Jesus. All About Life.Uzorak

Reflection

The death of Jesus is central to the Christian faith, but who killed Jesus? A Roman centurion carried out the death sentence. The order came from Pontius Pilate. The Jewish elders sought out Pilate, and Judas betrayed Jesus to elders.

In Luke 23:18-25, another group of people comes to the fore. It's the crowd. Pilate comes to them with his finding that Jesus has done nothing to deserve death, but the crowd shouts as if with one voice, "Away with this man! Release Barabbas to us!"

Barabbas was a criminal imprisoned for insurrection and murder. Pilate appeals again, but the crowd shouts louder, "Crucify him!" So, Pilate releases Barabbas – and surrenders Jesus to the crowd's will, to his death.

It is an ironic exchange. Barabbas is guilty, deserves death, and is set free; Jesus is innocent, deserves worship, and is condemned. There's irony, but there is so much more going on because Barabbas is not the only guilty one and not the only one who benefited from Jesus' substitution that day.

Singer-songwriter Nathan Tasker writes, "I'd like to think if I was there, as the crowd demanded, 'Crucify!', I would have been a louder voice, calling out to them, 'What is his crime?'"

Romans 3 says that we have turned away from Jesus – Pilate, the chief priests, Judas, the crowd, you, and me. We have all rejected Jesus' love and lordship over our lives in big ways and small, and because of this, we need Jesus' death in our place, too. We need it desperately.

Action point

We can go through our days thinking we are pretty alright. Not perfect, of course, but able to process our failings and 'do better next time.'

The gospel confronts this idea head-on. God's drastic intervention in Christ's crucifixion awakens us to the depths of our need and the horror of our sin. God did not send us a self-improvement package. He sent us his Son. Nothing less than the death of Jesus is enough to rescue us from our sin and its consequences.

Do you believe this? Have you joyfully accepted Christ's sacrifice for you? Or are you still trying to do life without him?

Prayer

Great God, I'm sorry I stand with the crowd so often in opposition to you. Thank you for reminding me that Jesus willingly, lovingly died in my place – the innocent for the guilty – to bring me to you. Show me my great need for you each day and help me return again and again to the foot of the cross, where your perfect sacrifice guarantees my perfect peace. I ask n Jesus' name, Amen.

My experience living through the pandemic

Of course, with the pandemic, so much went wrong. There was illness and grief, isolation and loneliness. There was a lot of mental illness. Our students at college missed the chance to meet and study and do life in person. Yet, God kept working.

One day, during the lockdown, I went for a walk with a student. After a night of drug-taking, she was struggling, which landed her in hospital and trouble with authorities. She had never known much about Jesus or faith. Nor had she wanted to, but confronted by her suffering and failures, she came to me asking about Jesus. That walk turned into many walks with her Christian friends and me, and she came to entrust her life to God. As she sings new songs to God in church each week, she often cries with joy, overwhelmed that God would love her so much.

God never stops working.

About the writer

Lily Strachan is the Chaplain at Robert Menzies College at Macquarie University. She also speaks, teaches, and writes about mental illness and God's goodness in its midst. She is writing a book for those who live with bipolar disorder and those who love them. She is an ordained Anglican minister.