Beauty for Ashes, Diamonds for Dirt: Luke 23:1-25

Well, we study through books of the Bible here at the village chapel, and that is exactly what we're gonna do today.

Raise your hand if you'd like a paper copy to follow along with, and someone will send it down the road just like popcorn at a ball game, right?

And uh what an interesting thing that is.

You send money down, you send popcorn down, and it's just an interesting little commentary on society.

I was thinking about that this morning.

Well, uh also these Bibles, if you need a Bible at home, please take one of these Bibles with you.

They're normally called pew Bibles, but if you look around, you see we don't have pews, do we?

So I don't know, maybe these are chair Bibles or something, but please feel free to take one home with you.

We would love that.

That would be our gift to you.

And as always, if you want to use your device and you need the screen info, there it is for you.

The QR code and Wi-Fi and password info, and all every week we say hi to our online congregation who joins us.

Some visitors, some solid members of our congregation via online.

It's like we have an extra campus to our church that is spread out all over the world.

This week we've been joined by people from San Francisco, California, from Eureka, Montana, Kazon City, Metro, Manila, Philippines.

We have some faithful viewers there that we're grateful for from Lisbon, Portugal.

And I want to give an extra shout out to a regular online attender from Lafayette, Tennessee.

Welcome, friends.

So glad you're with us.

Well, I've got a question for you.

Did you ever make trades as a kid?

You know, when I was a kid, we traded things like baseball cards.

Sometimes you trade your sack lunch for somebody else's sack lunch, traded toys.

And then as adults, we we trade things, we exchange ideas, we exchange our contact information, maybe we exchange music playlists, we make trades on our fantasy sports teams.

One of the best trades ever made was in 1867 when the US bought Alaska from Russia for a little over seven million dollars, and that amounted to about two cents an acre.

And at the time it was called Seward's Folly because everybody thought it was a horrendous mistake to buy a bunch of worthless frozen land.

Well, after we purchased Alaska, all of a sudden we started discovering gold, oil, just unlimited vast resources, and it turns out that it was a great trade, after all.

And we're going to talk a good bit about that today.

We're going to talk about trades, we're going to talk about exchanges, about the great exchange where God gives us on the cross his life for ours.

He trades our sin for his righteousness.

And I'm calling our study Beauty for Ashes, Diamonds for Dirt, because in essence that is exactly what Jesus has done for us.

Well, both last week's passage and this week's passage, they're pretty heavy, aren't they?

I mean, Jim taught us through the passage last week of the religious trial of Jesus that included this false arrest, betrayal by one of his trusted followers, getting blindfolded, beaten, mocked.

And today's passage, it does not get any lighter.

It's very dark and very heavy.

We're dealing with the civil trials of Jesus in front of Pilate and Herod, and by all accounts, things are getting worse.

And on the surface, it might be hard to see the hand of God in the events as they unfold.

But we know the end of the story, don't we?

And we know that God is indeed sovereign over the darkness.

And in his commentary on Luke, Michael Wilcock reminds us of that.

He says, to our times in particular, then, the account which Luke gives of the last hours of Jesus' earthly life brings a much-needed assurance.

The most diabolical of all the schemes of Satan was not only countered at every point by a superior plan of God's devising, it was actually woven into that plan and made to serve its ends.

And if that was what God could do with the master plot of hell, then there can be no evil in which he cannot in the end turn to blessing.

That's worth an early morning.

Amen, isn't it?

Oh, so let's let's pray and get started reading our passage, friends.

Lord, we come to you grateful that uh you have provided a way for us.

We come wanting to hear from you this morning.

And so to that end, we ask, show us your ways, O Lord, teach us your paths, guide us in your truth, and teach us.

For you are God our Savior, and it is on you that we wait all the day long.

Jesus' name.

Amen.

Well, okay.

Luke chapter 23, and this account is in all four of the gospels, but Luke has the most brief account.

Luke 23 · chapter mention

Luke chapter 23, we're going to start with verse 1.

Luke 23 · chapter mention

Then the whole company of them, the religious leaders, arose and brought him, Jesus, before Pilate.

John in his gospel adds a little bit of detail to this first verse.

It's early morning.

The religious leaders, the whole company of them we read here in Luke, they've taken Jesus to Pilate's headquarters.

Pilate's in Jerusalem for Passover, mainly to keep the peace, to see that more riots don't break out.

They bring him to Pilate, but they stand outside because Pilate's a Gentile, and if they go into the building with the Gentile, then they're defiled and they cannot partake of the Passover that evening, which is just the height of hypocrisy.

Here they've falsely arrested Jesus.

They've given him an illegal trial of their own.

They beat him, they mocked him, and now they're dragging him to Pilate, hoping to get some sort of a criminal sentence for Jesus, and yet they're worried about being defiled and not being able to eat their Passover meal.

Verse 2.

Well, and they began to accuse him, saying, We found this man misleading our nation and forbidding us to give tribute to Caesar, and saying that he himself is Christ a king.

Well, okay, here we go.

The religious leaders, they're just lying throughout all of this, accusing Jesus of misleading people, which we know Jesus himself, in a conversation with Pilate, he says, For this purpose I was born.

Everyone who is of the truth listens to me.

And also in John's gospel, Jesus said, I am the way, the truth, and the life.

He's not misleading people, he's doing his everything he can to lead them to the truth.

And then regarding what they said about paying taxes or paying tribute, this is a direct lie because they said Jesus forbid them to pay tribute to Caesar, when in actuality what he says is, if you remember, render to God what is God's, and render to Caesar what is Caesar's.

Verse 3.

So when they accuse Jesus of saying that he himself is Christ a king, and Pilate asked him, Are you the king of the Jews?

And Jesus answered him, You have said so.

Then Pilate said to the chief priests in the crowds, I find no guilt in this man.

But they were urgent, saying, He stirs up the people teaching throughout all Judea, from Galilee even to this place.

This is the first of three times in Luke's gospel where Pilate says, This man is innocent.

I find no guilt in him.

But the Jews are desperate to get Jesus convicted of a criminal offense, so the Romans will execute Jesus.

So they have these trumped-up political charges that Jesus is claiming to be a king, that he is inciting insurrection or sedition, anything that's going to get him sentenced to death.

And they were trying to paint this picture of Jesus as just traveling all around the country, inciting insurrection and sedition.

Verse 6.

Well, when Pilate heard this, he asked whether the man was a Galilean.

And when he learned that he belonged to Herod's jurisdiction, he sent him over to Herod, who was himself in Jerusalem at the time.

Well, so Pilate picks up on the fact that Jesus was from Galilee, and he realizes he can pass the buck to Herod and let him deal with something that Pilate doesn't want to deal with.

So indeed he does.

And this is Herod Antipas.

We've talked about him before, son of Herod the Great.

He was a Tetrarch, a ruler of a fourth of Israel, kind of a figurehead, given his power by the Roman government.

And he was also the man who had imprisoned John the Baptist.

So let's keep reading.

Verse 8.

When Herod saw Jesus, he was very glad, for he had long desired to see him because he had heard about him, and he was hoping to see some sign done by him.

So he questioned him at some length, but he made no answer.

Well, Herod had heard all sorts of stories about Jesus, that he was a prophet, that perhaps he was Elijah come again, or even that he was John the Baptist raised from the dead, which gave Herod pause for thought since he was the one that had had John the Baptist killed.

So he was maybe a little afraid, a little curious, a little apprehensive.

But he'd also heard about all the miracles that Jesus performed, so he was wanting Jesus to perform.

He wanted Jesus to work some kind of a miracle at the drop of a hat.

And Jesus did not perform a miracle.

Jesus did not say a word.

He was utterly silent before Herod.

And so this is how Herod responds.

Verse 10, the chief priests and the scribes stood by, vehemently accusing him.

And Herod with his soldiers treated him with contempt and mocked him.

And then arraying him in splendid clothing, he sent him back to Pilate.

And Herod and Pilate became friends with each other that very day, for before this they had been at enmity with each other.

So Herod's so angry that Jesus will not perform for him, he won't say a word.

So he just joins in with his soldiers, mocking Jesus, and then he sends him back to Pilate.

Verse 13, well Pilate then called together the chief priests and the rulers and the people, and said to them, You brought me this man as one who was misleading the people.

And after examining him before you, behold, I did not find this man guilty of any of your charges against him.

Neither did Herod, for he sent him back to us.

Look, nothing deserving death has been done by him.

I will therefore punish and release him.

Second time, Pilate says, This man's innocent.

He's not guilty.

I'm going to release him.

Let's continue on, verse 18.

But they all cried out together, Away with this man and release to us Barabbas, a man who had been thrown into prison for an insurrection, started in the city and for murder.

And I want to insert something here, if you've noticed, I know it's like this in the ESV, and I assume it's like this in other translations.

You might have noticed that we read verse 16, and then we skipped to 18.

And at least at the bottom of the page in my Bible, there's a little footnote that says, here or after verse 19, some manuscripts add verse 17.

Now he was obliged to release one man to them at the festival.

We find that verse in other Gospels, but we don't find it in Luke's Gospels.

Luke's Gospel, because some of the early manuscripts had that verse, other manuscripts didn't have that verse.

And I think that speaks to the veracity and the truthfulness of Scripture.

They're not trying to pull one over on us here.

They're just letting us know, hey, this verse was included in some manuscripts and not all of them.

But back to verse 18, the crowd was crying out for the release of Barabbas and the crucifixion of Jesus.

And the name Barabbas, Bar means son of, Abba means the Father.

So the name Barabbas means son of the Father, and literally Jesus is the son of the Father.

Let's look at verse 20.

Pilate addressed them once more, desiring to release Jesus, but they kept shouting, Crucify Him, crucify him.

And you have to imagine that some of those voices that are yelling, Crucify Him, crucify him, were some of the same voices that were praising Jesus.

Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord on Palm Sunday when he made his triumphal entry into Jerusalem.

They kept shouting, Crucify Him, crucify him.

And a third time Pilate said to them, Why, what evil has he done?

I have found in him no guilt deserving death.

I will therefore punish and release him.

But they were urgent, demanding with loud cries that he should be crucified, and their voices prevailed.

So as cruel as Pilate was, as much of a politician he was, he was fearful of the crowds, fearful that they would start a riot.

And in one of the other gospels, we also read that he was afraid of Jesus.

So he ends up giving in to the crowd.

Their voices prevailed.

Verse 24.

So Pilate decided that their demand should be granted.

He released the man who had been thrown into prison for insurrection and murder for whom they asked, but he delivered Jesus over to their will.

So Pilate releases the guilty man from prison and instead condemns the innocent man, bending to the cries of the crowd.

Well, what does this account from Luke reveal to us about God, about ourselves, about Jesus and his mission, and what is the faith response that's called for from us?

I think one of the first things we notice, it's so curious, is that Jesus held all power and authority, and yet he used none of it.

Why is that?

To the casual observer, it could seem as though Jesus has no power, no authority.

Here they are calling him, saying that he was the king of the Jews, and he stands there almost silently, beaten, bruised, clothes probably torn.

It seems as if he has no power, no say in what's being happened, in what has happened.

He's been captured, he's been beaten, led away as a prisoner, he stands before Pilate, beaten and mocked again and again by the Romans, by Herod and his soldiers.

The crowd, full of bloodlust, is calling for him to be crucified, calling for the release of a notorious criminal instead.

And Jesus doesn't even verbally offend himself.

So where is all the power and the authority that Jesus holds?

Very brief definition.

Power is the ability to change something or have an impact on someone or something.

And authority is the permission granted to use such power.

So each of the people, each of the groups in this passage, they all had some little bit of power andor authority.

The crowds, they had absolutely no authority and just a little bit of power, the power of mob mentality.

The Roman soldiers probably had a little bit of authority to exercise power, which they typically did by keeping the peace, beating people, throwing them in prison.

The religious leaders, they had some authority granted them by God, but they had almost no real power.

That was taken away by the Roman government, and they certainly did not have the power or the authority to carry out capital punishment.

Herod had some power and some authority granted by the Roman government, but he was mostly a figurehead.

And in this little scene that we're seeing played out, Pilate, as a governor, has the most power and most authority of seemingly of anyone in this passage.

His power is given to him by the Roman government.

And yet, despite having all of this power and authority, he's still acting like a coward, afraid of Jesus, afraid of the crowd, afraid of losing control.

And remember, his main two jobs were to keep control, keep the peace, and to keep the tributes coming into Rome.

And we see in this short little passage that all of these people use their authority and their power for the most part to preserve their position, to protect their pocketbook, and to push down those who are under their authority.

All of that going on, and then over here, here stands Jesus, who holds in reality the most power and authority of anyone in this passage.

He's the Son of the living God, equal to God.

He has all authority over the universe because he created it.

And as his miracles have shown, he has authority over nature.

He has power over the wind and the waves.

Time and space are no obstacle to him.

Death is not a match for him.

He has complete authority and power.

And yet he's choosing not to use any of it for his defense or his protection.

Why?

Isaiah 53 7 tells us he was oppressed and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth.

Like a lamb that has led to the slaughter, and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent, so he opened not his mouth.

Jesus made this choice to not use his power and authority in order to fulfill Scripture, in order to sovereignly continue the divine plan of salvation, in order to continue his unrelenting, unencumbered, unstoppable road to the cross.

Michael Green, in his commentary on Matthew, puts it like this: total injustice met by total silent suffering, Jesus is in control of the proceedings.

It is Pilate, it is Caiaphas, it is the reader who is on trial.

Jesus is the one with moral authority at his own trial, majestic in silence.

So even though it seemed like Jesus seemed like he had no control over all of these events taking place, it's actually the opposite.

He had total control.

The events are transpiring the way they did because he chose to maintain, as Green puts it, his majestic silence.

It is all part of the master plan.

I think our second takeaway from this passage is that Jesus substituted for Barabbas, that reflects the entire gospel in microcosm.

The only truly sinless, innocent man in human history willingly, willingly lays his life down and gives it up for a guilty man.

The innocent man pays the penalty so the guilty man can go free.

Jesus trades his innocence for our guilt.

Our freedom from sin is the entire point of the gospel.

And this right here, this moment where that exchange takes place, that's where all the little pieces of God's master plan just click into place.

The devil thinks he's one because Jesus is now a condemned man.

Little did Satan know, but that this substitution, this was the mission, right?

For Jesus to become the sacrifice, to become the Lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world.

But let's not ignore the reality of the price that Jesus paid.

Isaiah 53, 4 and 5 remind us of the realities of what Jesus went through in order to take our place.

Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows.

And yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God and afflicted.

But he was pierced for our transgressions.

He was crushed for our iniquities.

Upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed.

Isaiah talks about griefs and sorrows, transgressions and iniquities.

He speaks of peace and healing.

And I want to ask all of us a question: do you have griefs?

Do you have sorrows?

He has borne your grief.

He has carried your sorrow.

He was pierced for my transgressions.

He was crushed for my iniquities.

Do you experience peace in your life?

Whatever peace and healing that I have, that you have, it's because of his punishment.

All this was on his shoulders.

Literally, Jesus carries the weight of the world on his shoulders.

There is a smaller weight that is on our shoulders that we carry, a burden, a restlessness that is the weight of sin.

It's a burden that we're not meant to carry.

Because of the work that He has done when we give our lives to Christ, our grief, our sorrow, the weight that is on our shoulders is shifted to Jesus.

He says, Come to me all who are weary and heavy laden, let me take your burden, let me give you mine, and I will give you rest and I will give you peace.

John Stopp puts it like this.

I know this is a familiar quote, but I'm in hopes that we hear it with fresh ears this morning, and this truth lodges deep in our hearts.

The concept of substitution may be said then to lie at the heart of both sin and salvation.

For the essence of sin is man substituting himself for God, while the essence of salvation is God substituting himself for man.

Man claims prerogatives that belong to God alone.

God accepts penalties that belong to man alone.

Let that sink in.

All that we have done since the garden, all our efforts to substitute ourselves for God to claim autonomy and authority to sit on the throne of our own little universe.

And this very moment, when those pieces click into place, God has said that He intends to pay the penalty for all of that for us.

He declares Himself guilty and He declares us innocent.

We don't deserve it.

He made this choice of his own volition to take our place, to take our sin, and instead to give us His freedom and His righteousness.

Well, a third takeaway from the passage: based on this great exchange, Jesus has traded his life for ours, he's traded his beauty for our ashes.

Our prison doors have been opened.

How will we respond?

I wonder what Barabbas was thinking during this event.

This is speculation because we don't know anything else about him.

We know that he was guilty of starting an insurrection.

We know that he was guilty of murder.

So imagine Barabbas, he's in his prison cell.

He knows the end is coming.

He knows that the cross is awaiting him because he received the death penalty.

And imagine him hearing the crowds kind of shouting, he hears his name, Barabbas, give us Barabbas.

Then he hears the phrase, crucify him, crucify him.

So he has no idea what's going on.

Well, then he hears maybe the clanking of armor, the shuffling of feet.

A key is inserted to the lock of his prison cell.

The door squeaks open.

And what do you think would have happened if the soldiers didn't go in to get him, but they just opened the door and left, which they very well could have done?

Would Barabbas have rushed out to freedom?

Would he have stayed in his cell, not trusting the fact that the door was now open?

Because he doesn't know yet that Jesus has taken his place and traded his life for Barabbas.

And while he is indeed truly guilty, he's being set free because his penalty has been paid by another guiltless man.

So my dad was a tail gunner on a B-17 in World War II.

He uh he enlisted the day he turned 18, and he ended up being assigned to an airbase outside of London, and they would go on their bombing runs into Germany and then turn around and come back home.

And somewhere around their 10th mission, they had just dropped their bombs.

They'd made that turn to fly back to England, and they were hit by anti-aircraft fire, and the plane exploded and blew up.

My dad was falling and had been knocked out and miraculously came to just enough time to pull the parachute.

Thank you, Jesus, for that.

And he and only one other crewman were the only men that survived, and they were captured by a farmer and they were put into a German prison camp.

So this was late in the war, and about seven months into their captivity, the prisoners woke up one morning, and the prison camp was empty.

The Germans were gone, the gates were wide open.

So what do you think happened?

You know, did the prisoners all run out?

Woo! Freedom!

Um.

They stayed in the prison camp because they didn't know what was going on.

They were free, and yet they stayed in their prison.

And I think most likely they stayed because of the fact that they didn't know what to think, and they were afraid that if they stepped out, they'd be shot for trying to escape.

So even though their captors were gone, gates were opened, they were free to go, they stayed in their prison.

And a few days later, the Russian army came through and liberated them, and they all got to go home.

My dad came home.

Do you see where I'm going with this?

Friends, before Christ, each one of us is in a prison of sin and self locked away because of the death and resurrection of Jesus, because he took our place.

We have been set free.

How do we respond?

Are we willing to step out of ourselves into the freedom that Christ has won for us?

He bids us, he bids us come with an invitation open to all.

And he promises that if we respond to his invitation, he will never turn us down, but he also will not force himself on us.

Jesus said in John 6.37, Whoever comes to me, I will never cast out.

When we respond to his invitation, no matter whom we are, no matter our guilt, it doesn't matter because the price has been paid.

But we need to respond to the invitation.

Tim Keller talks about this, and the reason for God, this isn't a slide.

He says, all God does in the end with people is to give them what they most want, including freedom from himself.

What could be more fair than that?

The invitation is there, the prison doors are open.

How will we respond?

I appreciate how Spurgeon addressed this in one of his sermons from the late 1800s.

He says, Are you willing?

Are you willing to be saved?

Can you say, now, Lord, I am willing to be saved?

Give me a new heart.

I am willing to give up my sins.

I am willing to be a Christian.

I am willing to believe and willing to obey.

Well, then you are freely invited to come if you are but willing.

Friends, our prison doors have been opened.

Jesus has willingly traded our death sentence for his life.

He has accepted our penalty and given us his freedom.

Galatians 5 tells us that it is for freedom that Christ has set us free.

He longs for us to be free of sin and death.

He's inviting us to come to him.

How will we respond?

I'd like to close with a J.

C.

Ryle quote.

If we are true Christians, let us daily lean our souls on the comfortable thought that Christ has really been our substitute and has been punished in our stead.

Let us freely confess that like Barabbas, we deserve death, judgment, and hell.

But let us cling firmly to the glorious truth that a sinless Savior has suffered in our stead, and that believing in him, the guilty may go free.

That is good news.

Jesus has given us his beauty for our ashes, given us diamonds for dirt, taking all of our sin, giving us instead his beautiful righteousness.

Let's cling to that glorious truth together and respond to that invitation.

And would you read this verse with me from 2 Corinthians?

It just describes the gospel in just a very few words.

For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

Amen.

That is good news.

Well, before the worship team comes up, I'd like to pray with us and always remind you that we have a prayer team that meets in the back, and they would love to pray with you and for you if there's anything that the Holy Spirit has been speaking to you about this morning or just anything on your heart.

Encourage you to go back and pray with them.

So let me pray for us.

Lord, grateful for this choice, grateful for this master plan.

Grateful for the fact that you have given us a way to get out of the prison cell.

Thank you for exchanging your life for ours.

Help us live and walk in that today and all the days coming ahead.

Help us live and walk in that.

Amen.