Big Life Little Life - Mark 15:1-15 Series

Mark 15:1 Very early in the morning, the chief priests, with the elders, the teachers of the law and the whole Sanhedrin, reached a decision. They bound Jesus, led him away and handed him over to Pilate. 2 "Are you the king of the Jews?" asked Pilate. "Yes, it is as you say," Jesus re-plied. 3 The chief priests accused him of many things. 4 So again Pilate asked him, "Aren't you going to answer? See how many things they are accusing you of." 5 But Jesus still made no re-ply, and Pilate was amazed. 6 Now it was the custom at the Feast to release a prisoner whom the people requested. 7 A man called Barabbas was in prison with the insurrectionists who had committed murder in the uprising. 8 The crowd came up and asked Pilate to do for them what he usually did. 9 "Do you want me to release to you the king of the Jews?" asked Pilate, 10 knowing it was out of envy that the chief priests had handed Jesus over to him. 11 But the chief priests stirred up the crowd to have Pilate release Barabbas instead. 12 "What shall I do, then, with the one you call the king of the Jews?" Pilate asked them. 13 "Crucify him!" they shouted. 14 "Why? What crime has he committed?" asked Pilate. But they shouted all the louder, "Cru-cify him!" 15 Wanting to satisfy the crowd, Pilate released Barabbas to them. He had Jesus flogged, and handed him over to be crucified.

Introduction: Always Barabbas

When the Jews were given the choice between Barabbas and Jesus, the unanimous, enthusi-astic decision was Barabbas. If that trial would have happened 1000 years later in a different place in a different culture, they still would have picked Barabbas. If it happened in our day, same result. Why? What is it about the natural human heart that prefers someone like Barabbas to Jesus?

If we don’t know the answer to that question, we’ll miss one of the most important messages of the whole book of Mark. And when it comes to a choice, we’ll make the wrong decision too. Today we’re going to see why the crowd chose Barabbas and what the implications are for us.

Big Life Little Life

Last time we finished ch.14 which is a side-by-side comparison of the trials of Jesus and Pe-ter. Jesus was confronted by false witnesses and made a true confession. Peter was confronted by true witnesses and made a false confession. Jesus faced the most powerful officials in the nation and stood firm. Peter was questioned by a lowly slave girl and collapsed. Jesus remained silent and refused defend himself. Peter defended himself with curses and swearing. Everything happened exactly the way Jesus had predicted. Everything happened exactly the opposite of the way Peter predicted. And here’s the most crucial difference: Everything Peter did was to preserve his life while Jesus was giving up his life.

That’s that key principle from chapter 8.

Mark 8:35 For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me and for the gospel will save it.

When Jesus talks about losing your life to save it and saving your life to lose it, he’s talking about two lives, one we should be willing to lose and one we must save. The life we should be willing to lose is this temporal, earthly life. The life we need to make sure we never put at risk is eternal life.

So for shorthand, let’s call them big life and little life. Big life is all that God offers us; little life is all the stuff that will all be gone the minute we die. Little life is this world; big life is the kingdom of God. And the whole issue with following Jesus is the question of which life you pur-sue. You have to forfeit one to secure the other.

Now let’s take a look at how that principle plays out in the trial before Pilate (ch.15).

Forfeiting the King

Given to the Gentiles

In verse 1 Mark uses a lot of extra verbiage.

Mark 15:1 Very early in the morning, the chief priests, with the elders, the teachers of the law and the whole Sanhedrin, reached a decision.

Okay, big confab, reached a decision—what was it?

1 … They bound Jesus … led him away (Literally “carried him away”) … and handed him over

Made a decision, tied him up, carried him off, handed him over, to whom? Spit it out Mark.

… handed him over to … Pilate.

What? The Jews turned a matter of great importance over to a Gentile court? How often does the Supreme Court of an occupied nation say, “You know what… , instead of handling this our-selves, why don’t we go beg our enemies who are oppressing us to make a ruling for us?” Why on earth would they do that? Strange as it was, it was a fulfillment of Jesus’ prophecy.