Thanksgiving 2024 Colossians 3:1-17 - December 1, 2024

 Thanksgiving 2024 Colossians 3:1-17

Happy Thanksgiving! We are going to pause our study of the Gospel of Luke and shift our focus to the holiday just for this week. 

So turn with me to Colossians 3, page 984 in the pew Bibles.

Let’s Pray.

I have some questions for you all, hopefully you paid attention in school and are familiar with your American history…

Where did the annual tradition of Thanksgiving come from, and when did it start? Pilgrims, 1620, Mayflower, Squanto…

Well, lucky for you I did pay attention in school. Just not elementary school, or middle school, or high school really…

However, when I was in the Antioch School, we studied principles and procedures for interpreting the Bible. And I can tell you about one principle that changed my view of Scripture and its application. 

I’ve told you about this principle before, the principle referred to as “author’s intent.” Basically, what did the original author mean when they wrote the passage? 

This question is so important because Scripture can never mean anything that the original author didn’t intend. It can never mean what it never meant.

So I would like to apply this same principle to Thanksgiving so that we can have a more accurate picture of what this holiday is for other than just bowing down to the god of gluttony.

Thanksgiving has been an annual tradition in the United States since… 1863. It was instituted by President Abraham Lincoln. I would like to read President Lincoln’s Thanksgiving Proclamation to you now so that we can find out the original intent for this holiday.

President Lincoln’s Thanksgiving Proclamation

The year that is drawing towards its close, has been filled with the blessings of fruitful fields and healthful skies. To these bounties, which are so constantly enjoyed that we are prone to forget the source from which they come, others have been added, which are of so extraordinary a nature that they cannot fail to penetrate and soften even the heart which is habitually insensible to the ever watchful providence of Almighty God. In the midst of a civil war of unequalled magnitude and severity, which has sometimes seemed to foreign States to invite and to provoke their aggression, peace has been preserved with all nations, order has been maintained, the laws have been respected and obeyed, and harmony has prevailed everywhere except in the theatre of military conflict; while that theatre has been greatly contracted by the advancing armies and navies of the Union. Needful diversions of wealth and of strength from the fields of peaceful industry to the national defense have not arrested the plough, the shuttle, or the ship; the axe had enlarged the borders of our settlements, and the mines, as well of iron and coal as of the precious metals, have yielded even more abundantly than heretofore. Population has steadily increased, notwithstanding the waste that has been made in the camp, the siege and the battle-field; and the country, rejoicing in the consciousness of augmented strength and vigor, is permitted to expect continuance of years with large increase of freedom.

No human counsel hath devised nor hath any mortal hand worked out these great things. They are the gracious gifts of the Most High God, who, while dealing with us in anger for our sins, hath nevertheless remembered mercy. It has seemed to me fit and proper that they should be solemnly, reverently and gratefully acknowledged as with one heart and voice by the whole American People. I do therefore invite my fellow citizens in every part of the United States, and also those who are at sea and those who are sojourning in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next, as a day of Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the Heavens. And I recommend to them that while offering up the ascriptions justly due to Him for such singular deliverances and blessings, they do also, with humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience, commend to his tender care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife in which we are unavoidably engaged, and fervently implore the interposition of the Almighty Hand to heal the wounds of the nation and to restore it as soon as may be consistent with the Divine purposes to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquility and Union.

The original intent of Thanksgiving Day was to establish a day of thanksgiving and praise to Father God, a day of repentance, and a day of prayer- for the unfortunate victims of war and the healing of the nation.

I just wanted to get that out there for you to think about. Maybe next year it would be more appropriate to talk about it before the actual day but oh well.

Now in our modern context Thanksgiving has kind of taken on a meaning of its own. The idea of thankfulness is obviously still strong, but most people are confused as to who they should be thanking for all the good things in their lives. The second strong theme in our modern thanksgiving celebrations is family. 

Thankfulness and family. 

Now, I’m not going to tell you to be thankful. You already know you should be thankful. I am not going to give the customary sermon on having an attitude of gratitude… On the contrary, I want to encourage you to continue to act like family. 

(We can be certain that if we don’t act like a family in times of severe trial, we never will. And all of our past attempts to look like a family were false and just an act. It’s got to be real now more than ever.)

Let’s look together to Colossians 3 and look to the Lord for instructions on how to truly act like the family of God.

If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. 2 Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. 3 For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. 4 When Christ who is your life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory. 

5 Put to death therefore what is earthly in you: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry. 6 On account of these the wrath of God is coming. 7 In these you too once walked, when you were living in them. 8 But now you must put them all away: anger, wrath, malice, slander, and obscene talk from your mouth. 9 Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have put off the old self with its practices 10 and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator. 11 Here there is not Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave, free; but Christ is all, and in all. 

12 Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, 13 bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. 14 And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. 15 And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body. And be thankful. 16 Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God. 17 And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.

The best part about being the family of God is that we have God as our Father and Jesus as our big Brother, what more could you want!?

Look at verse 11, it doesn’t matter if you are black, white, blue, gray, or pink, if Christ is in you, you are part of us! We are loved by God as His kids no matter how old we are or where we’re from.

And as His kids we need to put on compassionate hearts towards one another, be kind to each other, be humble and put others first, be meek- meaning don’t use your strength to control others but control yourself, and be patient with one another, we are all works in progress, forgive each other as the Lord has forgiven us. Above all these, put on love which binds it all together in harmony.

In this time in the life of this family the enemy would like nothing more than to throw all of us into discord and chaos, but I say that this is the time for us to pull together in love stronger than we ever have before. 

Now more than ever we must let the peace of Christ rule in our hearts, we were called as a body to that peace, let’s not let the enemy shake us up and keep us anxious and on edge. 

Remember that God is our Father, He will provide what we need and Jesus is our big Brother and the Head of the church He is the Great Shepherd, He will guide us, He will protect us, we just have to trust in Him!

And finally…

16 Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God. 17 And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.

We must not neglect the Word of God. The Way of Christ is how we are to live in this redeemed family. We are not to be subject to the wisdom and traditions of men but to the wisdom and words of Jesus according to what has been passed on to us in His holy Word by the apostles and prophets.

And now, family, let’s do my favorite part: sing psalms, hymns and spiritual songs with thankfulness in our hearts to God.

Now is the time for our family to pull together, trusting Jesus as our Chief Shepherd and get back to the original intent of this holiday giving thanks and praise to God our Father, repenting of our own sins and praying for the unfortunate victims of war and the healing of this nation. 

And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.

Amen.

Luke 23:26-31 Service, Sympathy, and Symbolism - November 24, 2024

 Luke 23:26-31 Service, Sympathy, and Symbolism

Good morning! Turn with me to our text for this morning, Luke 23:26-31, and that’s on page 884 in the pew Bibles.

If you remember from last time, Jesus had just stood trial before Pilate and before Herod, and though they found in Him no guilt deserving death, in order to prevent a riot they handed Him over to the will of the people to be crucified.

That’s where we pick up in the text this morning. Today we will see Jesus’ encounter with Simon of Cyrene and a group of women and we’ll examine one man’s act of service and the women’s expression of sympathy and pray that they, somehow, would result in salvation.

Let’s look at Luke 23:26.

26 And as they led him away, they seized one Simon of Cyrene, who was coming in from the country, and laid on him the cross, to carry it behind Jesus. 27 And there followed him a great multitude of the people and of women who were mourning and lamenting for him. 28 But turning to them Jesus said, “Daughters of Jerusalem, do not weep for me, but weep for yourselves and for your children. 29 For behold, the days are coming when they will say, ‘Blessed are the barren and the wombs that never bore and the breasts that never nursed!’ 30 Then they will begin to say to the mountains, ‘Fall on us,’ and to the hills, ‘Cover us.’ 31 For if they do these things when the wood is green, what will happen when it is dry?”

Let’s pray.

Here in Luke’s Gospel Simon of Cyrene only gets a sentence. Mark gives a little more detail and tells us that Simon was the father of Alexander and Rufus. This may seem like an insignificant detail until you consider that the Apostle Paul gave greetings to Rufus in his letter to the Romans. We’re not 100% on that being the same Rufus but we need to acknowledge the possibility and what that possibility might actually mean.

After His trial Pilate had Jesus scourged and then handed over to be crucified. Scourging was a Roman judicial penalty, consisting of a severe beating with a multi-lashed whip containing embedded pieces of bone and metal. It was very likely that because of this severe beating that Jesus did not have the strength to carry his own cross and so the Roman soldiers forced Simon of Cyrene to do it.

By all accounts this should have been Simon Peter but he was nowhere to be found. Instead they conscripted Simon of Cyrene, who was a pilgrim in the city for the Passover all the way from Cyrene which is now called Libya.

There is a distinct possibility that this act of service, though it wasn’t voluntary, resulted in salvation coming to this family. It wasn’t the act of carrying the cross for Jesus that saved them but faith in the One who would be nailed to it at the end of that road on the hill called Golgotha.

I hope the image is not wasted that Simon was forced to do literally what followers of Christ are called to do figuratively, and that is to take up our crosses daily and follow Jesus.

And I think that the reminder, this image of carrying the cross, and carrying it daily, is an important one.

To many the cross is a one time event, not just in the life of Jesus but in their own lives. The cross is not just a stop on the timeline of the life of the believer in Jesus. We are to be continual cross-bearers, allowing the cross to flavor our entire life from that point forward.

The cross is not just something we wear around our neck or hang on our wall or wear on a t-shirt. The cross is what defines us and should be at the forefront of our thinking and decision making.

The cross and the treatment of Jesus should be our constant reminder of just how seriously God takes sin. The consideration of the bitter sufferings of our Lord Jesus should engage us to stand in awe of the justice of God, and to tremble before Him.

Romans 6:10-11 says, For the death [Jesus] died he died to sin, once for all, but the life he lives he lives to God. So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.

Dead to sin, alive to God in Christ Jesus, that’s the power of the cross, remember that.

In the midst of this act of service from Simon of Cyrene, there is also an act of sympathy.

27 And there followed him a great multitude of the people and of women who were mourning and lamenting for him.

Now to clarify, this crowd was not the crowd of His disciples, nor were these the women we know by name that were followers of Jesus. This was a crowd made up of people who may have heard of Jesus and maybe had heard Him teach and maybe witnessed miracles that did not want to see Him treated in this way and certainly didn’t want the Romans to kill Him.

But they expressed sympathy not faith and so Jesus gave them a stern warning. When Jesus could have been solely focused on His own suffering He pauses with concern for the salvation of those who mourned for Him and gave a warning to the weepers.

28 But turning to them Jesus said, “Daughters of Jerusalem, do not weep for me, but weep for yourselves and for your children. 29 For behold, the days are coming when they will say, ‘Blessed are the barren and the wombs that never bore and the breasts that never nursed!’ 30 Then they will begin to say to the mountains, ‘Fall on us,’ and to the hills, ‘Cover us.’ 31 For if they do these things when the wood is green, what will happen when it is dry?”

Jesus Himself had wept for these people when He entered the city just a few days before in Luke 19:41-44.

41 And when he drew near and saw the city, he wept over it, 42 saying, “Would that you, even you, had known on this day the things that make for peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes. 43 For the days will come upon you, when your enemies will set up a barricade around you and surround you and hem you in on every side 44 and tear you down to the ground, you and your children within you. And they will not leave one stone upon another in you, because you did not know the time of your visitation.”

It’s no coincidence that Jesus warns these weeping ladies on the road to Calvary of exactly the same thing, the destruction of Jerusalem.

John Calvin wrote, “There will be a far greater reason for weeping on account of the dreadful judgment of God which hangs over them; it’s as if He had said, that His death was not the end but the beginning of evils to Jerusalem and to the whole nation.”

Jesus is saying, “Don’t weep for my future, weep for yours!”

There are two times that the people of Jerusalem were prophesied to call for the mountains to fall on them and the hills to cover them. One time was prophesied in Hosea 10:8 and the other in Revelation 6:16. The first prophecy, the one in Hosea, is concerning the destruction of Jerusalem, and the second, in Revelation, is concerning final Judgment and the wrath of the Lamb.

In both instances the people aren’t praying for a rock to hide under, they are praying that a landslide will kill them.

The desperation would be so great that mothers would praise those who never had children because they would not have to endure the agony of watching their children be killed with their own eyes.

When the Romans destroyed Jerusalem they killed over a million people, men, women, and children, and took thousands captive. 

“43 For the days will come upon you, when your enemies will set up a barricade around you and surround you and hem you in on every side 44 and tear you down to the ground, you and your children within you. And they will not leave one stone upon another in you, because you did not know the time of your visitation.”

That’s what Jesus said, and that’s exactly what happened.

Those women wept, but they didn’t weep for Him as if He were their King, and they will most certainly weep again with Him as their judge. They that will not flee to Christ for refuge will in vain call to the hills for refuge from His wrath to come.

Matthew Henry wrote, “Note, when with an eye of faith we behold Christ crucified we ought to weep, not for Him, but for ourselves. We must not be affected with the death of Christ as with the death of a common person whose calamity we pity, or of a common friend whom we are likely to part with. The death of Christ was a thing peculiar; it was His victory and triumph over His enemies; it was our deliverance, and the purchase of eternal life for us. And therefore let us weep, not for Him, but for our own sins, and the sins of our children, that we were the cause of His death; and weep for fear of the miseries we shall bring upon ourselves, if we slight His love, and reject His grace, as the Jewish nation did, which brought upon them the ruin here foretold.”

That last statement from Jesus predicts that ruin upon Jerusalem by the Romans.

31 For if they do these things when the wood is green, what will happen when it is dry?”

This is only a cryptic saying if you’re not a woodworker, and as we all know that Jesus was a carpenter. 

Green wood still has the sap in it, it still has life in it. Dry wood is just that, dry, no moisture, no life. 

Green wood doesn’t burn well, it has to heat up and then all that moisture has to turn to steam and be released before the wood will burn. When you buy your firewood it’s either green, seasoned, or dry. Dry wood burns right away.

Jesus is the life that made the wood of Jerusalem green, and if the Romans would do these things now, with Him there, just imagine what they will do when He is taken away from them… the city will burn.

 Alistair Begg said, “If the innocent Jesus meets such a fate, what will be the fate of a guilty Jerusalem?”

The same is true for everybody else, we can just as easily substitute the word, “humanity,” for, “Jerusalem.”

If the innocent Jesus meets such a fate, what will be the fate of a guilty humanity?

Again, Alistair Begg said, “There will be no refuge from Him, there is only refuge in Him.”

Have you taken refuge in Him? Have you trusted Him to take away your sins on the cross? If not, I pray that you would. 

The cross is the evidence of just how seriously God takes sin, and Jesus is the evidence of just how amazing His grace is towards those who believe in Him.

Amen.

Luke 22:63-23:25 The Two Trials of Jesus - November 17, 2024

 Luke 22:63-23:25 The Two Trials of Jesus

Good morning! Turn with me in your Bibles to Luke 23:63, that’s on page 883 in the pew Bibles.

We are going to do this a little different today. My hope is to do a sort of running commentary as we read through the text of Luke 22:63-23:25  piece by piece and hopefully conclude with some personal application at the end. Hopefully…

Let’s pray.

Before we begin, I would like to remind you all of the last words of Jesus before His arrest in verses 52-53.

52 Then Jesus said to the chief priests and officers of the temple and elders, who had come out against him, “Have you come out as against a robber, with swords and clubs? 53 When I was with you day after day in the temple, you did not lay hands on me. But this is your hour, and the power of darkness.”

The hour of the power of darkness, that is the context of our account for today.

After He said these words Jesus was seized and led to the house of the High Priest that night where Peter would deny Him three times.

Our text for today will focus on two trials of Jesus, one before the Jews and one before the Romans. But this meeting at the house of the High Priest was not a legal trial because it was unlawful for the Jews to hold a trial at night. That doesn’t mean their decision wasn’t made then, but it would have to wait until morning to be made official.

But in the meantime, in the words of JJ VanOosterzee, “The council of blood is changed into a theatre of insult and cruelty.”

63 Now the men who were holding Jesus in custody were mocking him as they beat him. 64 They also blindfolded him and kept asking him, “Prophesy! Who is it that struck you?” 65 And they said many other things against him, blaspheming him.

If you look carefully, the threefold office of Jesus is under attack, the office of Prophet, Priest, and King.

Here in these opening verses those who were holding Jesus challenged His office as Prophet by blindfolding Him and challenging Him to tell them who hit Him along with many other blasphemies.

It’s ironic that those who would charge the Lord Jesus with blasphemy were guilty of blasphemy themselves.

Matthew and Mark were more detailed in their accounts of this kangaroo court but sufficed to say here in this moment Jesus was fulfilling the prophecy of Isaiah 50, verse 6.

I gave my back to those who strike, and my cheeks to those who pull out the beard; I hid not my face from disgrace and spitting.

This undiluted hatred testifies to the words of Isaiah 53, that Messiah would be despised and rejected by men.

The next morning the Sanhedrin could finally hold its official trial. And like any trial based on false premises they asked questions they knew the answers to, but they didn’t ask them because they wanted to know the truth, they only asked them to get Jesus to say what they wanted Him to say.

66 When day came, the assembly of the elders of the people gathered together, both chief priests and scribes. And they led him away to their council, and they said, 67 “If you are the Christ, tell us.” But he said to them, “If I tell you, you will not believe, 68 and if I ask you, you will not answer. 69 But from now on the Son of Man shall be seated at the right hand of the power of God.” 70 So they all said, “Are you the Son of God, then?” And he said to them, “You say that I am.” 71 Then they said, “What further testimony do we need? We have heard it ourselves from his own lips.”

Jesus’ submission to this mockery of a trial is further evidence of His grace. He could have wiped these guys off the map but He endured the shame of this trial out of obedience to the Father and the hope of another, greater trial.

Jesus was brought before this unjust tribunal so that, by faith in Him, we would be able to stand before a tribunal that is just at His Second Coming.

In Jesus’ brief response to their questioning, where He states that from now on the Son of Man would be seated at the right hand of the power of God, is an echo of the words of Psalm 110:1, “The Lord said to my Lord, ‘Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies your footstool.’” And would be echoed back in Acts 2:33; 5:31; Ephesians 1:20; Colossians 3:1; Hebrews 1:3; 8:1; 10:12; 12:2; and 1 Peter 3:22.

Jesus focused on future glory and joy over the present with all its horror. We could learn a lesson from that.

It is Messiah’s place to sit at the right hand of God, it is the place of the Son.

So they all said, “Are you the Son of God, then?” And he said to them, “You say that I am.”

“You say that I am.” This is such a cryptic response to me. I looked at the Greek to see if there is any clue that makes this statement any more clear. The best that I could find is that the word translated, “say,” can also be translated, “to speak,” or, “to tell.”

I’m not going to claim that this is authoritative, only that it’s possible, that Jesus meant, “You tell that I am Messiah… by your treatment of me.”

Either way, they had the answer that they wanted, that Jesus claimed to be the Christ, the Son of God. And what we know to the truth, to their ears was blasphemy. But here they ran into a problem. Blasphemy was a Jewish capitol offense but not a Roman one. The Jews had no authority to execute anyone without permission from Rome. So now the council went to work twisting the words of Jesus to fit the Roman crimes of insurrection and sedition.

Look at chapter 23.

Then the whole company of them arose and brought him before Pilate. 2 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.” 

Pilate was not just some Roman, he was the governor of all of Judea for Rome. He represented the highest authority in the world at that time. As far as they were concerned, he spoke for Caesar. And Pilate was no dummy, he was an intelligent and ambitious man, although our text will show he was a bit of a coward.

The Jewish council accused Jesus of misleading the nation, which really meant that He stood opposed to their authority and influence over the people because He taught the Word of God more accurately than they did. They also lied and said that He forbade paying taxes to Caesar, when He did exactly the opposite not three chapters earlier in Luke 20:22-25. Remember the spies sent by this council asked:

22 Is it lawful for us to give tribute to Caesar, or not?” 23 But he perceived their craftiness, and said to them, 24 “Show me a denarius. Whose likeness and inscription does it have?” They said, “Caesar’s.” 25 He said to them, “Then render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.”

Finally they charged Him with insurrection because He claimed to be the Christ, a king. This was the one they really hoped would stick but Pilate didn’t buy it.

3 And Pilate asked him, “Are you the King of the Jews?” And he answered him, “You have said so.” 4 Then Pilate said to the chief priests and the crowds, “I find no guilt in this man.” 5 But they were urgent, saying, “He stirs up the people, teaching throughout all Judea, from Galilee even to this place.”

Pilate has a dilemma on his hands. The council has gathered quite a crowd and it’s getting pretty tense. In his mind the worst thing to happen would be a riot because if there was a riot the authorities over him would think that he couldn’t control his district and it would look really bad on his resume. 

But the council gave him an out. “He stirs up the people, teaching throughout all Judea, from Galilee even to this place.”

“Galilee, you say?” Pilate was in charge of Judea, Galilee was Herod’s district! This could be my way out of this mess! Pilate’s cowardly nature is starting to show.

6 When Pilate heard this, he asked whether the man was a Galilean.

Now, we know that Jesus was in fact born in Bethlehem, but He grew up in Nazareth which was in Galilee.

 7 And when [Pilate] learned that [Jesus] belonged to Herod’s jurisdiction, he sent him over to Herod, who was himself in Jerusalem at that time. 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. 9 So he questioned him at some length, but he made no answer. 10 The chief priests and the scribes stood by, vehemently accusing him. 11 And Herod with his soldiers treated him with contempt and mocked him. Then, arraying him in splendid clothing, he sent him back to Pilate. 12 And Herod and Pilate became friends with each other that very day, for before this they had been at enmity with each other.

Here again before Herod we see Jesus fulfilling Scripture. Isaiah 53:7, He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth; like a lamb that is led to the slaughter, and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent, so he opened not his mouth.

Herod and his soldiers dressed Jesus in a purple robe, the color of a king, and sent Him back to Pilate with no judgment of guilt, just mockery.

13 Pilate then called together the chief priests and the rulers and the people, 14 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. 15 Neither did Herod, for he sent him back to us. Look, nothing deserving death has been done by him. 16 I will therefore punish and release him.”

Pilate didn’t stand a chance. He was not just facing a potential riot and damage to his political aspirations. He was facing down the power of darkness even though he wasn’t aware of it and probably wouldn’t care even if he did know. More importantly, Pilate didn’t stand a chance against the almighty, eternal purposes of God. He tried, he tried to just punish and release Him but the people wouldn’t have it.

18 But they all cried out together, “Away with this man, and release to us Barabbas”— 19 a man who had been thrown into prison for an insurrection started in the city and for murder. 20 Pilate addressed them once more, desiring to release Jesus, 21 but they kept shouting, “Crucify, crucify him!” 22 A third time he 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.” 23 But they were urgent, demanding with loud cries that he should be crucified. And their voices prevailed. 24 So Pilate decided that their demand should be granted. 25 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.

The tradition was that Pilate would release a prisoner on Passover as a peace offering to the people of Israel, and though he tried to free Jesus even on those grounds the voices of the people prevailed and Pilate’s strength gave in.

The people would rather have the sinner Barabbas than be confronted with their own sin that was exposed in Jesus. They would rather be in the presence of sin than admit their own sinfulness.

The same is true today. The same will be true until Judgment Day.

I guess that is perhaps where the personal application comes in because it answers the question, “why?”

Why did they want to kill Jesus? It’s the same reason that people reject Him today, because Jesus exposes our sinfulness. People are fine with Jesus as a historical figure, or as a moral teacher, but to admit that He is in fact the Son of God, that He is the Messiah, that He is Lord, means that they have to admit their own sinfulness before God. 

Paul wrote in 1 Timothy 1:15, “This saying is trustworthy and true, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am chief and principal.”

That’s the answer to the other question, “why?”

Why would Jesus submit to humiliation, torture, and death?

Hebrews 12:2 says, look to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.

For the joy set before Him, that’s why, the joy of reuniting fallen mankind with our loving heavenly Father through faith in Him. 

And I believe that He would say that it was worth it.

Amen.