Give Us Barabbus!

“No, not him! Give us Barabbas!” John 18:40

No not you. There's someone else I want. I suspect all of us have heard it at one time or another in our lives. Rejection. It cuts deep and carves something out of our hearts and replaces it...with nothing. The loss, the emptiness chokes us and transports our souls to a terrifying place called abandonment. We are left asking ourselves who will be there for us? Who will hold us until we heal? The clique at school said, "no you can't be a part of us". The love of your life said, "I'd rather have her." The prospective employer said, "no, not good enough." You were bullied growing up. They made fun of your handicap. They gave you up at birth. They stabbed you in the back. They slandered your name and spoke lies about you. She doesn't want you anymore. He wants a divorce. You're too fat, too short, not pretty enough, not smart enough. The list goes on and on and on while the world wraps their purple robes around you and mocks you and screams...be like me! We don't want you, "no not you, we want Barabbus."

I was a bit of a loner growing up and I remember walking the halls of school every day passing each group huddled at lockers, recognizing each clique, absorbing the stares and never connecting. I just didn't fit in. I just didn't measure up. I just wasn't what they wanted. I am sure this coupled with the troubles at home are what motivated me to turn inward, losing myself in music, songwriting, drugs, and an extreme fascination with different philosophies. There seemed to be no remedy for the pain...the deep feeling of rejection. I'm not ashamed to say it hurt. It hurt for days, months and even years.

"he was despised and rejected by men" Isaiah 53:3

It is infinitely beyond my imagination how the King of the Universe, the Son of God, Lord over all the powers in this age and in the age to come, God himself who created the universe, absorbed the mockery, the scorn and the shame from a world he dearly loved. Not only did they mock him but they basically said no we don't want you God, we're throwing you in the dung heap with a little torture and death mixed in, and by the way, we want the other guy...yeah the guy that personifies everything you're not! The guy that would lie, murder, rape, steal, from his own mother and not give it a second thought...we want Barabbus...anything...anybody...but you...so called son of God!

He was Truth, he was Beauty, he was Majesty, he was Purity, he was Holiness and he was completely rejected. The king of Israel was rejected by the Jews, scorned by the entire known world, seemingly deserted by His heavenly Father, and died completely misunderstood and completely alone. Our savior was familiar with rejection.

"Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort" 2 Corinthians 1:3

I am so eternally grateful that our comforter is not of this world. Our thousands of years of history has not brought an antidote for the crippling effect that offense and insult and rejection has left on our hearts. God's word says he has given us Divine power for all things pertaining to life and Godliness...how?...through the knowledge of Him....through knowing Him...and his word also says to set our hope FULLY on the grace to be given us when Jesus Christ appears...we will appear with him in glory!!!

Like the woman with the issue of blood who pressed through the crowds just to touch the hem of his garment, we press in to know him...to truly know Him...the one true God...not some made up story in history...not some dead religious icon. We press in to know him, and we set our hope completely on him, knowing that in his presence is the fullness of joy. And in his presence we find little hope or even concern for this present world and all its sufferings. It is in his presence we find a God who takes in our pain of offense and insult and rejection and fear of abandonment and absorbs it all into his heart...because he absorbed it all when he suffered it here on earth, on the cross, and through his abandonment from the Father...eloi, eloi, lama sabachthani.

When I set my hope fully on Him, the sharp arrows can come, the slaps on the face can come, the hatred and rejection can come, and it can sting for a moment, but only for a moment...because my heart is transfixed on what really matters...seeing the love and passion of my life and his soon return! You say it's escape?...maybe...maybe escape into reality! His hope is a LIVING hope and his kingdom is a real kingdom that is not of this world. It is from above, and I have been born from above! Because of Him I am not of this world and everything I see as I look around this temporal realm has been corrupted...corrupted by an evil, maniacal Barabbus-like fallen angel. So if this world now says we don't want you, we want Barabbus, then I rejoice! For if they rejected our master, they will reject us too! No servant is greater than his master!

So I wrap my arms around the cross, and I clench my hands around the horns of the altar and I dig my knees into the soil of the Holy ground that he has invited me to stand on through the blood sacrifice of his son. As Jesus set his heart fully on the joy before him, I follow in his footsteps with every ounce of strength I have within me...and when my strength has run dry and His grace and power and comfort come pouring in, I know that he is good and I have the very rare opportunity in eternity's history to walk by faith and know him...really, really know him...through every joy and triumph and every heart-crushing defeat. He absorbed it all at the cross and he absorbs it all right now.