover gift from Rome?
Shall it be Barabbas — guilty of insurrection and murder?
or shall it be Jesus the righteous son of God?
And how does the crowd respond?
“Not this man! but Barabbas!”
The name Barabbas means, “Son of the Father”
Bar = Son
Abba = Father
Just the night before Jesus, the true Son of the Father Prays to his Father in the Garden, calling him Abba.
Yet now, before Pilate and the crowd, a man named “son of the father” will be chosen for release instead of the true “Son of the Father.”
John connects Jesus and Barabbas, as do the other three gospels, in such a powerful way that we can’t separate them.
When we look at the cross, and see Jesus hanging between to robbers, we see him hanging in the place of Barabbas.
Jesus died the death that Barabbas deserved to die.
As we gaze upon the cross, we not only see the crown of thorns, the nails, and the lashes, but we begin to see Barabbas and thus see Jesus’ as a substitute. He is dying the death Barabbas deserved to die.
Barabbas — who deserved to die — was redeemed from death, because Jesus died in his stead and bore the cross that he should have carried Barabbas into the afterlife — the innocent dying for the guilty.
So as we look at the cross, we see Jesus, but we also must see Barabbas.
As we look into the face of Christ, we not only see Jesus, but we see Barabbas,
but not only that… we also see the face of Adam, we see the face of Israel, we see the face of cursed creation.
And as we look at the painting John is creating for us, as we look into the face of Christ, we see Barabbas, but we also see our own reflection.
This is what Paul saw when he looked into the mystery of the crucifixion…
I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.
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But far be it from me to boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world.
My friends, what do you see when you look to the cross? Paul saw himself, for Christ died in his place.
As Jesus died in the place of Paul and Barabbas, he also died in our place.
As he received those lashes, as he received the nails into his hands and feet, as he hung upon the cross, he did so in our place.
Like Barabbas, we deserve to be there, hanging upon the cross,
For our sins condemn us to die… yet Christ died in our place.
We see the doctrine of Substitution so clearly here in this passage, but we must realize that this is nothing new…
If you can imagine this picture John is painting with his story… we see Barabbas being absorbed into Christ, we also see Adam, Israel, creation, paul and ourselves likewise being absorbed into Christ.
Christ as our substitute cast a long shadow that covers much of the OT.
As we look at this shadow of Christ’s substitutionary atonement, we see OT Types and figures… we see Isaiah prophesying
But he was pierced for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed.
All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned—every one—to his own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.
Within this shadow
We see God covering Adam and Eve, when he first slays the innocent animals to cover the guilty shame of Adam and Eve (Gen 3:21);
we see the bloody sacrificial system, we see it when the sinner laying his hands upon the sacrifice, and then sending the sacrifice into the blade and fire of the alter in place of the worshipper (Lev 1:3-4).
We see in in David’s great grief for his son Absalom when he cries out,
“O my son Absalom, my son, my son, Absalom! Would I had died instead of you, O Absalom, my son, my son!” (2 Sam 18:31-33)
We hear it in Rebekah’s words to her son Jacob when she says, ““Let your curse be upon me my son” (Gen 27:13).
Within this shadow of Christ’s substitution we see,
Moses, Abraham, Naaman, Samson and so many more!
Jesus stands there beside Barabbas taking into himself the sin of the world, past, present and future, he has come as the righteous one to die in the place of the unrighteous. the innocent for the guilty.
These are some of the features and details in the picture John is painting for us.
So when Pilate has Jesus flogged, he is flogging and whipping the one who stands in our place… Those lashes are our lashes, those wounds are our wounds.
Only when we see the depth of this picture will we truly be able to see these next verses clearly.
Then Pilate took Jesus and flogged him.
And the soldiers twisted together a crown of thorns and put it on his head and arrayed him in a purple robe.
They came up to him, saying, “Hail, King of the Jews!” and struck him with their hands.
They ridicule Jesus, they twist together a crown of thorns and a put a purple robe on him and mockingly hail him “King of the Jews.”
Not realizing that what they were doing was actually participating in Jesus’ coronation.
For they are preparing Jesus to be lifted up in glory,
As John puts Jesus and Barabbas together… so he also puts the cross and the crown together.
For only when Christ is lifted up upon the cross will all know that he is truly the divine King, the true son of Man, the true I AM, the true Barabbas, the son of the Father.
Jesus says in John 8.28,
So Jesus said to them, “When you have lifted up the Son of Man, then you will know that I am he, and that I do nothing on my own authority, but speak just as the Father taught me.
So as they prepare Jesus for his death, through flogging and mocking, they are simultaneously preparing Christ for his enthronement.
They take thorns, and twist them into a crown…
Thorns are the mark of the curse of sin upon creation.
Jesus not only bore the curse of our sin, but he also bore sins curse over creation.
Christ died in our place, he also died in place of creation.
Christ died to atone for sin.
He died to rescue that which sin had enslaved.
Which means, the blood of Christ atones not only for God’s people, but also God’s creation.
As Paul says,
and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross.
So after the Roman soldiers beat and mocked Christ, after putting the crown of thorns on his head and the purple robe upon his back. Pilate brings him back out to the people.
Pilate went out again and said to them, “See, I am bringing him out to you that you may know that I find no guilt in him.”
So Jesus came out, wearing the crown of thorns and the purple robe. Pilate said to them, “Behold the man!”
This man that stands before the the people wearing a crown of thorns and a bloodied purple robe is everything that God created humanity to be.
When God created man on the sixth day, he made them in his image, he made humans to reflect his glory and character, he made humans to be like him.
And when Pilate says, “behold the man” he is speaking words to wonderful for him, to profound for his finite mind.
Behold the man!
The man that stood before Israel was the perfect Adam, the mature man, the God man, the perfection of humanity.
You see, sin makes us less then human. Sin robs us of our human dignity and turns us into beasts before God.
Just ask Asaph, Nebuchadnezzar, or the prodigal son… Sin make us less than human.
Yet Christ stands here as the perfect and perfected anthropos - the human. The image of God perfected. the one without sin.
John is playing with Genesis here.
During the first five days of creation we see God speaking in imperatives
Let there be light
Let there be an expanse
Let the waters gather… and so on..
yet, when he comes to the 6th day, and the creation of man, he does not use an imperative verb, rather he uses the subjunctive verb.
The subjunctive is not a command like the imperative, but rather its a verb that denotes a project and a process…
“Let us begin to make man in our image”
This project of creating mankind into the perfect image of God, with perfect theotic union, was progressing splendidly until Adam disobeys and sins before God.
When he eats of the tree of Knowledge sin enters creation and fractures and distorts the project of seeing humanity mature into the image of God.
However, God did not give up on this project, but in his divine sovereignty determined to enter into this world as man, as the God-man, to achieve what Adam failed to achieve.
Christ came as the second Adam, the better Adam,
Jesus put on flesh and tabernacled with us as the perfect human, the perfect Image of God.
And his telos was to restore that which Adam destroyed.
Jesus came and defeated Sin and death upon the cross, he conquered that which corrupts.
So when Pilate says, behold the man! John wants us to think back to Genesis… Jesus is truly the greater Adam. Jesus comes to accomplish what Adam failed to accomplish.
So in this picture John is painting, we see not only Adam, Barabbas, Paul and ourselves, but we see all of creation… we see all of of history being absorbed into the person of Christ.
This is what we are to see when Pilate presents Jesus, beaten and torn, prepared to be our atoning sacrifice.
But what did the chief priests and the officers see?
When the chief priests and the officers saw him, they cried out, “Crucify him, crucify him!” Pilate said to them, “Take him yourselves and crucify him, for I find no guilt in him.”
The Jews answered him, “We have a law, and according to that law he ought to die because he has made himself the Son of God.”
The son of God came to his own, and his own received him not.
God put on flesh and dwelt among us, yet the darkness hated the light.
Jesus stood there before Israel with a greater glory than the pillar of fire and smoke… a great authority than the burning bush… a greater hope than the sacrificial system… a great power than the glory cloud a Sinai… Yet his own refused to see God as he stood before them.
Sin always blinds us to the presence of god.
Rather than bowing before him, they called for his death!
When Pilate heard this statement, he was even more afraid.
He entered his headquarters again and said to Jesus, “Where are you from?” But Jesus gave him no answer.
So Pilate said to him, “You will not speak to me? Do you not know that I have authority to release you and authority to crucify you?”
Jesus answered him, “You would have no authority over me at all unless it had been given you from above. Therefore he who delivered me over to you has the greater sin.”
From then on Pilate sought to release him, but the Jews cried out, “If you release this man, you are not Caesar’s friend. Everyone who makes himself a king opposes Caesar.”
So when Pilate heard these words, he brought Jesus out and sat down on the judgment seat at a place called The Stone Pavement, and in Aramaic Gabbatha.
He sat HIM down… that is Jesus...
So he sits jesus down in the judgement seat, the place where the ruler sits to give his judgements…
Now it was the day of Preparation of the Passover. It was about the sixth hour. He said to the Jews, “Behold your King!”
Pilate presented Jesus to the people as the their King… but how do they respond?
They cried out, “Away with him, away with him, crucify him!” Pilate said to them, “Shall I crucify your King?” The chief priests answered, “We have no king but Caesar.”
Ah, we have no king but Caesar!
How many in our day live by this same mantra
We have no king accept
the media
the government
the influencer
we have not king accept
our emotions
our hobbies
our passions
our work
our finances
Yet Christ, goes to the cross to dethrone every spurious king, every fake, forgery, fallacious, fraudulent king that we seek to put upon the throne.
My friends, no matter who or what we put on the throne of our lives, no matter who or what we say is our king, each and every pretender will be cast down and crushed under the foot of the high King Jesus Christ.
For there is not one who can threaten his reign, because he has conquered all upon the cross.
This is the picture John is painting for us.
A picture that when we look at Christ we see the King of kings and the Lord of lords.
We see the Lord of creation, the King of glory, and the prince of peace.
When we look to Jesus we see the paradoxical glory that declares that we receive life through his death, that we receive forgiveness through his condemnation, we receive healing by his wounds.
We see the one who took Barabbas and Paul, Adam and creation, you and me, into himself, so that we might be set free from the curse of sin.
My friends, this picture of Christ should lead us to rejoice. lead us to sing loud and lead us to offer our lives as a drink offering poured out for the glory of Christ.
May it be so with us this morning.
Lets pray.
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