Imagine a man who is a sinner. The particular sin isn’t relevant. Perhaps he is a tax collector for Rome with sketchy morals. Perhaps a woman who sells her body to put food on the table. Perhaps a man seeking life in the arms of many different women, using them and never speaking to them again. Perhaps a thief, a reviler, a blasphemer.
Sinners cause grief in society. They are at war with nature, at war with themselves, at war with their neighbor. Every time God’s moral code is broken, someone gets hurt.
So we want to do something about it. We don’t want prostitutes on the corner of our neighborhood. We don’t want the government getting rich on the backs of the poor. We don’t want to be cursed out when we are in the market. We don’t want thieves running the cash registers.
So far, nothing too controversial. So with those images in mind, ask yourself – what should be done about it?
There are really only two things that can be done. First, is to make the sinner stop sinning. If you have a strong enough king, you can put a stop to an adulterous man. You can eventually lock him up and never let him out. If he has no access to people, he can’t commit a sexual sin against people. Depending on the severity of the situation, this might need to be done. A man who rapes children, for example, needs to be removed from children, whatever it takes to do so. The damage is too great.
But the fact is, this doesn’t actually stop the sinning, because the man still has his heart with him. He still takes his fantasies and his greed and his hatred and his envy, even into prison.
The second problem is this one: If you seek to purify society by removing all the sinners, where do you stop?
Who purifies the ones purifying? The oppressed class rises up and purifies themselves from the oppressors and the oppressors become the new oppressed class.
Revenge is a vicious cycle without an end.
Which brings me to the second way to do something about it.
David cried out, “Oh that salvation were come out of Zion!”
David was the king at the time, and Zion was his palace. He knew that as the king, the salvation he was seeking wasn’t forthcoming. A different kind of king would be needed.
What if a heart could be changed and the adulterous man no longer had any desire to use and abuse the bodies of others?
What if the thief got a job because he wanted to have enough to give to the poor rather than making the problem worse?
What if the racist could see with new eyes the perspective of people different than he is, and actually spend time listening to the struggles and desires and difficulties of the refugee?
What if the greedy government official found security somewhere else rather than in his bank account?
In other words, what if the heart was freed from fear and filled with love?
This, of course, can never be done by laws, by education, by religion, by philosophy, or by anything under the sun. Under the sun is only death and vanity.’
In order for the heart to be changed, a savior must come from another realm with power that doesn’t belong to the realm of death and misery.
It can only come from God himself.
The laws of men can never be strong enough to change a heart or purify sinners. They can’t even agree on what “sin” is!
One problem with the ruling class seeking to purge sinners is that they first have to classify what a sinner is. The next problem is that they have to propose a solution to those that they have deemed sinners.
This is why seeking to eradicate “sin” by the law always ends up multiplying atrocities and never actually solving any problems. You declare a certain type or class of people to be the problem with society (sinners) and then you seek to put a stop to it.
But where do you stop?
You can’t build enough prison camps. You can’t have enough Guantanamo Bays, or Gulags, you can’t have enough Auschwitzes. And not only have you not corrected any problem, you have only made society worse. Death and misery will never cure death and misery.
And death and misery are in this world under the sun because we are alienated from the God of life, fearful of those who are different than we are, and seeking to cover shame and fear and guilt by adultery, murder, anger, reviling, drugs, alcohol, suicides, theft, and the list continues.
In order to truly change behavior, guilt, shame and fear must be removed.
But God doesn’t just zap us and make us perfect. He created us after his image, with personhood, personalities, will, culture, and all of those things that Jesus called “talents”.
And like a skilled surgeon removing a cancer but keeping the patient alive, God removes the fear and the shame and the bent nature and leaves our humanness intact, because God loves his creation and does not desire the “death of the wicked”. Jesus came to redeem a cursed world, not to condemn a cursed world.
But redemption takes time and can’t be rushed. In fact, it takes a whole lifetime and is only complete at the resurrection.
And we are impatient. We want the problem taken care of right now. Our pride tells us that the problem is those others who are sinning.
The problem is that prostitutes are on the corner. Greed is in the government. Refugees are stealing jobs. Politicians are lying. Women are having abortions. Men are sleeping with men.
And if we just had a righteous, powerful king to rid society of these menaces, then the price of eggs would go down, inflation would be over, and we could make Israel Great Again.
And this is where Barabbas comes in.
John’s gospel tells us that Barabbas took part in an uprising.
He thought just like Peter did. Just like Judas did. Just like the crowds did when they welcomed the Son of David into Jerusalem.
FINALLY – God is acting. Jesus is going to rid the world of these Romans. Prostitutes and tax collectors and religious zealots and Herodians and Essenes will finally be put in their place. We will rise up with the king and finally have the peace and security that we deserve!
But then Jesus just rode in to Jerusalem, looked around, and then left!
The Romans didn’t even pay him any mind!
Day after day went by, and nothing.
He let a woman pour a years worth of money out on his feet!! Think of what he could have done with that!
And after Jesus told Judas to leave the woman alone because it was for his burial, Judas finally got it.
He wasn’t going to do anything about Rome at all! He’s just another loser sitting around and doing nothing.
I’m going to join the winning side. Maybe Barabbas can get something going. At least he tried to do something.
And by Friday morning, when the crowds finally realized that Jesus wasn’t going to overthrow Pilate, their shouts of Hosanna quickly turned to shouts of “Crucify, crucify”.
And they exchanged the Lord of life for Barabbas.
He might be a murderer, a thief and an insurrectionist, but at least he tried to make us great again!
Peter was confused, but he tried to keep up with what Jesus was doing. He even drew his sword in the garden.
But when Jesus rebuked him and healed the ear, even faithful Peter had enough.
He didn’t deny Christ because he was afraid. He denied Christ because Jesus didn’t do anything and just allowed himself to be arrested.
He was angry and disillusioned, not afraid.
They had that vision of David – the Great King, defeating the enemies. The time of Israel’s greatness.
But was it that great, really? There was death, corruption, continual war, plague, oppression, enforced slavery…and even David longed for a better salvation.
And now, 2,000 years later, it is easy to scoff at Peter’s faithlessness, Judas’ betrayal, the crowd’s fickleness…
But we still fall into the same trap, over and over again.
We still exchange Jesus for Barabbas. Jesus takes to long. He’s too soft on sin, we say.
We forget that if Jesus came to condemn the world, none of us would be here.
If Jesus came in judgment, the wheat would be thrown in the fire with the tares.
But we think we know better. We think that we can separate the wheat from the weeds and send the weeds off to Guantanamo, so the wheat can get on with growing, and it won’t stop ever.
The body count will get higher and higher. More and more prisons will need to be built. More soldiers and police will be needed until the whole nation is fearful, ashamed, hiding, turning on each other –
And there will still be prostitutes on the corner, greedy government officials, women getting abortions, thieves, and murderers.
Righteousness will never come by the law. Only death and misery.
Shouldn’t we know this by now? It is literally what every single one of Paul’s letters is about. And history has shown us over and over and over.
When Barabbas is king, only misery can follow.
The duty of Christ’s people is NOT to shout for Barabbas to be king, but to take up the cross and follow Jesus. His cross and his resurrection, motivated by God’s love for the world, changed the world and is still changing the world.
But it isn’t on our time-table. We always kill the good while trying to purge the bad. Let Jesus do that. Let the Holy Spirit do that.
In the meantime, love your neighbor. The ones with brown skin who are being threatened. The trans kid with no place to go. The woman on the corner. The greedy government official.
And it might cost. In fact, I know it does. It will cost everything, because we are Christians – like Christ. So we take up our crosses and be willing to even lose our lives for the sake of our communities – and even our enemies.
Because we, of all people, should understand that resurrection only comes after death. Never before.
So we wait, we mourn, we dance, we sing, we take up our crosses, we give generously, and we refuse to give into fear and shame. It has no place here.
Here we will stand. We will crucify fear and shame to the cross of Jesus and stand with joy and peace, with infinite love to share from Jesus through us to the world.
My Only Comfort 