NR 20
November 20
Matthew 27:20-25. The multitude prefer Barabbas to Christ.
What guilt there was in the short answer the people made to Pilate's inquiry! "Barabbas." It was the name of a murderer; yet they preferred that murderer to him who came to give life unto the world. It was not one man only who made this wicked choice, but a whole multitude. Is not this a proof that the heart of man is desperately wicked? The most lovely of all Beings clothed himself in a human form, and a whole multitude preferred a murderer before him. Could we have seen the meek and holy countenance of the Son of God, and then have beheld the degraded, abject, brutal looks of the wicked Barabbas, we should have said, "It is impossible that men can prefer that vile criminal to the righteous Savior."
Did any of the blind whom Jesus had restored to sight join in the cry, "Not this man, but Barabbas?" Did any tongue that he had loosed exclaim, "Let him be crucified?" We hope that no such act of ingratitude was committed; we hope that Bartimeus was weeping in some secret place, as well as the women who had followed him to Jerusalem. But when we consider what numerous miracles Jesus had wrought in the temple, we must conclude that many of the multitude had received great benefits from his gracious hands. How many helpless parents, and drooping children, had been restored by Him to health and joy! but all his mercies were now forgotten, and only the crimes of which he was accused were remembered. What is man? Changeable, base, ungrateful. Judas preferred thirty pieces of silver to his divine Master; the multitude a murderer to their Benefactor!
Pilate was astonished at the mad violence of the people. He feared to resist their clamor, lest his own life should fall a sacrifice to their fury; yet he was so deeply impressed with a sense of the injustice of the deed he was going to commit, that he took water, and washed his hands before them all, saying, "I am innocent of the blood of this just person; see you to it." But could that water cleanse his hands from guilt? O no. Pilate had power to release the prisoner; he was bound to exert that power. It was not sufficient for him to bear his testimony against evil. Pilate's wife could do no more than lift up her feeble voice on behalf of the innocent; but Pilate could have said, "I will defend him with the last drop of my blood." How blessed would he then have been, though he had been torn to pieces by the exasperated multitude! That day he would have been with Jesus in Paradise.
Who can hear, without a thrill of horror, the curse which the Jewish nation invoked on their own heads, when they answered, "His blood be on us, and on our children!" They intended to say, "If he is innocent, we will bear the guilt of his murder; but we are sure that he is not innocent." God heard the dreadful words. Forty years afterwards, the Romans conquered Jerusalem. Blood then flowed in such torrents through the streets, that it extinguished many a burning pile; and crosses were erected in such numbers around the walls, that there was no more room in which to place them, nor wood of which to construct them. But who could have thought, that in that horrible curse a blessing also was contained! They cried, "His blood be upon us;" but the Savior interceded, that it might wash them from their sins. A time shall come, when that precious blood shall wash the whole nation from their iniquities; and "so all Israel shall be saved." (Rom. 11:26.)
To every soul who hears the gospel, the blood of Jesus shall prove either a curse or a blessing. It must be upon us, either to increase our guilt, or to wash it away . Let us not be satisfied with thinking, "How wicked the Jews were to shed that blood!" It was shed that we might wash, and be clean. Jesus lives to wash with his own hands those for whom he shed his own blood. The apostle John says, "Unto him that loved us, and washed us from our sins in his own blood." (Rev. 1.) Let every sinner come to this Savior, and bathe in this fountain. Let each learn to say,
"My Savior died upon the tree,
And sank for me beneath the flood;
My sins are cast into this sea,
Of love, of sorrows, and of blood."
Hymn 283. Collection by Rev. J. H. Evans