(Apology: this entry is longer than usual. Sorry, but this is based on something I shared at Bible study the other day, and I thought I might include it here.)
Good Friday: the hinge of history and the hope of humanity on this terrible, horrible... glorious day. An innocent Man willingly went to the cross and became guilt that we, the guilty, might become innocent.
None truly comprehended what that God-Man was doing that awful, wonderful day... except perhaps, just perhaps, one man. For you see that horrific day, there was one man who knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that he was guilty. That he was condemned. And that he deserved to die for his guilt that day.
Barabbas. Interesting that his name means “son of a father”--and who of us is not a son or daughter of a father? We are all Barabbas. So his story, well, it’s actually our story as well.
Pilate, still trying figure out a way to free Jesus since he knows He’s innocent, hits upon a seemingly foolproof plan. He recalls that there’s a tradition of permitting the Jews to ask for the release of one prisoner at the time of the Passover festival. So Pilate offers them a choice: I’ll either release Jesus or release Barabbas. Pilate’s certain, of course, that they’ll pick Jesus. This is what you call a no-brainer. Barabbas is notorious--a murderer, a robber, and the leader of a violent insurrection against Rome that could have gotten all the Jews killed.
Pilate knows when offered this choice, the people will choose the Prince of Peace, the King of the Jews, rather than this violent, wicked rebel.
But they don’t. They shout “Release Barabbas” and “Crucify Jesus!” And so a rebel, an insurrectionist, goes free and an innocent man takes his place on the cross.
The great preacher, Donald Grey Barnhouse, imagined how it might have happened:
“Barabbas must have looked at the palms of his hands and wondered how it would feel to have the nails ripping through the flesh. He must have remembered scenes of crucifixion death, and the slow agony of the victims who suffered at times for a day or two before merciful death came to release them. He must have awakened with a start if he heard a sound of the clanging hammers that would bring death near to him. And then, in his prison, he heard the vague murmuring of the crowd that roared outside like the murmur of a troubled sea. He thinks he hears his own name. He can tell that there are angry cries, and fear rises in his heart. Then he hears the sound of a key in the lock, and a jailer comes to him and releases him from the chain that is wound around him, for the Bible tells that he was bound. He must have thought that his time had come, but the jailer takes him to the door and tells him he is free.
In his stupefaction he moves toward the crowd. There is little welcome for him, and he senses the deep preoccupation of the people. It he meets one of his old companions in the crowd, he is greeted with but a moment’s word, and then he hears the surging roar, ‘Crucify Him! Crucify Him!’ In modern language he would say to his companions, ‘What’s the pitch? Give me the lowdown!’ And he would be briefly answered that the roar is against Jesus and that He is to be crucified, and that the crowd had cried out for the release of Barabbas.
Stunned, he walks nearer to the center of the scene and sees the man who is to die in his place. Finally the procession begins toward Golgatha. He follows and sees Jesus fall under the weight of the cross. He sees Simon of Cyrene pressed by the soldiers to fall in line and carry the cross, and finally they arrive at Calvary. What must have been in his thoughts? He hears the echoing blows of the hammer striking the nails, and looks down at his own hands. He had thought that this would be his day. He had thought that the nails would tear his flesh. And here he is breathing the air of springtime and looking at the dark cloud that is gathering in the sky. Does he say, ‘Those hammer blows were meant for me, but He is dying in my place?’ He could have said it in literal truth that day.
The cross is lifted up and he sees the silhouette against the sky. The sun grows dark and he hears voices that come to him like thunder. ‘Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.’ The centurion passes near Him and seeing the look on His face, says, ‘Truly this was the Son of God.’ And Barabbas, more than before, looks with wonder and amazement at the Man who is dying for him. There comes a cry. ‘It is finished,’ and a little while later he sees the soldiers take down the body and put it in its temporary grave. He goes back to the city, and all the little things that he had expected to see no more come before his eyes with the freshness of new creation. ‘He took my place. Jesus took my place. They released me, Barabbas, who deserved to die, and they crucified Jesus instead of me. He took my place. He died instead of me...”
Barabbas wasn’t the only guilty, condemned man whose place Jesus took on the cross that day. For you see, I’m a rebel and you’re a rebel. We’ve all led a one-person rebellion against God. We’ve all betrayed and denied Jesus. We’ve all been haters or hypocrites or gossipers or liars. We’ve all essentially told God, “I’m staging a take-over, I have a better plan, and I’m going to run this show.”
And for all that, Jesus said, “Lord, take Me instead of her. Release her and crucify me. I’ll take her guilt and You give her My righteousness.”
That’s the divine exchange and that’s what happens every time someone puts their faith in Christ.
A rebel is set free.
A.W. Tozier writes that “God thru Christ turns rebels into worshippers.” And that’s who we are--at the heart of it all, we’re rebels and the verdict is “Guilty!”
But Christ! But Christ!
The only difference between a rebel and a worshipper is Christ, and He has taken our place as guilty rebels and set us free to be innocent worshippers. And for this divine exchange, this incomparable gift of glorious grace, what can we do but say “Thank You, thank You, thank You, Jesus!”
That is all I know to do--me, this guilty rebel now made clean and free. Worship the King who took my place on the cross that horrific, glorious Good Friday.
To God--the glorious, gracious, good Savior--be all the glory.
