Who Do We Choose                                    John 18:28-40

Today we have Jesus before Pilate and the choice given to the people between Barabbas and Jesus. In Luke 23 there are more details about Pilate offering a choice of the two, but we see John doesn’t offer many. John concerns his Gospel with Jesus divinity, and he knows that in this situation thee is no actual decision to be made, Jesus must go to the cross.

The first part of our reading concerns judgement; verse 31, “Pilate said, ‘take him yourselves and judge him by your own law.’”

We judge each other through our own experiences and ideas. As our experiences change so does our judgement on others. Think of the Romans of the time. They held a variety of gods to be worshiped, gods they never saw except in some statue. They would have judged a man claiming to be the living son of the one living God a fool, someone to be avoided; not as someone to be judged in a legal sense. We can see this in Pilate’s actions. He tries to pass the whole situation off.

What about the Jewish crowd? Their experience involves thousands of years of law. Their greatest hero was Moses who led them out of slavery and brought them God’s law. Here is a man telling them that the law is good but that many miss the point of that law; love and concern for each other, love of God, and both of these are above their own desires and needs. Here is a man telling them that forgiveness of sins is obtained by repentance. I imagine they would have judged a man promoting these ideas as subversive and one to be removed. We see this in their bringing Jesus to Pilate to have him crucified.

Truth is, if Pilate or the crowd understood, their experiences with God would have been different. They would not have looked to a plethora of gods; they would have seen the one true God. They would have seen a loving and forgiving God and not one who was more interested in rules. Their experience would have been different; thus, their judgement would have been different.

When I was young I was taught I always had to beg God to forgive the things I would do, I had to remember all I did wrong and list them. My experience was that God was a punisher and I judged that my interaction with God was to be avoided. In time the Holy Spirit taught me that God is loving and forgiving and that he wants me with him for all eternity. My experience changed, I came to judge God as the one I wanted to be with, to talk with and as the one I wanted to lead my life.

The next part of our reading concerns itself with truth; verse 38, “’What is truth?’ retorted Pilate.

What is truth? At times this question can be hard to answer. At times the same situation can have different truths. I think my sister got away with murder when we were growing up, she thinks I did. Same situation, same environment, two different truths.

Many people in Israel saw and heard Jesus and saw his teachings as heresy. Others saw and heard the same things and came to believe he was the Messiah. Same Jesus, same sermons, same miracles; different truths.

Often our truths come from our experiences. When I went to seminary and later started preaching my father would occasionally come but he always said, “I don’t understand all this, why are you doing this?” After his death my Aunt told me that he told her he was proud of what I was doing. My experience was his questioning. My truth was that he didn’t understand the direction my life took and he certainly wasn’t proud of what I was doing. My Aunt’s truth is different, and by listening to family and family friends I have come to see a different truth.

People may not believe in Jesus because they weren’t introduced to him. It might be that some who were taught of Jesus saw a loved one die from a disease or an accident. Their truth is God doesn’t exist or if he does, he doesn’t care. As Christians we are tasked with showing them Christ in our lives and how much love he has bestowed on us. With time and with the Holy Spirit’s help, perhaps their truth will change.

Now we come to the end of our reading where the crowd demands the release of Barabbas, verse 40, “They shouted ‘No, not him! Give us Barabbas!’”

This choice is an interesting one because it’s a choice we make many times in our own lives. Barabbas is Aramaic for “son of the father.” Jesus is Yeshua. Yeshua is a form of Yehoshua which is translated as Joshua. Yeshua, Yehoshua, Joshua; they all mean the “Lord is salvation.”

Jesus is the Messiah, Son of God, the one to free us from sin. Barabbas was a messiah figure, one who would free the masses from Roman authority. The people had to make a choice between two messiah figures; one who frees them to pursue God, one who frees them to pursue earthly wants. One who has them trust in God and one who has them trust in themselves.

This conflict has been going on since man first walked on the earth. One example that stands out to me is from Numbers chapter 20. In that chapter the people of Israel were thirsty in the desert and God tells Moses “Speak to the rock…and it will pour out its water.” (Numbers 20:8) After God led the nation out of Egypt, after God parted the Red Sea, after God provided manna and quail, still Moses did not trust fully in God’s word and fell back on old practices. Numbers 20:11,  “Then Moses raised his arm and struck the rock twice with his staff.” Moses was faced with choosing total faith in God or faith in his efforts and past experience. He chose wrong.

The world is still faced with this same dilemma. Do we choose to follow God, trust in his way or do we choose to trust in ourselves, follow our desires and wants.

It can be easy for people in churches to look at those outside and say “They don’t follow Jesus, what can you expect them to decide?” Let’s look at our reading, verse 38 “(Pilate)…went out again to the Jews gathered there…” It was not the pagans, the Greeks, the Romans who had gathered, it was God’s chosen people who were in that crowd calling for Barabbas. Calling for the man they saw as their best chance of gaining their desire of the end of Roman occupation.

There in that courtyard Jesus represents following God’s will, trusting in God’s plan and actions. Barabbas represents men falling back on their own work, wanting their desires fulfilled quickly and by any means possible.

As God’s chosen, as followers of Christ, this is the great choice we make multiple times in our lives. Barabbas is reborn over and over in our desire for wealth, for influence, for anything we see and choose to use our strength and actions to gain instead of turning it over to God. With a hundred small decisions a day, with several major decisions in our lifetime, we choose Barabbas over Jesus.

To choose Jesus can be a difficult decision. It requires complete faith that God is who he said he is. That he loves us despite our errors. That he sent Jesus to intercede for us. That he will do for us what he says he will. Look at the crowd again. It would have taken a great deal of inner faith to call out “Give me Jesus” instead of “Give us Barabbas.”

There is a lot of pressure to belong to the crowd. I would bet there were those in the crowd who came for the Passover that didn’t even know who Barabbas was and yet they yelled just as loud because of the crowd mentality, because they didn’t want to be seen as an outsider. This is something we deal with in our lives; “Oh, that’s Jonathan, no one gets along with him,” and then we find ourselves with a poor opinion of Jonathan without ever getting to know him.

Today we see the last few steps moving Jesus to the cross. Along the way we’re shown that we should not judge others because we don’t know their experiences. We don’t know what truths they live with. All we can do is try to learn their truth and share with them our truth of God in our lives. And the truth of the Gospel. Criticizing someone because their truth is different from ours even if we share many of the same experiences says less about them and much more about us.

And last today; following Jesus many times puts us outside the crowd. We must be faithful enough to bear it.

Amen.