With Crimson Wings (Mark 15:1-15)

He had been tried, found guilty, and was condemned to death. Not just any death, but the torturous, cruel death of crucifixion. He had no hope. All he could do was to wait. He knew his guilt, he knew the condemnation that was his. What he didn’t know was that there was someone who would go to the cross in his place. Isaiah 53 had spoken of a Savior who would be “pierced for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed” (Isaiah 53:5). Barabbas experienced the fulfillment of this prophecy in his encounter with Jesus Christ.

Jesus had been declared undeserving of death by Pilate. Yet, when Barabbas’s shackles were removed and he had been declared free, his ears were filled with the cry, “Crucify him!” The crowd was not, however, crying for his crucifixion. It was demanding instead that Jesus be crucified. Barabbas hadn’t been one of Jesus’s followers, and yet Jesus took Barabbas’s place on the cross. When I think of this I’m reminded of Romans 5:8: “But God proves His own love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us!” What was true for Barabbas is true for me; it’s true for you.

Barabbas is acquitted while the sinless Savior dies. In the Old Testament when a someone was cured of leprosy there was a rite of cleansing  that involved two birds. *The one bird was killed, and its blood was poured into a basin; the other bird was dipped in this blood, and then, with its wings all crimson, it was set free to fly into the open field.

The bird slain well pictures the Savior, and every soul that has by faith been dipped in His blood flies upward towards heaven singing sweetly in joyful liberty, owing its life and liberty entirely to Him who was slain. It comes to this—Barabbas must die, or Christ must die; you the sinner must perish, or Christ, Immanuel, the Immaculate, must die.*

This is the gospel. We soar on crimson wings. This is the place we must return to again and again. This is truth we are called to walk in. When our enemy tempts us to despair by reminding us of our guilt and shame, we are to remember that because the sinless Saviour died, our sinful soul has been counted free. Every day we are to tell ourselves the gospel and soar on crimson wings.

• *Barabbas preferred to Jesus by Charles Spurgeon

 

•  https://youtu.be/4MUNywhsZPU