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.
Mark 10:33 … the Son of Man will be betrayed to the chief priests and teachers of the law. They will condemn him to death and will hand him over to the Gentiles.
Seemed like a crazy prophecy at the time, but it’s exactly what happened.
We’re about to study something absolutely horrific—the murder of Jesus.
But Mark keeps reminding us that every step of the way, the more evil, wicked, vile people did their worst…
, God’s perfect plan was never bumped even one degree off course.
This fits God’s purposes because by having Jesus tried in both Jewish and Gentile courts…
—courts with different systems, different laws, and different interests, and neither court finds anything against Jesus…
, God was showing the perfect sinlessness of Christ from every angle.
Ceding the Messiah to the Gentiles
So the Jews hand Jesus over to Pilate. Why is that significant? Look at v.2.
1 … They bound Jesus, led him away and handed him over to Pilate. 2 "Are you the king of the Jews?" asked Pilate.
Does that strike you as a little abrupt?
Mark skips past the whole process, the charges, the whole first half of the trial and skips right to this moment where Pilate asks Jesus this question.
And of all the accusations they made, the only one Mark lets us know about is this king of the Jews one.
And if you question whether that’s important to Mark, just read the next several verses where the phrase “king of the Jews” appears a half dozen times.
Mark’s point is that Israel handed their king over to the Gentiles.
Irony
Now, obviously the priests don’t believe Jesus is a real king, and neither does Pilate—or the soldiers. But remember, all through this whole account Mark has been teaching us through irony.
King of the Jews is exactly what Jesus is. When Caiaphas, the high priest accused Jesus of blaspheme, we saw that Caiaphas was the real blasphemer and Jesus was the real high priest. Now Jesus stands before Pilate bound, in chains, under arrest—guess who’s really the sovereign and who’s really a prisoner. Jesus does exactly what he planned, and Pilate is forced to do the opposite of what he wants to do. Jesus is the real king.
Forfeiting the Crown
So for thousands of years the Jewish people had been waiting for their king, the Messiah, who would fulfill all the promises of the Old Testament. God finally gives them that king and they look him up and down and say, “No thanks,” and kick him off to the Gentiles.
Back in ch.12, in the parable of the vineyard, Jesus taught that the kingdom of God would be taken from Israel and given to the Gentiles. And now we see why. Reject the King and you lose the kingdom.
And I think one reason why Mark used so much verbiage in v.1 was to highlight how deliber-ate this was. It wasn’t in the heat of the moment. It wasn’t that they just got caught up in a fren-zy without really thinking it through. This was premeditated, carefully considered, deliberate choice.
He came to his own and his own did not receive him. The stone the builders rejected has be-come the capstone. This section is the account of when those builders rejected the cornerstone of the whole kingdom of God.
The Good Confession
Of all the questions Pilate asks, this is the only one Jesus responds to.
2 “Are you the king of the Jews?”
Jesus’ answer was something the church never forgot. When Paul really wants to get Timo-thy’s attention in making a solemn charge, he invoked this moment with Jesus before Pilate.
1 Timothy 6:13 In the sight of God, who gives life to everything, and of Christ Jesus, who while testifying before Pontius Pilate made the good confession, I charge you ….
Jesus making this confession is right up there with God sustaining all life. This answer is not a small moment.
What was the answer? It’s a bit difficult to translate. We know it’s an affirmative answer be-cause Matthew and Luke both say Jesus’ answer was “yes.” So it’s a yes, but it’s kind of a “Yes, but…” “Yes, I am the king of the Jews but not like you’re thinking.” Jesus is saying, “Right words; wrong meaning.”
Wrong how? We get more detail in John.
John 18:36 Jesus said (to Pilate), "My kingdom is not of this world. If it were, my servants would fight to prevent my arrest by the Jews. But now my kingdom is from another place." 37 … "You are right in saying I am a king. In fact, for this reason I was born, and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth.
Yes, I’m a king, but in the kingdom of God, not in this world. That was the good confes-sion—pointing to the kingdom of God instead of trying to save his life. The Good Silence That was the good confession, but it’s not what amazed Pilate the most. What really amazed him is what Jesus didn’t say. That answer is the last we’ll hear from Jesus.
3 The chief priests accused him of many things. 4 So again Pilate asked him, "Aren't you go-ing to answer? See how many things they are accusing you of." 5 But Jesus still made no reply, and Pilate was amazed.
He was amazed because Jesus wouldn’t defend himself. In Roman law, if you refused to de-fend yourself, you were presumed guilty.
There’s plenty of chatter in the room. The chief priests are going on making their best case, Pilate is asking questions, the witnesses are testifying, but the none of it impressed Pilate. The only amazing element in the whole scene was the silence of Jesus. Only Jesus can captivate every-one and astonish kings by saying nothing. Part of what made the good confession so good was the good silence. His confession of the truth wasn’t diluted by a bunch of self-defense and arguing over lesser issues.
Jesus Chooses Big Life
This is Jesus once again choosing to drink the cup. By refusing to defend himself, Jesus was letting go of his earthly life to testify to the truth about the kingdom of God. He let go of little life in favor of big life.
And that’s an example for us. Don’t think of courtrooms as places of justice. Think of them as opportunities to proclaim the gospel to the authorities.
The Priests on Trial
Now, starting in v.6 we have a rare moment in the gospel where someone besides Jesus takes center stage. We won’t see Jesus do or say anything again until he cries out from the cross all the way down in v.34. Normally, the camera is always trained on Jesus. But it’s important to Mark that we get a really clear view of the people who killed Jesus and why they did it.
Everybody that tries Jesus ends up being the one who’s really on trial. Last time it was the Sanhedrin. They tried Jesus and came up guilty. And they’re indicted again in this passage.
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.
It had nothing to do with justice or blasphemy or any of that—they just hated Jesus because they envied him. Envied what? His relationship with God? No. Was it his perfect moral purity? No. His wisdom? No. The thing Jesus had that they so envied was the one thing about Jesus that really wasn’t all that valuable. His popularity. They coveted that so much it drove them to mur-derous rage.
The Crowd on Trial So the priests are guilty. Next up on trial is the crowd. You’re judged by your judgment of Jesus, so what was their verdict?
Barabbas
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.
Mark is famous for not naming names, but he wants us to know this guy’s name.
I’ll show you why in a minute, but first, let’s look at his rap sheet.
7 A man called Barabbas was in prison with the insurrectionists who had committed murder in the uprising.
This guy was involved with a violent insurrection against Rome.
8 The crowd came up and asked Pilate to do for them what he usually did.
“Hey Pilate—you know that prisoner amnesty thing?
Will you do that again this year?”
9 "Do you want me to release to you the king of the Jews?" asked Pilate, knowing it was out of envy that the chief priests handed Jesus over to him.
He knows Jesus isn’t guilty of anything and this is all just a personal vendetta on the part of the priests. But if Pilate kills Jesus to make the priests happy, is there going to be an uprising? Pi-late had to know that Jesus had been incredibly popular. So before putting him to death, Pilate wants to feel out the crowd.
And at this point the reader of Mark would say, “Oh, of course the crowd will pick Jesus. They’ve been Jesus’ fans all through the book. So you expect them to shout, “Yes, release Je-sus!” But they don’t—why not?
Release Barabbas
11 But the chief priests stirred up the crowd to have Pilate release Barabbas instead.
They were never able to win the crowds over before, but now, with Jesus standing up there in chains, all beaten up, weak, seemingly defeated, now they’re able to do it. And they do it not by bad mouthing Jesus, but by pointing them to a better alternative—Barabbas. Barabbas was a popu-lar figure because he was a perfect fit for the kind of deliverer the people wanted. A strong, vio-lent, military leader who could raise a resistance, beat the odds, and return Israel to their glory days of independence.
So it was the priests behind this. But the crowd is culpable too. They shouldn’t have been so easily stirred up.
And it takes courage to resist the pressure of strong, insistent leaders. It takes some back-bone—especially when everyone else is going along with them. But hard or not, God holds us re-sponsible to follow his way regardless of the pressure.
And the crowd isn’t just a little bit culpable. They turn absolutely bloodthirsty.
12 "What shall I do, then, with the one you call the king of the Jews?" Pilate asked them. 13 "Crucify him!" they shouted.
The crowd could have said, “We don’t care, as long as you give us Barabbas.” Or they could have said, “Give him a whipping and let him go.” But instead they call for the most savage, de-humanizing, tortuous, humiliating death possible. They sound like a bunch of crazed, demonized monsters.
Sometimes people think of the “common people” as being generally good. That’s the assump-tion behind Marxism—the regular, working class common folk, poor people, the oppressed—their the good guys. Not true. They’re just as bent and broken as the people in power. And if you get them into a mob where they finally have some power, you’ll see it.
And the Jews kind of give themselves away here. They brought Jesus under the pretense that they were concerned for Rome. “Oh, Pilate, we’re so loyal to Rome that we just have to turn Jesus in, because he’s disloyal to Rome.” Then the first chance they get they say, “Yeah, release the guy who has already led a rebellion against Rome!”
The truth is, the reason they’re accusing Jesus of rebelling against Rome is that they were mad at him for not rebelling against Rome. The Jews wanted Jesus to be a political, military mes-siah, and Jesus refused to be that so they handed him over to Pilate on the charges of being a polit-ical, military messiah.
Pick Your Messiah
So the people of Israel get a clear choice. And that’s where the name Barabbas comes in. Bar (son of) Abba (father). Bar-Abbas means son of abba father. This is immediately after Jesus had just testified that he was the Son of God before the Sanhedrin. And he called God Abba, Father in Gethsemane.
And Barabbas was this guy’s last name. Some reliable manuscripts tell us his first name was Jesus.
So Mark is setting this up as a clear choice between two possible Messiahs. Take your pick: Jesus, son of an earthly abba, or Jesus who calls God Abba. Mark wants us to understand that Bar-abbas was an alternative messiah.
We’re about to vote for who we want as our Governor. These people got to cast their vote on which candidate would be their savior. The hate your enemy, macho Jesus who will take it to Rome right now? Definitely the best candidate if you’re focused on this little life. Or the love your enemy, meek Jesus who talks about a spiritual kingdom? Big life.
The choice is unanimous, by acclamation, “Give us Barabbas.” That was their choice, and they followed the violent, insurrectionist… , Barabbas type deliverers for the next few decades un-til finally came in 70 AD and decimated the Jewish population in a bloodbath.
Choosing Little Life
That’s what happens when you choose little life over big life. You get death. He who wants to save his little life will lose it. But whoever loses his little life for me and the gospel will get big life.
Pilate on Trial
The Sanhedrin, guilty. The Jewish population, guilty. Next up—Pilate.
What to Do with the King of the Jews?
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.
That should have been the end of it. He should have said, “I’m not going to kill an innocent man because you’re envious. Get lost.”
Some say, “But at least Pilate was trying to release Jesus.” No he wasn’t. Pilate had full au-thority to release Jesus any time he wanted.
But he wants to please to crowd, so he tries the amnesty thing and they choose Barabbas. But Pilate’s attention is still fixed on Jesus. He doesn’t even seem to care about Barabbas.
12 "What shall I do, then, with the one you call the king of the Jews?" Pilate asked them.
That is a stupid question to ask a rabble mob. Just do your job, Pilate. Don’t ask the crowd. If you’re just going to turn the decision over to the mob, why even have lawcourts?
Crucify!
But he puts it to the crowd, and their response is shocking.
13 "Crucify him!" they shouted.
Why Crucifixion?
And Pilate’s response is, “Why?” Why would the Jews want one of their own crucified by the Romans? The normal method for execution in Rome was beheading. Not even all insurrectionists were crucified. They might be banished to an island or thrown to the lions.
Crucifixion was only used in extreme cases when they wanted to send a message and terrify the population. So they would strip him naked, torture him in the most brutal, bloody ways, and hang him on a pole along a major road. And they would leave the body up there for vultures and other animals to pick at. And it would be such a gruesome, horrific, traumatizing thing to see that the general population would be terrified to ever do what that guy did.
So why did the Jews want Jesus crucified? To send a message? That was probably the chief priests’ motive. Jesus had embarrassed them, defied their authority, showed them up, and, worst of all, took from them the thing they prized most—popularity.
Another possibility is they wanted Jesus to be cursed by God.
Deuteronomy 21:23 … anyone who is hung on a tree is under God's curse.
They didn’t just want Jesus rejected by the people; they wanted him repudiated by God. And it proved to be an effective strategy for preventing Jews from following Jesus going forward.
1 Corinthians 1:23 We preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Jews.
What Crime?
So they want Jesus crucified. And Pilate is baffled.
13 "Crucify him!" they shouted. 14 "Why? What crime has he committed?" asked Pilate.
Clearly Pilate is not convinced by any of their accusations, including the king of the Jews one. The Jews are going to have to come up with a more persuasive argument. So here it comes:
14 "Why? What crime has he committed?" asked Pilate. But they shouted all the louder, "Cru-cify him!"
You can always tell when someone doesn’t have a good argument—they just get louder.
Okay, here’s the big test for Pilate. God gave him his position so he would carry out justice—punish the guilty and protect the innocent. That’s his God-given role and that’s what the Roman government was paying him for as well. But he was afraid of an uprising because that could threaten his job, so he decided to appease the crowd.
Condemning and Acquitting
15 Wanting to satisfy the crowd, Pilate released Barabbas to them. He had Jesus flogged, and handed him over to be crucified.
Proverbs 17:15 Acquitting the guilty and condemning the innocent-- the LORD detests them both.
The LORD hates them both and Pilate did them both in one trial.
It’s amazing how all the parties involved twist themselves up in trying to deal with Jesus. The governor asks to be governed by the Jews. “Tell me what to do.” And the Jews say, “Oh no. Please. You go ahead and crucify one of our own.” Everyone is so intent on perpetrating this evil, they’re all doing the opposite of what they normally did.
Pilate is driven by his subjects. The crowd is driven by the chief priests. And the priests are driven by envy. Only Jesus stands unharried, unpressured, in full command of everything he says and does in carrying out the Father’s will.
Dangerous Weakness
In the movies, the villains are always super-powerful. But in real life, the most dangerous vil-lains are weak men in positions of power. They have big smiles and zero spine. They get elected because they’re good at pleasing everybody. But once they’re in power, they’re incredibly danger-ous because they’ll go wherever the mob pushes them.
This happens a lot in churches. If the crowd doesn’t get what they want, they start leaving, which puts the pastor’s job at risk. If they want less about repentance and more funny stories, that’s what they get. I think some congregations are going to answer on Judgment Day for the fact that those pastors had jobs and the faithful pastors didn’t because of the lack of demand for faith-ful preaching. But the church leaders with no backbone will also be held responsible on Judgment Day because they’re just like Pilate.
Absolution
Why does Pilate try so hard to give Jesus amnesty? It’s because he’s not trying to give Jesus amnesty; he’s trying to give himself amnesty.
Matthew 27:24 … Pilate took water and washed his hands in front of the crowd. "I am inno-cent of this man's blood," he said. "It is your responsibility!"
But when you’re guilty, protests of innocence only make you more guilty. The only path to getting that stain out of your soul begins with confessing your guilt, not pretending your hands are clean.
Universal Guilt
Who deserve the blame for killing Jesus? Everyone. It’s fashionable for scholars to accuse the gospel writers of anti-semitism. They say the gospels go out of their way to make the Jews the ones guilty of killing Jesus, and they paint Pilate in a favorable light.
That is bizarre to me. If it’s antisemitic to point out the rebellion of the Jews against God, then the entire Old Testament is antisemitic.
Everyone Guilty
It’s ridiculous to say they’re antisemitic, and it’s equally ridiculous to say they portrayed Pi-late in a favorable light. Look again at what he does to a man he knows is innocent.
15 Wanting to satisfy the crowd, Pilate released Barabbas to them. He had Jesus flogged, and handed him over to be crucified.
I’ll refrain from the gruesome detail of flogging and crucifixion, but I will say the Roman flogging was a lot more savage than the Jewish 39 lashes. The Romans had no limit, and the scourging lacerated and stripped the flesh, often exposing bones and leaving entrails hanging out. A lot of men died during the flogging.
To do that to an innocent man is unforgiveable. And not just the flogging, but after that, crucifixion, which was designed not only to be even worse torture, but with the most degrading humiliation. It was designed to dehumanize the person and create not only the most extreme physical pain but also emotional anguish and completely crush the person’s spirit.
Pilate was a monster and the gospels portray him as monster. “But doesn’t verse 5 paint him in a favorable light, when he was amazed at Jesus?” No. All through the book of Mark, amaze-ment at Jesus is always portrayed as an inadequate response. His amazement should have led him further. But instead he had Jesus crucified and went on his merry way. He walked right past the glimmers of light that could have saved him from eternal ruin.
And next time we’ll see that the Roman soldiers are monsters too. Every single character in this story is to blame for Jesus’ death—the Jewish leadership, the crowd, Pilate, the soldiers, Ju-das, Peter, the disciples. Who’s guilty of killing Jesus? Mankind. Does the Bible give special em-phasis on the Jews’ role? Of course it does—not because they were the only ones guilty, but be-cause their guilt was the most theologically significant. But no one escapes blame.
Little Life Big Life
And it’s worth noting that the sins that led to the murder of Jesus were mostly what we would consider small sins. For Judas it was the simple love of money. Peter—fear of embarrass-ment. The chief priests—envy. Pilate—desire for job security. For the crowd it was the desire to make Israel great again.
None of those sound like big, scandalous sins. But they all have one thing in common: prefer-ring little life over big life.
There’s nothing wrong with wanting job security, but when you put that above justice, you’ve chosen little life over big life.
There’s nothing wrong with patriotism and wanting Israel to be independent. But when they choose the tough, macho messiah who could put the nation of Israel on top here and now rather than wait for Jesus to bring about eternal glory for Israel, that’s little life over big life.
Peter couldn’t stand the thought of a stranger looking down on him (especially a member of the opposite sex). Looking good in the moment meant more than honoring the King of kings. Lit-tle, tiny life over big life.
The chief priests—they wanted the fame and influence Jesus had more than they wanted fa-vor in the eyes of God. Little life over big life.
The desires in themselves aren’t sinful. It’s fine to desire the components of this little life. But when that rises above the desire for big life, it becomes as evil and wicked and dark as the human heart can get.
Conclusion: The Reason Jesus Had to Die
You can see why most of the time Mark focuses on Jesus instead of people, because focusing on sinful humanity can get really depressing. So let’s close by turning our attention back to Jesus.
All through this message I’ve been using “big life” and “little life” as shorthand for what Je-sus taught in Mark 8.
Mark 8:35 Whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me and for the gospel will save it.
While everyone around him was grasping after little life, Jesus was laying his little life down. Peter had promised Jesus, “Even if I have to die with you I will never disown you,” and all the others said the same. But Jesus knew they would all fail because they hadn’t yet learned what it meant to let go of little life. And that was the very reason why Jesus had to lay down his life.
Peter said, “I’ll die for you Jesus!” And Jesus might have responded, “That’s true, you will end up dying for me. But not until after I die for you.” All this evil we’ve looked at tonight—that was the reason Jesus chose to die.
How many of you have been hurt deeply by people in the church? Me too. No one in the world has ever hurt me have as deeply as people in the church hurt me and my family.
How should we respond to that? By retreated and trying to protect what’s left of our little life? Or by following Jesus’ example.
If you’ve been hurt by the church, Jesus can relate. In this whole crucifixion account, who slanders Jesus the worst? The most vicious, vile repudiation of Christ in the whole ordeal came from the mouth … of Peter. It wouldn’t surprise me if the most excruciating moment of the entire crucifixion was when Jesus had to listen to his chief disciple and close friend curse and swear that he didn’t even know who Jesus was.
You’ve been hurt by the church—that’s nothing new. If you think it’s a sign that the modern church has gone off the rails and is nothing like the early church, remember, it doesn’t get any earlier than Peter. Jesus went through what you went through—treated horribly by the church, by the leadership of the church.
And what did he do? Turn his back? No, he died for them.
What do you do when people in the church stab you in the back? Just overlook it? No, you can’t overlook it. It’s a serious matter.
The way to handle it is like Jesus did. You say, “This is a serious problem, so serious that I’m willing to lay down my life and die if necessary to improve the situation.”
Peter had to learn that not only was it necessary for Jesus to die, but he, Peter, was the reason Jesus had to die. Jesus had to die for sins because even the very best of mankind is hopelessly wicked and in need of a substitute sacrifice to avoid being punished in hell. And now, when we receive eternal life through him—big life, we can afford to lay down our little life for the sake of those who hurt us.
