John 18:38-40 – “What is truth?”  Pilate asked.  With this he went out again to the Jews and said, “I find no basis for a charge against him.  But it is your custom for me to release to you one prisoner at the time of the Passover.  Do you want me to release ‘the king of the Jews’?”

They shouted back, “No, not him! Give us Barabbas!”  Now Barabbas had taken part in a rebellion.

Pontus Pilate, the Roman Governor who presided over Jesus’ trial and crucifixion, had a custom of releasing a prisoner as a gesture of good will on the Passover, an important Jewish holiday.  On this occasion, he presented a choice to the crowds gathered outside the Governor’s Palace, letting them decide which of two prisoners he would release.  The choice was between Jesus and Barabbas, a Jewish rebel leader and murderer.  The people chose Barabbas, exactly as Pilate expected.

Just before Pilate presented this choice, he asked Jesus, “What is truth?”  This was in response to Jesus’ claim that he came into the world to testify to the truth, and that all who loved truth would side with him.  Pilate asked the philosophers’ favorite question – what is truth?  How does one know which opinion is correct?  How can one prove anything?  He did not understand that human truth is not the same thing as God’s truth.  Man’s truth is anything that is not a lie, anything we cannot disprove.  God’s truth is a person – Jesus Christ himself.  Jesus told his disciples, “I am the way, the truth, and the life.”  (John 14:6).  Intellectuals today are still asking the same question that Pilate asked – and the answer, like then, is looking them in the face.  Jesus is the Truth.

Judaism, the greatest religion in the world at the time, rejected the Son of God himself.  Roman law, the greatest legal system, upon which most countries still base their laws, wrongly condemned the only truly innocent person who ever lived.  Man’s efforts fail.

We have the same choice today that Pilate presented to the people.  We must choose between Jesus, the rightful king over our lives, and Barabbas, who represents our rebelliousness, our self-interest, our desire for power and personal prosperity.  Barabbas represented all those things for the people because he opposed the Roman imperial occupation of Israel.  He fought to have Israeli independence, self-rule, self-control, and national pride.  “A man called Barabbas was in prison with the insurrectionists who had committed murder in the uprising.” (Mark 15:7)  “Barabbas had been thrown into prison for an insurrection in the city, and for murder.”  (Luke 23:19)  When we select any option besides Jesus, however, we choose the murderer.  Jesus brings Life – he IS the Life.  Barabbas brings death – he was a killer.  The people chose Barabbas.

Religious people would like to think that we do not have to choose between Jesus and the other things we want in this world.  They reason to themselves that there is nothing mutually exclusive about Christianity and the other things, whether political parties, cultural pride, tribalism, materialism, worldliness, etc.  The problem is that Jesus said we must put him before everything else – only one thing can be our Master or Lord.  The people chose Barabbas.

People usually do not make the explicit choice to renounce Jesus.  Rather, they pick Barabbas instead of Jesus through all the selfish choices they make throughout their lives.

It is ironic that similar crowds yelled for Jesus’ crucifixion in this passage and had been hailing him as the Messiah and laying palm branches before him only a week before.  People behave strangely in crowds – they catch the excitement of the throng of people around them.  Religious crowds can act very excited about Jesus, shouting and waving their hands in worship – but can change their minds by the end of that week and be serving the world and their own self-interests instead.

It is also ironic, of course, that the crowds and religious leaders insisted, “We have no king but Caesar.”  Pilate must have laughed as they said this, knowing that they were constantly complaining and protesting that Caesar was NOT their king, but God was their ruler instead.  Even more ironic was the fact that they declared Caesar to be their king even as they demanded the release of a rebel leader who was trying to overthrow Caesar’s occupation forces in their land.  In a sense, what they said was true.  They rejected Jesus’ rule over their lives, they rejected God Himself as their king – and were left with no king but the oppressive powers of this world.