We’re getting closer to the cross this week. The past several weeks we’ve been going on this journey with Jesus. Too much of the time we just jump from Palm Sunday to Easter and bypass the ugly part in between. And there is a lot of ugly.
Part of this journey was Jesus being taken to Pontius Pilate by the Jewish leaders. They want to put an end to this Man who is messing up their comfortable lives.
Most of us have heard the story of Jesus being taken to Pilate to be put to death.
Pilate couldn’t find anything that justified Jesus being punished to this degree. There was a tradition at that time of the governor releasing a prisoner and he offered the crowd the choice of Jesus or a notorious prisoner, Barabbas.
While he was sitting on the judge’s bench, his wife sent word to him, “Have nothing to do with that righteous man, for today I’ve suffered terribly in a dream because of Him!”
The chief priests and the elders, however, persuaded the crowds to ask for Barabbas and to execute Jesus. The governor asked them, “Which of the two do you want me to release for you?”
“Barabbas!” they answered.
Pilate asked them, “What should I do then with Jesus, who is called Messiah?”
They all answered, “Crucify Him!”
Then he said, “Why? What has He done wrong?”
But they kept shouting, “Crucify Him!” all the more.
When Pilate saw that he was getting nowhere, but that a riot was starting instead, he took some water, washed his hands in front of the crowd, and said, “I am innocent of this man’s blood. See to it yourselves!”
All the people answered, “His blood be on us and on our children!” Then he released Barabbas to them. But after having Jesus flogged, he handed Him over to be crucified.
It’s interesting that even though Pilate washed his hands of this to absolve himself of this situation, his name is the one name connected to Jesus’ crucifixion more than any other. If he’d known who he was turning his back on … he might have done things differently.
Jesus’ blood was on Pilate.
The Jewish people became so caught up in the moment they asked for Jesus’ blood to be on them and their children. If they’d known what they were asking … they might have done things differently.
Jesus’ blood was on the Jewish people.
And then there’s Barabbas. He was the fortunate benefactor of this situation. The one who was set free. He literally knew what it was like for Jesus to die for him.
Jesus’ blood was certainly on Barabbas.
Just like Pilate, the Jewish people who called for Jesus’ death, and Barabbas, we can get caught up in the world and make the wrong decisions. These bad choices can’t simply be ignored, and they’ll go away.
Just washing our hands doesn’t change it.
Jesus’ blood is on all of us.
It’s up to us to believe in Jesus and accept the gift of His blood.
Last Sunday was Palm Sunday, the beginning of Holy Week. When this week occurred for the first time, what started out as a celebration quickly turned into a dark time for Jesus’ followers.
They were expecting something completely different than what happened. They thought that Jesus was going to over turn the Roman Empire and become a worldly king. They misunderstood Jesus’ message and purpose.
This is like the story Pastor Lee told about a woman that became distraught when she saw a sign in her bank’s window. She went into the bank and asked what was going to happen to her money? The teller asked her what she meant. The lady said the sign in the front window read, “Closed for Good Friday”. When she read it, she saw, “Closed for good, Friday”. We need to be careful to not misunderstand the Message.
It is easy for us to put our perspective on things that in turn lead to misunderstanding. We invite Jesus into our lives and ask Him to make a few changes and freshen things up a bit…you know a little remodeling project. The problem develops when we haven’t really looked at the blueprint, or maybe we don’t know how to read one. God’s plan for our lives more resembles a full-blown renovation, rather than a little remodel.
He plans to turn us into a mansion, if we’ll just let Him.
Usually when we hear the word passion we think of an emotion. We put it in our worldly view. Historically though this word meant to suffer for something cared deeply about, to the point of martyrdom. Jesus cared so deeply for us that He was willing to give His life for us. His passion to for us lead to His death. This is the Passion of Christ.
As humans no matter how high we reach or how long of a ladder we climb on. we can never reach God. He on the other hand can reach us, if we will let Him.
Remember the importance of this Holy
Week and let the Master Architect design your dream mansion.
Manage Cookie Consent
To provide the best experiences, we use technologies like cookies to store and/or access device information. Consenting to these technologies will allow us to process data such as browsing behavior or unique IDs on this site. Not consenting or withdrawing consent, may adversely affect certain features and functions.
Functional
Always active
The technical storage or access is strictly necessary for the legitimate purpose of enabling the use of a specific service explicitly requested by the subscriber or user, or for the sole purpose of carrying out the transmission of a communication over an electronic communications network.
Preferences
The technical storage or access is necessary for the legitimate purpose of storing preferences that are not requested by the subscriber or user.
Statistics
The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for statistical purposes.The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for anonymous statistical purposes. Without a subpoena, voluntary compliance on the part of your Internet Service Provider, or additional records from a third party, information stored or retrieved for this purpose alone cannot usually be used to identify you.
Marketing
The technical storage or access is required to create user profiles to send advertising, or to track the user on a website or across several websites for similar marketing purposes.
