Good Friday (PAAC 2026)
Notes
Transcript
Handout
The choice
The choice
Have you ever had to make a difficult choice?
Maybe something that keeps you up, stresses you out.
Have you ever had a difficult decision to make? Of course, everyone has. At least I am assuming.
But here is a better question, have you ever said “this is too difficult of a choice, so you decide”?
Let me tell you, I struggle with this on the most basic level some times.
Take for example I told my wife on Wednesday that I wanted to watch a movie with her. So I gave her two options; we can watch this epic Sci-fi film or a comedy that we missed in theatres.
Both of which I really want to watch.
So I let her choose, I get husband bonus points and she chooses the comedy to watch.
Except there is one problem… I often do this I give up my choice but the moment Rhiannon chooses something I immediately want the other option.
I want the epic sci-fi film, and I instantly regret my decision to give up my choice. But it’s too late…
Maybe you have experienced difficult situations like that; pick what movie to watch with your spouse, where to grab take-out. Or maybe it’s a harder choice.
A Big career shift, move, life choice, for the younger people it’s deciding to marry someone.
you might have had a experience like that being caught between a rock and a hard place but you really don’t wanna make the call, to push the decision. You are just saying someone else take this choice from me.
In the trial that lead to the death of Jesus Christ there was someone who held that stance and gave away choice to others.
Pilate, the governor who was ruling over the case that would ultimately send Jesus to the cross felt this same way.
We are going to look at Matthew 27 and starting at verse 15. But What happens is Pilate is in this place of I don’t know what to do so you pick for me.
Now it was the governor’s custom at the festival to release a prisoner chosen by the crowd.
At that time they had a well-known prisoner whose name was Jesus Barabbas.
So when the crowd had gathered, Pilate asked them, “Which one do you want me to release to you: Jesus Barabbas, or Jesus who is called the Messiah?”
For he knew it was out of self-interest that they had handed Jesus over to him.
To start out I need to point out that we are not sure why Pilate is choosing this custom of letting a prisoner going, nor do we know how long he has been doing this.
I was digging around in this passage and in other sources that Pilate was the only governor to do this. But that does not explain why HE would do it. See Pilate was not in a good place in his career, the background of this text is that Pilate’s job was to stop riotting and insurrection within his region. However he was not good at it, he was hanging on by a thread and so the whenever you read about the Jewish leaders pushing to tell Cesar about Pilate, it was a threat on his job.
So when we look at this festival tradition, why does Pilate free those who would start rebellions and insurrections within his region?
From the research I have done is that..
He is trying to stay employed by trying to please the great crowd that has pilgrimage to town and is celebrating this festival. Becuase remember that this fesitval would draw people from multiple different towns, it would be packed. It would be like if the population if Birch hills and Shellbrook came to Prince Albert today. We would notice the business, the crowds. It would feel crowded. It’s like rush hour traffic, you notice the difference.
So if years prior to this text, Pilate was trying to give the crowd something so he could keep his job. He was doing anything to hold his power. If he didn’t please the crowd think of how powerful a riot would be when the city is packed.
So the crowd is gathered and the question is proposed, who would gain their freedom? Jesus Barabbas or Jesus who is called the Messiah?
The question to pilate is regarding a rebel that is Barabbas and Jesus who is offered only for the sake of his self interest. Again he knows the politics of where he stands.
Pilate is a governor who wants to keep clean of the problem, “Keep me out” would be his catch phrase and this will become more and more evident in the passage.
However there is a divine narrative here. The choice is between Jesus Barabbas and Jesus the Christ. You might say well thats really conquincidental, Both of these names are Jesus.
Now I will refer to Jesus Barabbas as Barabbas and Jesus the Christ as Jesus. The way that names during this time worked was based off of hometown or lineage and so when Pilate says “do you want Jesus who is called the Messiah” He is being specific by point out the part that the crowd dislikes.
A accurate naming would be Jesus of Narazerth, where people knew he was from even through he was born in Bethlehem.
So when we look at Barabbas, Jesus Barabbas we look at Barabbas and breaking that apart it would look like this.
Bar - Abbas
First Bar would mean “Son of” So my son would be Kastor Bar-Liam and I would be Liam Bar-Kirk and so on.
Now Abbas, well Abbas simply mean Father,
So he was Jesus, Son of Father.
The choice is now between Jesus Son of the Father or Jesus the Messiah. Which would you choose? What would you do if you knew that your choice would have consequences?
This chocie is not that simple and although we don’t know much about Barabbas beyond this text and it’s clear that through this narrative even the name Barabbas is to get us to think about this exchange, Son of God or Son of Father.
Well if it helps we have a break in this text; verse 19
While Pilate was sitting on the judge’s seat, his wife sent him this message: “Don’t have anything to do with that innocent man, for I have suffered a great deal today in a dream because of him.”
Pilates wife interrupts coming to the judges seat directly to tell Pilate. Would you make sure Jesus goes free, I keep having dreams becuase of Him.
Now dreams in the culture were seen, regardless of faith belief to be a divine sign from God.
So pilates wife comes in and tells us that God is using her to plead for the freedom of Jesus.
Remember Pilate, “I don’t want this” and now Pilates wife comes to him to plead the other side.
Pilate is a man caught in the middle of two sides, Barabbas and Jesus. The crowd and God himself.
So what would you do in this moment? The voice of someone you trust or the voices that are coming with expectation of what is supposed to happen?
Continuing Matthew 27:20-23
But the chief priests and the elders persuaded the crowd to ask for Barabbas and to have Jesus executed.
“Which of the two do you want me to release to you?” asked the governor. “Barabbas,” they answered.
“What shall I do, then, with Jesus who is called the Messiah?” Pilate asked. They all answered, “Crucify him!”
“Why? What crime has he committed?” asked Pilate. But they shouted all the louder, “Crucify him!”
The fingers are point, if you pick it up with me, once we ask for Barabbas to be set free and twice we ask for Jesus to die. It was not about freedom, it was about death.
This pardoning was about insuring that Jesus dies. Where in the past it might have been about not letting a martyr die, seeking someones freedom this court room is more for another death.
Twice they shout crucify Jesus.
We are given another perspective, the crowd who actively seeks for Christs death, “give us anyone but Christ”, take Jesus to the cross.
The chief priests walking around the crowd and asking everyone to cheer on the crucifixion of Christ.
See the crowd is the persuaded, either they had someone directly tell them to go against christ or heard the chants and joined in.
They are actively against Jesus.
Which turns to us, becuase lets keep reading
When Pilate saw that he was getting nowhere, but that instead an uproar was starting, he took water and washed his hands in front of the crowd. “I am innocent of this man’s blood,” he said. “It is your responsibility!”
All the people answered, “His blood is on us and on our children!”
Then he released Barabbas to them. But he had Jesus flogged, and handed him over to be crucified.
Pilates admission “I am innocent of this blood, he is your responsibility” is his declaration that he wants no part of this any more. He does not want the responsibility for Jesus’ death, but he passes it on to the crowd.
Now the whole crowd and by extension anyone in the city would be responsible for Jesus’ death.
Even more is when the crowd says, His bloods is on us AND our children. Now this is multi-generational. Now these kind of statements had happened before. It was a common thing for people to say, “Someones Blood is on Someone else”
However the crowd states this in a way to tell us that this is more then just the normal. This goes farther beyond what is normal, that the guilt or that weight of choosing to send Jesus to the cross is on their hands but also on every generation to follow.
Its a generational burden, like a family heirloom.
Think about it like this.
I own a family heirloom. Your mid probably goes to something really cool, like a watch maybe? A piece of jewlery? A vintage car even? The would be really cool.
My family heirloom is a table. It’s this table that has been passed down 5 generations now. I am not sure why I have the heirloom, I had never asked for it but it was given to me.
Me and rhiannon would use this table all the time, even when we move here to PA we used this table. It’s worn down and it has some major blemishes. So we put on our list to buy and new dining room table and we ended up getting one.
So now the table sits in the basement, here is a picture of it. Holding other stuff for storage. But it’s a heirloom, I can’t get rid of it, I can’t sell it off. It was given to me and now I have to hold on to it and I have to hand it down.
the crowd says they will pass down this burden, guilt, sorrow and grief of sending Jesus to the Cross becuase you will pass down the shedding of his blood.
So that today nobody can say “well I didn’t send Jesus to the cross”.
Good Friday is to remind us that
The blood shed on the cross is by us
That your sin and my sin and the worlds sin are why his blood was shed. That our inheritance says that we are in the crowd of sinners shouting crucify him.
We put him there, we did this. The crowd admits it and today we do to. We have to take a second to admit that we had put him there. freeing Barabbas, a rebel, revolutionary, someone who was truly guilty. Instead of Jesus.
So how do we respond to this?
Like Pilate;
Who does not want the responsibility of the decision. Pushing it away from himself, wanting nothing to do with it but still playing along to keep people happy.
We can deny it, we can avoid it, we can ignore it but in the end it’s still there. Thats choice one, ignore it
Like the crowd;
Done and over with, they admit their part of it but they stop there. They wanted to get rid of him and they did it, end of their story.
They know about Jesus but thats it. They don’t follow him and they live their life apart from him.
The reader
Its you now, seeing this account. witnessing to what happens while having the knowledge that Sunday is coming and he rises again. With the whole gospel in your hand.
You inherit two things, the first is your sin. You are born with it.
The second is the blood of sending Jesus to the cross.
But you have the choice on what you do with those.
Becuase even if I sent Jesus to the cross, I know that he was going there so that I could get rid of this Sin. So I can hold on to this inheritance that my sin is what put him there, I was one of the voices in the crowd that sent him to the cross.
However its the choice that makes the difference
The choice to admit it and have him take that sin. You can hold on to that sin as much as you like, you inherit it, you can be glad Jesus is dead as much as you want, it’s his blood on your hands.
Or you can see that he goes to the cross willingly, he offers to take your sin and die with it so that you could have relationship with the Father.
today is the day Christ would die on the cross, that his blood on our hands
But today can also be the day where he dies on the cross, on sin on his shoulders.
But that is our choice, to say that the lamb who was slain was slain by us and he was slain for us,
The blood on the cross is shed for us
our choice, our response is to accept that he is taking our sin, we still hold the grief that our saviour had to die on that cross, but we don’t need to hold on to the sin that stops our relationship with God.
Again think back to my heirloom table. I have two choices
“Oh I have to store and take care of this table until I get to pass it on to my kids”
or
“I get to use this table, for my meals with my family, until it’s my kids turn”
Its all about choice, that is why today is called Good Friday and not Bad Friday, becuase although it was our choice to send him to the cross he used it to take our sin away and we get to make that choice to let him take it or just keep carrying it with us.
Today I want to invite you into giving Jesus your sins instead of continuing to carry it.
Nobody can carry sin and have a relationship with the Father.
So I want to invite you to acknowledge Christs death and to also confess your sin is on that cross. You need to own it and give it to Jesus.
To give that sin that you might be holding or hiding over to Jesus.
We want to give you a chance to do that today.
We have set up our communion today and I want to invite you to the table to take of the Lords last super but we are invited into confession first.
Paul tells us in 1 corinthians 11 about how we should examine ourselves before approaching the table.
For I received from the Lord what I also passed on to you: The Lord Jesus, on the night he was betrayed, took bread,
and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, “This is my body, which is for you; do this in remembrance of me.”
In the same way, after supper he took the cup, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood; do this, whenever you drink it, in remembrance of me.”
For whenever you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.
So then, whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of sinning against the body and blood of the Lord.
Everyone ought to examine themselves before they eat of the bread and drink from the cup.
We are to take this in remembrance of Jesus, of his death and ressurection. But we are told that we need to examine ourselves.
If we come to the table and take of the bread and drink without confessing our own sin we are guilty of committing more sin against the body and the blood of the Lord.
This table is to remind of us what he suffered for our sake. So it is our invitation to confess that sin.
To remember christ and to sit in sin is two competing issues.
So as the band comes up to the stage I want to explain how we will partake in communion
We have two communion stations here at the front and Pastor Agneshia is in the balcony foyer with another station, we will serve you communion as you come forward. But come to the table and partake of the elements when you feel ready.
I have asked the worship team to play instrumental and then when they think we are ready they will shift us back to worship once again.
So you can take your time to get right with the Lord before coming to the table.
If you need prayer just linger back for a while and then come forward and we will pray for you as well.
But we want to give you this space to pray, confess and come forward and receive communion.
If you would like prayer from the pastors at the station while you receive communion we just ask that you would wait to come forward until the singing begins.
With that let me pray for this time and invite you forward.
