In My Place - Barabbas

Introduction - Imagine

Imagine with me, for a moment, that you are a prisoner. Not just any prisoner, but a prisoner on death row, and you’re scheduled for execution. Imagine how the cell feels small and cold, how time feels like its slipping away, how you’re trying to hold onto your good memories but you can’t get escaped the guilt and regret that keeps pounding in your head. Imagine how your heart beats fast when you hear the guard come to the door and how loud it is when the bars slam shut behind you. You shuffle along behind the guard as he leads you through another door and then another, and finally you’re outside. But you don’t look up, because you’re afraid of what you’ll see. You don’t know what comes next. The guard releases you from your chains and he shoves you, and you stumble and fall and finally look up. There is no horror, no visible instrument of torture or death. It’s just you and the guard, and he says, “Get up. Get out of here. You’re free to go.” Imagine how freedom feels, how the open sky looks. What will you do next?

PRAYER

All four gospels have an account of a man named Barabbas—a violent, treasonous criminal in prison for his crimes. Tonight, as we celebrate Good Friday, as we remember the death of Jesus “for our sins,” we are going to look at the story of Barabbas and consider what it means that Jesus died IN MY PLACE.

Luke 23:13–25 NLT

Then Pilate called together the leading priests and other religious leaders, along with the people, and he announced his verdict. “You brought this man to me, accusing him of leading a revolt. I have examined him thoroughly on this point in your presence and find him innocent. Herod came to the same conclusion and sent him back to us. Nothing this man has done calls for the death penalty. So I will have him flogged, and then I will release him.” Then a mighty roar rose from the crowd, and with one voice they shouted, “Kill him, and release Barabbas to us!” (Barabbas was in prison for taking part in an insurrection in Jerusalem against the government, and for murder.) Pilate argued with them, because he wanted to release Jesus. But they kept shouting, “Crucify him! Crucify him!” For the third time he demanded, “Why? What crime has he committed? I have found no reason to sentence him to death. So I will have him flogged, and then I will release him.” But the mob shouted louder and louder, demanding that Jesus be crucified, and their voices prevailed. So Pilate sentenced Jesus to die as they demanded. As they had requested, he released Barabbas, the man in prison for insurrection and murder. But he turned Jesus over to them to do as they wished.

The Exchange

What happens here is an exchange. One prisoner for another. One life for another. And there are these really interesting similarities between Jesus and Barabbas. For one thing, they’re accused of the same crime: insurrection and revolution against the government. And another is the interesting detail of Barabbas’ name. Bar means son and Abba means father, so Barabbas means the “son of the father” and Jesus repeatedly refers to God as his father, so much that when we talk about the Trinity, he is known as The Son: Father, Son, and Spirit. So, the irony is that when the crowd is calling for the release of Barabbas, they could just as easily mean Jesus—the true Son of the Father of all.

There is one main difference: Jesus is innocent. He wasn’t guilty of the crime they were accusing him of. He had no interest in leading a revolution against the Jewish & Roman governments. His sights were much higher; he was leading a revolution against sin, Satan, and death. But Barabbas was guilty. He had led a revolt and he had killed people in the process. So, while Jesus, the innocent man, is sentenced to death, Barabbas, the guilty man, is set free. There is a very real sense in which Jesus dies in Barabbas’ place.

And Jesus did it voluntarily, on purpose. That’s crazy. We don’t ever take responsibility for stuff that’s not our fault. We don’t even like to take responsibility for stuff that IS our fault.

March Madness - Nobody ever fouls and it’s always off the other team.

“I couldn’t because they didn’t” “I did this because they did that.” That was the first move of Adam and Eve in the garden: Adam said, “it was the woman you gave me.” Eve said, “It was the snake.” But Jesus does the opposite. He voluntarily steps into the place of the murderous criminal and takes on the death Barabbas deserved.

I love the story of Barabbas because it reminds me that Jesus died in my place too. I’m not a murderer, and I haven’t committed treason, but I have and I often choose my way instead of God’s way, and those choices have hurt God, myself, and others. The Bible says that the wages of sin is death because all sin is self-destructive. It harms us and the people around us. Without God, it leads to a cycle of more and more sin and pain and destruction, and ultimately, death.

That’s what we see all around us in the world. When we consider the evils of poverty, of racism, of war and genocide, these are the consequences of generations of sin spreading out in every direction since Adam and Eve. And my own sins contribute to it. My own sins separate me from our perfect Father. My own sins keep me chained up like Barabbas was chained up in prison that day, on Good Friday 2,000 years ago. And I can’t escape it any more than Barabbas could escape. I can fix neither myself nor the world. Only God can stop sin.

And that’s what Jesus steps into on the cross. God becomes like us in the by becoming human so that the can stand in for us and take on himself the ultimate consequence of all of human evil in one moment, one sacrifice, one exchange—the righteous for the unrighteous.

2 Corinthians 5:21 NLT

For God made Christ, who never sinned, to be the offering for our sin, so that we could be made right with God through Christ.

The response: Worship!

Man, if this is true, if I’m Barabbas, I’m a prisoner to sin and guilty according to the scripture, but Jesus took my place and set me free, then there’s really only one response: to Worship Jesus!

Today, we celebrate the death of God. What a strange thing. But we’re not really celebrating his death so much as we’re celebrating the love that is contained in his sacrifice for us and the freedom and life we have because of it. It’s not something we should take for granted or brush past. God died for me. Jesus took my place on the cross. That’s the kind of thing that should shape our whole lives. It should lead us to a life of gratitude.

You have saved our lives; we are eternally grateful. (Toy Story 2)

Jesus has saved our lives, and now we’re eternally grateful. We worship him with our hearts and our words and our minds and our lives.