The Choice (Mark 15:6-15)

They had a choice between a man who had led a violent uprising against the authority of Rome and in the process had committed murder, or Jesus. Jesus who had said, “Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which spitefully use you, and persecute you” (Matthew 5:44). During Jesus’ ministry He had taught them to *suffer any injury that could be borne, for the sake of peace, committing your concerns to the Lord’s keeping. 

Rome was not the first country to enslave the children of Israel. They had spent 400 years in bondage to Egypt. God appointed Moses to lead His people to freedom. When Moses was forty years old he had committed murder in an attempt to rescue and avenge his Israelite brother from an Egyptian, but this was not God’s chosen way. Release from Egypt did not come by a violent uprising and murder. Instead, God’s people were set free by the shed blood of the Passover lamb.

“At the festival it was Pilate’s custom to release for the people a prisoner they requested” (Mark 15:6). What was the festival? It was the Passover. The lamb of God who had come to take away the sins of the world stood before them. But He had no form or majesty that the people could see, even though Pilate presented Him as “the King of the Jews.” He stood before them having spent the night being spit at and abused, and He had no beauty that would soften the heart of the mob. They despised Him and rejected Him. 

The choice was made. “Give us Barabbas!” Give us a man who will fight against the heel of Rome. Give us a man willing to murder in his zeal. And what about Jesus? When Pilate asked the mob they shouted, “Crucify Him!” “Then Pilate said to them. ‘Why? What has He done wrong?’ But they shouted, ‘Crucify Him!’ all the more” (Mark 15:14). How did Jesus respond? “He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth; like a lamb that is led to slaughter, like a sheep that before its shearers is silent, so he opened not his mouth” (Isaiah 53:7). 

When I was a child my grandmother taught me the Bible verse, “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16). I struggled with this verse. I wanted to gain eternal life on my own merit and by my own efforts. Again the Bible says, “For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God” (Ephesians 2:8). In the presence of the lamb of God who came to take away the sins of the world, how many will cry, “Give us Barabbas”?

*Matthew Henry’s Concise Commentary