Mark 15:6-15

Mark 15:6-15  Now it was the custom at the Feast to release a prisoner whom the people requested.  A man called Barabbas was in prison with the insurrectionists who had committed murder in the uprising.  The crowd came up and asked Pilate to do for them what he usually did.  “Do you want me to release to you the king of the Jews?” asked Pilate, knowing it was out of envy that the chief priests had handed Jesus over to him.  But the chief priests stirred up the crowd to have Pilate release Barabbas instead.  “What shall I do, then, with the one you call the king of the Jews?” Pilate asked them.  “Crucify him!” they shouted.  “Why?  What crime has he committed?” asked Pilate.  But they shouted all the louder, “Crucify him!”  Wanting to satisfy the crowd, Pilate released Barabbas to them.  He had Jesus flogged, and handed him over to be crucified.  

"Crucify him!" was the shout of the crowd.  Crucify who?  The Son of God?  From Adam and Eve, to the tower of Babel, to Lot choosing the best land, to the Israelites wanting a king instead of God to rule them, to killing the prophets, mankind has always wanted to go its own way.  The basic sinful nature of man is like a wild colt, never wanting to come under the control of its master.  Men are constantly pushing away the Giver of life, the Creator, to establish their own will, seeking their own pleasure, mapping out their own lives--seeking to displace God in every part of their lives.  In the Old Testament we see the Jewish people clearly illustrating this point.  The Jewish nation was to be a glorious example to all the people of the earth of the blessings that God pours out on those who follow him diligently and passionately.  But rather than serve him faithfully, they abandoned God's laws and did what was right in their own eyes.   The Jews, his chosen ones, the people who were delivered from Egypt, slavery and the wilderness, abandoned God and chose other gods of wood and stone.  They were spiritual fornicators and adulterers.  

Finally God punishes his wayward people by scattering them throughout the world.  The Old Testament account of the Jewish people's struggle to be God's people is one of a schoolmaster trying to train wayward students, using the Law to show us what evil exists in the hearts of ALL men.  The Jewish people were not thankful, they did not want to be known merely as the children of God, they wanted their own way, they became arrogant and self-willed.  People will even establish their own religions to show off their holiness and ability to be better than other men.  The Jewish priests did this by creating laws and lifestyle requirements that were not from God but from their own wicked hearts.  Religious people will make degrees of holiness in their congregations to manifest how man can attain godliness by human efforts.  Sinful man is incessantly removing God from center stage and placing himself there.  His sinful heart with the smallest amount of urging will eagerly join the chorus of Crucify him!  Remove him from the center of my life.  I do not want this man to be LORD OF MY LIFE--the arbitrator over my life.  I want to live my life as I choose.  I want to determine what is good or evil.  I am accountable to no one, not even God.  

As we rush full speed into self-willed lives with the pain, destruction, and sorrow that so often follow, do we even stop to consider the question asked of Eve in the garden by the serpent along with his beguiling reassurances to her fears: "Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden’?”. . .  “You will not surely die,” the serpent said to the woman. . .  “For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”  (Genesis 3:1 & 4-5)  From the time of Adam and Eve, man's basic intention has been to be LIKE GOD.  Man's basic intentions, his personality essence, his id, are even hidden from his conscious mind.  Jeremiah 17:9 says, The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?  (KJV)  That is why we all need the blood of Christ as the cleansing agent for our hearts.  We don't even know who we are, but God does.  He knows our waywardness, our wickedness, our unwillingness to bow down to him.  Because He knew us, He gave us a Savior, his only Son, Jesus Christ the Lord.  Through him, along with the wonderful working of the Holy Spirit within us, we have been made pleasing to our Father God.  We can REJOICE, AND AGAIN I SAY REJOICE, for Christ has broken down the barrier between us and God.  He has set the captives free!  Amen!  Let it always be so.