SPEAKER_00: Well, good morning and welcome to Trinity.
SPEAKER_00: If I haven't met you before, my name is Mike, and I'm one of the pastors here.
SPEAKER_00: And this morning I'd like to invite you to turn in your Bibles to Matthew chapter 27.
SPEAKER_00: If you don't have a Bible with you, that's perfectly fine.
SPEAKER_00: You can hop up and grab one from the stack in the back.
SPEAKER_00: No harm, no foul.
SPEAKER_00: Or of course you can look it up on your phone.
SPEAKER_00: You can find Matthew 27 on page 783 in the church Bibles.
SPEAKER_00: We're almost there.
SPEAKER_00: We're nearing the end, and then the very best beginning as we head towards the cross and then Easter.
SPEAKER_00: The part of the story we're in right now is heavy, isn't it?
SPEAKER_00: As I've joked a few times with people in the last few weeks, this Lent has felt particularly lenty.
SPEAKER_00: And our text this morning is no different.
SPEAKER_00: We're in the valley of dry bones in the story.
SPEAKER_00: But the day is coming.
SPEAKER_00: Soon we'll get to Easter.
SPEAKER_00: We're getting there.
SPEAKER_00: Now, if you weren't here last week, Jesus has been betrayed by Judas and handed over to the chief priests and the elders.
SPEAKER_00: They've held a sham trial and found Jesus guilty.
SPEAKER_00: And Judas, racked by guilt, met a tragic end, and the chief priests handed Jesus over to the Roman governor Pilate.
SPEAKER_00: And also, is the sound of a toddler giggling not just the best thing in the entire world?
SPEAKER_00: Gabe, if you could like bottle that up when you get to the good news at the end of the story today and just lighten us all up.
SPEAKER_00: Or regardless, I think it's it's it is we live in this place, don't we?
SPEAKER_00: Like this world that is heavy and dark, right?
SPEAKER_00: It's full of suffering, and and we we can't, we shouldn't ignore that.
SPEAKER_00: And yet we're also people of the resurrection.
SPEAKER_00: Both of these things held together in tandem, right?
SPEAKER_00: Like both hands.
SPEAKER_00: Like we know we don't ignore suffering, evil, sin, all that, but we're also people of the resurrection.
SPEAKER_00: And so Gabe's giggling is a reminder for us this morning as Jesus is handed over to death, and the heavy part of the story that it's not the end.
SPEAKER_00: So thank you, little buddy.
SPEAKER_00: The sound of children is such a wonder and delight in church.
SPEAKER_00: Last week, Jesus was betrayed by Judas, handed over to the chief priests and the elders.
SPEAKER_00: They've held a sham trial, found Jesus guilty.
SPEAKER_00: Judas, racked by guilt, met his tragic end.
SPEAKER_00: The chief priests handed Jesus over to the Roman governor Pilate.
SPEAKER_00: We read the first part of the story that I just read again last week.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus stood before the governor.
SPEAKER_00: The governor asked him, Are you the king of the Jews?
SPEAKER_00: Jesus said, You've said so.
SPEAKER_00: But when he was accused by the chief priests and elders, he gave no answer.
SPEAKER_00: And so Pilate said to him, Do you not hear how many things they testify against you?
SPEAKER_00: Jesus gave him no answer, not even to a single charge.
SPEAKER_00: So that the governor was greatly amazed.
SPEAKER_00: And then in verse 15, we come to what I'm calling the great exchange.
SPEAKER_00: But first let's pray.
SPEAKER_00: Gracious God, thank you for this chance to gather, to sing, to pray, to hear from your word.
SPEAKER_00: And I pray now that as my words line up with your words, that they would fall on ears and hearts ready to receive them and respond.
SPEAKER_00: And gracious God, if I say anything from you, or that anything that isn't from you, I pray that those words would quickly be forgotten.
SPEAKER_00: And I pray all these things through Jesus Christ our Lord.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: If you've got a Bible open, look with me at verse 15.
SPEAKER_00: Now at the feast, the governor was accustomed to release for the crowd any one prisoner whom they wanted.
SPEAKER_00: Let's do a little historical context here.
SPEAKER_00: The feast that Matthew refers to in verse 15 is Passover.
SPEAKER_00: It's a feast remembering God's deliverance from slavery in Egypt and celebrated the night before.
SPEAKER_00: It was and is the most important holy day of the Jewish year.
SPEAKER_00: People from all over Judea would have made the pilgrimage to Jerusalem for the feast.
SPEAKER_00: In fact, scholars estimate that Jerusalem, at the time of Jesus' life, during the Passover, that the population would have increased as many as five to ten times.
SPEAKER_00: By ancient standards, Jerusalem was a decent sized city, maybe 50,000 to 80,000, scholars, historians guess.
SPEAKER_00: Five to ten times.
SPEAKER_00: We're talking five hundred thousand, perhaps?
SPEAKER_00: 250,000?
SPEAKER_00: 800,000?
SPEAKER_00: I mean, suddenly a city or town the size of Burke becoming the size of Metropolitan DC.
SPEAKER_00: In other words, the city was packed for this holiest of holy days.
SPEAKER_00: Now, you have to remember, Israel's been conquered by the Roman Empire.
SPEAKER_00: The chief priests and elders still had some authority and influence, especially in religious matters, but they existed at the pleasure of Rome.
SPEAKER_00: They were ruled by a Roman governor, who was in turn ruled by a Roman emperor.
SPEAKER_00: And it was the might of the Roman legions that held the locals in check.
SPEAKER_00: Of course, as is true, any time a large crowd gathers, especially in a city occupied by a former by a foreign army, there's a risk of riots and rebellions.
SPEAKER_00: And so Pilate, who's a savvy political operator, has developed a tradition, the scriptures tell us, to ingratiate himself to the crowds and keep the peace.
SPEAKER_00: Let someone held by the Romans in Judea go.
SPEAKER_00: Now look at verse 16.
SPEAKER_00: They had then a notorious prisoner called Barabbas.
SPEAKER_00: His name is interesting.
SPEAKER_00: Bar means son.
SPEAKER_00: Abas, anyone want to guess?
SPEAKER_00: Abba?
SPEAKER_00: Father.
SPEAKER_00: Son of the Father.
SPEAKER_00: And so when they gathered, Pilate said to them, Whom do you want me to release for you?
SPEAKER_00: Barabbas?
SPEAKER_00: Or Jesus who's called Christ?
SPEAKER_00: For he knew that it was out of envy that they delivered Jesus up.
SPEAKER_00: Besides, while he was sitting on the judgment seat, his wife sent word to him, Have nothing to do with that righteous man with Jesus, for I have suffered much because of him today in a dream.
SPEAKER_00: Now the chief priests and the elders persuaded the crowd to ask for Barabbas and destroy Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: The governor again said to them, Which of the two do you want me to release for you?
SPEAKER_00: They said, Barabbas.
SPEAKER_00: Oh, there is so much in here for us, and we'll come back to some of it, and I'll have to leave some of it out.
SPEAKER_00: But first, what do we know about Barabbas?
SPEAKER_00: Matthew doesn't tell us much about him except that he was a notorious prisoner.
SPEAKER_00: Mark and Luke tell us more.
SPEAKER_00: They describe him as a violent insurrectionist and rebel who'd been found guilty of murder.
SPEAKER_00: John tells us he was a robber and a bandit.
SPEAKER_00: One thing is certain, he was dangerous.
SPEAKER_00: He was not a good guy.
SPEAKER_00: He certainly deserved death.
SPEAKER_00: Now we already know from last week that Pilate was amazed by Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 18 tells us that Pilate knew the chief priests and elders handed Jesus over to him, not because he was guilty, but because they were jealous of his popularity and influence.
SPEAKER_00: We see that right there, out of envy.
SPEAKER_00: And then in verse 19, we've got yet another argument for Pilate to release Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Matthew tells us while he was sitting on the judgment seat, his wife sent word to him.
SPEAKER_00: I've been married now almost 19 years, and I've learned.
SPEAKER_00: Can I get an amen?
SPEAKER_00: I think that's the first time I've ever asked for an amen during a sermon.
SPEAKER_00: But it seemed fitting and appropriate.
SPEAKER_00: The wife knows Jesus is innocent.
SPEAKER_00: It seems even, she's had a dream confirming it.
SPEAKER_00: So she says, Pilate, let the guy go.
SPEAKER_00: Pilate knows Jesus is innocent.
SPEAKER_00: Like any politician, he's stuck between a rock and a hard place.
SPEAKER_00: He knows what's right.
SPEAKER_00: His wife is pressuring him to do what's right.
SPEAKER_00: The crowds, the local leaders want him to do the opposite.
SPEAKER_00: Pilate is in a bit of a pickle.
SPEAKER_00: Pilate, a pilot, a pilot.
SPEAKER_00: You should have listened to your wife.
SPEAKER_00: But instead, being the shrewd and cowardly people-pleasing politician he is, Pilot works a plan.
SPEAKER_00: He thinks he's figured out a way to do what he knows is right.
SPEAKER_00: To please his wife, and to please everybody else.
SPEAKER_00: But friends, how often does this actually work in real life?
SPEAKER_00: We come up with our plans, our scheming, conniving plans to try to keep everybody in our lives happy.
SPEAKER_00: This is what he decides to do.
SPEAKER_00: He'll offer to exchange Barabbas for Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: I think that he thinks there's no way they'll pick Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: And he'll be able to let him go.
SPEAKER_00: But if they decide that they want Barabbas, and that's on them.
SPEAKER_00: His hands are clean.
SPEAKER_00: It'll be their fault Jesus is killed, not his.
SPEAKER_00: You tell me.
SPEAKER_00: They all said, but let him be crucified.
SPEAKER_00: He said, Why?
SPEAKER_00: What evil has he done?
SPEAKER_00: And they shouted, All the more, let him be crucified.
SPEAKER_00: Can you feel it?
SPEAKER_00: How unfair it is.
SPEAKER_00: How heartbreaking?
SPEAKER_00: How evil?
SPEAKER_00: I mean, I can right here in the pit of my stomach.
SPEAKER_00: I'm like getting little goosebumps right now.
SPEAKER_00: Even as I read it, it makes me feel sick.
SPEAKER_00: This, this, this is what sin does.
SPEAKER_00: It corrupts the human heart and leads to death.
SPEAKER_00: But friends, this is also what love does.
SPEAKER_00: The distance Jesus is willing to go that we might have life.
SPEAKER_00: As we've said the last few weeks, Jesus isn't a victim here.
SPEAKER_00: He knows exactly what he's walked into.
SPEAKER_00: He knows what it's going to take to see the plan through.
SPEAKER_00: He knows how much it will cost him, how much he will suffer, and how deeply unfair it is.
SPEAKER_00: And he does it anyway.
SPEAKER_00: Pilate, he's stuck.
SPEAKER_00: Of his own making.
SPEAKER_00: Look at verse 16.
SPEAKER_00: When Pilate saw that he was gaining nothing, but rather a riot was beginning.
SPEAKER_00: The crowd was not going to change its mind.
SPEAKER_00: So Pilate took water, washed his hands before the crowd.
SPEAKER_00: This is where we get the saying, I wash my hands of this, or my hands are clean.
SPEAKER_00: Saying, I'm innocent of this man's blood.
SPEAKER_00: See to it yourselves.
SPEAKER_00: Have you seen this before?
SPEAKER_00: Just last week.
SPEAKER_00: Chief priests do the same thing with Judas.
SPEAKER_00: Not my problem.
SPEAKER_00: This one's on you to deal with.
SPEAKER_00: The people answered, His blood be on us and on our children.
SPEAKER_00: If they if they only knew.
SPEAKER_00: And he released for them Barabbas, and having scourged Jesus, delivered him to be crucified.
SPEAKER_00: Later that afternoon, the same day, Jesus would be crucified between two rebels and bandits in the place that most likely had been prepared for Barabbas.
SPEAKER_00: When we started out, I said I like to call this episode the Great Exchange.
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes it's referred to as the Great Reversal.
SPEAKER_00: Here's what I mean by that.
SPEAKER_00: Happens at three levels in the story.
SPEAKER_00: First, we've got the crowd.
SPEAKER_00: We'll actually come back to this next week on Palm Sunday.
SPEAKER_00: But it's worth noting here, the very crowd yelling, crucify him, was praising him just days earlier.
SPEAKER_00: Waving palms.
SPEAKER_00: Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: Where we're at in the story now is Friday, just the previous Sunday.
SPEAKER_00: Second, Pilate.
SPEAKER_00: If you have your Bible, open your lap.
SPEAKER_00: Go back to verse 19 and circle the phrase judgment seat.
SPEAKER_00: The Greek word here is bema.
SPEAKER_00: It's the raised dais from which a Roman governor enacted justice on behalf of the emperor, who at the time of Jesus was considered the divine son of God.
SPEAKER_00: Pilate in the Roman world was sitting in the judgment seat of Caesar.
SPEAKER_00: The judgment seat of the Son of God.
SPEAKER_00: Do you catch the irony?
SPEAKER_00: It's strong.
SPEAKER_00: And before him, standing before the judgment seat, in this instance, being judged by Pilate, is Jesus, the Son of God, of whom Paul wrote in 2 Corinthians 5, 10, for we must all appear before the judgment seat, same word in the Greek, of Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Carl Bart's got an entire section in his dogmatics on this.
SPEAKER_00: The judge is judged in our place.
SPEAKER_00: The great exchange.
SPEAKER_00: The great reversal.
SPEAKER_00: First the crowd, second, uh Pilate, and lastly back to Barabbas.
SPEAKER_00: Because man, his story is so poignant.
SPEAKER_00: He's been arrested, rightfully so.
SPEAKER_00: He's been tried and found guilty of murder, and rightfully so, he did it.
SPEAKER_00: And he's been condemned to death.
SPEAKER_00: Which, regardless of how you feel about capital punishment, fits the crime.
SPEAKER_00: And then, miracle of miracles, somehow, this rabbi from Nazareth's from Nazareth is brought on the scene.
SPEAKER_00: And the rabbi is innocent.
SPEAKER_00: He has done literally nothing wrong.
SPEAKER_00: All he's done is teach, heal, perform miracles, challenge the status quo.
SPEAKER_00: In fact, less than a week earlier, it seemed the crowd wanted to crown him king.
SPEAKER_00: And here he is before Pilate, who seems to know he's innocent.
SPEAKER_00: And it seems somehow that Barabbas is going to be let completely off the hook.
SPEAKER_00: Set free.
SPEAKER_00: Sent in his way.
SPEAKER_00: The cross that had been deservedly waiting for him.
SPEAKER_00: Looks like Jesus is going to be sent to that cross in his place.
SPEAKER_00: I wonder what Barabbas must have felt in that moment.
SPEAKER_00: How must have felt to be waiting the day of your execution for something you know you deserve.
SPEAKER_00: And then to have your chains unlocked and to walk away into a new life.
SPEAKER_00: We don't actually know what happened to Barabbas after this.
SPEAKER_00: History doesn't tell us.
SPEAKER_00: Nor does the Bible.
SPEAKER_00: Did he go back to his old life, a life of violence?
SPEAKER_00: Or did he walk into a new future?
SPEAKER_00: A free man.
SPEAKER_00: Choose to live differently, start over into a life of love and faith.
SPEAKER_00: We're left wondering.
SPEAKER_00: Scriptures don't tell us.
SPEAKER_00: Tradition doesn't tell us.
SPEAKER_00: History doesn't tell us.
SPEAKER_00: He'd been set free by the blood of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: And we have no idea what he did after that.
SPEAKER_00: But what about you?
SPEAKER_00: We hear it each and every week after we confess our sins.
SPEAKER_00: We'll hear it again in just a moment.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus came to save sinners.
SPEAKER_00: That's me.
SPEAKER_00: And you.
SPEAKER_00: And I don't know about you, probably not you, but I've certainly been angry with my brother.
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes, most of the time, let's be honest, rightfully.
SPEAKER_00: From time to time, not.
SPEAKER_00: I've definitely insulted somebody, treated others with disdain.
SPEAKER_00: I'm guilty.
SPEAKER_00: I could try to squirm my way out of any sort of accountability.
SPEAKER_00: Accountability, blame shift, make excuses.
SPEAKER_00: That's what Pilate does in the story.
SPEAKER_00: But I've found it's generally better to own our stuff, and the Lord knows there's more than enough for which I'm accountable.
SPEAKER_00: I'm guessing that's probably true for you, too.
SPEAKER_00: What Jesus does for Barabbas is illustrative of an even bigger truth.
SPEAKER_00: The very best news.
SPEAKER_00: And I think this is why this exchange is included in all four Gospels.
SPEAKER_00: They all have something to say about it.
SPEAKER_00: The very best news for me and for you.
SPEAKER_00: That the exchange made for Barabbas is an offer made for you and me too.
SPEAKER_00: This is the great exchange.
SPEAKER_00: That Jesus goes to the cross in our place.
SPEAKER_00: And we are set free, given new life.
SPEAKER_00: We don't know what Barabbas did with the new life that Jesus gives him, Jesus offered him.
SPEAKER_00: If he went right back on to his old patterns, or if he changed direction, but I wonder, I wonder, what will you do with the new life he's offered you?
SPEAKER_00: Will you shrug?
SPEAKER_00: Carry on.
SPEAKER_00: Return to the old patterns.
SPEAKER_00: Or will you receive the new life offered with open hands?
SPEAKER_00: Change directions.
SPEAKER_00: Orient your life towards the way of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Walk with others.
SPEAKER_00: I'm not meant to do this alone.
SPEAKER_00: Into this new life that Jesus has won for us by offering himself up in our place in the great exchange.
SPEAKER_00: What will you do with that?
SPEAKER_00: Will you stand and pray with me?
SPEAKER_00: Oh gracious God, I pray that you would form in me, in us, soft hearts.
SPEAKER_00: And open hands.
SPEAKER_00: I pray that you'd give us the courage that we need to turn to you, walk in your ways, receive the forgiveness that you've offered us on the cross, the new life you've given us.
SPEAKER_00: Oh, would you form us to be that sort of people?
SPEAKER_00: I pray.
SPEAKER_00: Through Jesus Christ our Lord.
unknown: Amen.