Through the Free Eyes of Barabbas (Matthew 27:15-26) - Holy Week Noon Sermon

Our scripture reading is from the Gospel of Matthew, chapter

Matthew 27 · chapter mention

27. Now at the feast, the governor

was accustomed to release for the crowd anyone prisoner whom

he wanted, and they had a notorious prisoner called

Barabbas. So when they had gathered,

Pilate said to them, Whom do you want me to release to you?

Barabbas or Jesus, who is called Christ, for he knew that it was

out of envy that they had delivered him up.

Besides, while they were sitting on the while he was sitting on

the judgement seat. His wife sent word to him, have

nothing to do with that righteous man, for I have

suffered much because of him. Today in a dream now the chief

priests and the elders persuaded the crowd to ask for Barabbas

and destroy Jesus. The governor again said to them,

Which of the two do you want me to release to you?

And they said Barabbas. Pilate said to them, then what

shall I do with Jesus who was called Christ?

And they all said, let him be crucified.

And he said, why? What evil has he done?

But they just shouted all the more, let him be crucified.

So what? Pilot saw that he was gaining

nothing, but rather than a riot was about to begin, he took the

water and washed his hands before the crowd, saying, I'm

innocent of this man's blood. See to it to yourselves.

And all the people answered, his blood be on us and on our

children. Then he released for them

Barabbas, and having scourge Jesus delivered him to be

crucified. This is the word of the Lord.

Though these words are familiar, it once again it's good for our

souls to slow down and embrace the tension, the anxiety, the

friction in the city of Jerusalem at this time.

The tumultuous events that have been in play by God's perfect

design, but playing out in real time for all who are in all four

of the gospel narratives. Jesus.

After the longing of spending the Passover with his beloved

disciples. They go into the garden at

night, they pray, they intercede, they fall asleep.

Jesus is in agony, sweat like blood.

In the middle of the night, as Jesus was was praying in

Gethsemane, the great crowds comes full of chief priests,

religious leaders and the elders.

They arrest him. One of his disciples, Jesus,

betrays him with a kiss. He's dragged away, but not

before the chief priest servant is.

Remarkably, his ear is cut off, and then Jesus feels it shackled

and LED into a kangaroo court of Caiaphas, the high priest, with

the scribes and the elders, the so-called religious leaders, the

shepherds of Israel, have established a kangaroo court

from which they try Jesus, they spit on his face, they slap him,

and they mock our Savior. And then, and then Peter denies

the Lord three times before the cock crows.

As the morning rises, Judas can't live with himself for what

he has done. He takes the 30 pieces of

silver, throws him in the temple and kills himself, hangs himself

out of great disgust and guilt for what he has done.

The chief priests then, of course, lead him away, lead

Jesus away to pilot. And here is where Barabbas and

and Jesus and Pilate all intersect.

It seems chaotic. It seems unnerving and full of

fear and anxiety. And yet Jesus is that perfect

peace plan is coming full into play.

Our sovereign Lord is in control of it all and no one else can

see it. But he knows his eyes are fixed

like Flint on to the cross. So here is Barabbas in this

moment. He is recorded in all four of

the Gospels. He's not a good man, not at all.

In our text, he's he's said to be a notorious prisoner and

others abandoned, an insurrectionist, one who was

against the empire of Rome, a murderer, violent, deserving

punishment under Roman law, waiting for his crucifixion.

We can't imagine what it must have been like for him in that

dark dungeon cell guarded by Centurions.

But hearing the turmoil, hearing that yelling, the crowd, and all

of a sudden his name being called out a little bit later,

the guards come. He thinks this is it.

He's on death row. This is it.

The most horrific, barbaric, intentionally designed tool of a

massive, suffering Jesus. It's going to be on that cross

that Barabbas should have been on.

And then Barabbas is set free. We can't imagine what he did.

What did he think? What happened when those lock

was turned and he was set free? The guilty man who expected

death, deserved death, now has life.

The chains are gone and he is free.

It's a picture of God's Amazing Grace.

It's unfolding right there. We all can see it.

It's it's obvious though, Barabbas in the real time of it

all and no one else could see what was in play, but he got we

could get the taste of the substitutionary atonement that

God is at work and Barabbas becomes this living object

lesson to all absolutely guilty deserving the cross and yet the

innocent is now condemned and the guilty is set free.

What was he thinking? Did he run to his family and

friends? Did he did he celebrate?

What did Barabbas do? We just don't know, but we do

know this he did not earn any of it one drop.

It was all completely grace. Miraculous, stunning grace.

He did not earn 1 drop of this. And it makes it so clear as we

think about not. Sometimes we say that Jesus died

for us, but we can't forget that Jesus died instead of us.

We deserved that death. Barabbas deserved that death.

It wasn't just dying for us, it was dying instead of us.

What we deserved when one thing we do know, we don't know how he

celebrated or what he did after he was set free.

But we do know Barabbas was never the same.

How could he? Everyone who intersects with

Jesus. Prominent important people to

commoner, unknown, faceless people are changed as a result

of their intersection with Jesus.

Every disciple, including Judas Caiaphas, the high priest

Malchus who was the servant who had his ear cut off and then

miraculously healed. Every Roman centurion pilot

pilot's wife is even mentioned. She knows he's a righteous man,

tries to warn her husband, but it's too late.

Herod Simon of Cyrene, who carried the cross.

No one. Whoever intersected with Jesus

remained the same. Not one.

They were all changed or rejecting Christ, doomed.

But they were never, ever the same.

We wonder what did happen to Barabbas.

What happened to this man? It is, we hope he came to

Christ, but history does not record.

The Scriptures do not let us know what then happened to

Barabbas. We do know that if he did not

come to Christ, he was only set free in the physical sense.

He was only released from prison.

But he didn't have a new heart. His heart of stone was not

transformed by grace to have a heart of flesh.

We do know that if he was free, but he wasn't transformed, He

may have received freedom, but he did not receive all the

riches of Christ. And our justification,

sanctification, salvation, future glorification, union with

Christ, everything that we get to experience as a believer, the

freedom of it all. If he did not come to Christ, he

was just a man out of prison, but not free from the shackles

of sin. For we know that we in Christ

have what is called the great exchange.

We take on His righteousness. We give Jesus all of our sin.

We hope Barabbas had that. We hope Barabbas would

understand later on that he who knew no sin became sin so that

we might become the righteousness of God as Romans 5

amazingly plays out. Therefore, since we've been

justified that with faith we have peace with God through our

Lord Jesus for why we were still weak at the right time.

Christ died for the ungodly, for one would scarcely die for a

righteous person, though perhaps a good person one would even

dare to die. But God shows us love for us,

that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

We have now been justified by His blood.

Much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God.

We think of all the passages, the wretches of being Christ,

the penal substitutionary atonement that came.

We see Barabbas is the foretaste of that is this picture of this,

and it points to this reality that's very painful.

We, each of us, we are Barabbas. We are the ones that deserve.

We are the violent criminal that in our heart we've murdered

people. During this Holy Week, have you

not been more keenly aware of our sin and our desperate need

of all the ways that we have murdered people?

In our hearts we are like Barabbas and we have been set

free by Christ and deed. What a gift that we have.

So though history does not record, though the Scriptures

don't tell us what did happen with the freedom that came to

Barabbas, what is it that he did?

How did Christ work in his life after his freedom from prison?

We do not know. But maybe the better question

for you and for me is, what did you do with the freedom?

What did I do with the freedom? What do we as the people of God,

what have we done with our freedom?

Thanks be to God for His Word.