Let’s play Jeopardy this morning. I’ll be Alex, you can be the contestants. The category is institutions. The answer is: The following people all spent time in this kind of institution: the prophet Jeremiah; Al Capone; the apostle Paul; Marion Barry; Bugsy Siegel; Nelson Mandela; John Dillinger; John the Baptist; John Bunyan (author of Pilgrim’s Progress); Adolf Hitler; Martin Luther; Martin Luther King; Mohandas Gandhi; Adoniram Judson (pioneer missionary to Burma); and last, but not least, Mike Tyson. That’s the answer. What is the question?
The question is, “What is jail?” Every one of the people I have mentioned, and a whole lot more that I did not, did the crime and paid the time. Make your own list; make it long or short. You may know people personally who could be on it. You may belong on the list yourself, one of those youthful indiscretion things. Or you may be among those who thought of it as a badge of honor to have been locked up during the civil rights movement or the Vietnam War days!
A great many people have seen the inside of a jail cell. Most of them got out after a while. Just being jailed is no particular distinction; and even being freed is nothing special. What matters is whether the prisoners were merely released or whether they were redeemed. Whether they went to jail, served their time, got out, and disappeared into nowhere; or whether something happened during their confinement that altered their lives and brought them into line with God’s purpose.
Anybody can go to jail and accept the consequences of what he has done and then get out. Sometimes sentences are even cut short. But do not confuse being released from consequences with real freedom. Do not mix up just getting off with genuine freedom. They are not the same things. Not everyone moves through prison into productivity. Some come out unchanged; some become hardened and more criminal than ever before; and some turn their lives in a whole new direction. What makes the difference?
Jesus announced at the beginning of His ministry that His agenda was to set the prisoners free. My task this morning is to show you that Jesus Christ gives not just shortened sentences, but rebuilt lives. Not just release, but redemption. Not just release from consequences, but freedom for a whole new life.
Barabbas was a thief, a murderer, and a rebel. There is no dispute about that. He had stolen, he had taken lives, he had participated in a revolt against the government. He had broken the law, so he was in jail. Do the crime, pay the time. Likely the next few days would see him executed, for Rome had little patience with these petty criminals. Barabbas was as good as dead.
Except that his name came to the mind of the governor at a crucial moment. Pilate, trying to find some way to slake the crowd’s bloodlust, offered to release either Jesus, the so-called king of the Jews, or Barabbas, the hard-boiled criminal. He thought that when the crowd had a choice between the teacher of Galilee and the murderer of many, they would choose Jesus and send Barabbas down the slippery slope. But they did not. They made a horrible choice. Like many of us, hell-bent on a course that they knew was destructive, they just skidded farther down into oblivion, crying out, “Give us Barabbas, crucify Jesus.” “Give us Barabbas; as for Jesus, crucify!”
I can imagine filthy old Barabbas, who must have known that he had nothing to look forward to but the searing tear of nails in his hands and feet, suddenly kicked out of his gloomy cell into the light of day. I can imagine his stunned surprise when the guards cut off his shackles and gave him a rude shove out the prison gate. I can almost hear his astonished cackle as he found his feet and rushed off to the city’s slums to disappear, lest the governor change his mind. I can imagine all these things, but I do not know them. I do not know anything about Barabbas, and neither does anyone else, for he completely disappeared from the pages of history. He absolutely vanished. Nothing is known about him. That makes me suspect that he did nothing with his release; that makes me believe that his life was not changed at all. The very silence about Barabbas after this moment makes me suspect that all he got was release, and not redemption. All he got was release from the consequences of his crime, but he did not get the real prize, genuine freedom. He did not get redemption. He did not get a new life.
Remember, you may get release from the consequences of wrong choices. Lots of folks get a reprieve from the penalty of their mistakes. But do not confuse that with getting a new life. Do not confuse a shortened sentence with a rebuilt life. Jesus Christ gives not so much shortened sentences as He gives rebuilt lives. And there is a distinct difference.
I
One thing that Christ does for us is to redeem us past the consequences of what we do to ourselves? Jesus Christ is able to take us beyond the imprisonment we bring on ourselves. You and I may have made a mess of things, but Christ is able to take that mess, and turn it into something beautiful for the Kingdom. Now He may not always release us from the consequences of our mistakes, but He will give us genuine freedom. He will give us redemption rather than simply release.
Barabbas broke Rome’s laws. They caught him, tried him, and sentenced him. It’s very simple. Break the law and you will suffer the consequences.
You and I break God’s laws. And when we do, things catch up with us and we pay the price. Break God’s law and suffer the consequences. It’s very simple. Few there are who avoid it. As someone has said, it’s not so much that we break God’s laws as it is that they break us! Step off the church tower up there, feeling that you can ignore the law of gravity, and, when you land, it is not that you have broken the law of gravity; it is that it has broken you!
Ignore the way God wants us to care for our bodies, and we suffer the consequences. Drink yourself to oblivion, and you will lose brain cells, you will destroy your liver, you will reap the consequences. Smoke if you wish; smoke like a North Carolina deacon – quick puffs out on the church steps between Sunday School and worship – and you will suffer the consequences of scarred lungs and constricted blood vessels. Eat as you desire; eat like a Baptist preacher in a chicken packing plant. And you will reap the consequences in your cholesterol count and the loss of your boyish figure.
But now suppose you decide to pray for and to work for release from those habits. That can happen. You can be freed from those things. You may get your release from the habit; but it is very unlikely that you will no longer suffer the consequences of your mistakes. The damage will have been done. The stress on your health will not be reversed. However, you can still have a new life! You can have redemption. Jesus Christ may not always release us from the consequences of what we have done to ourselves. But He will give us an empowering redemption for a new life.
I want to tell you about a man who lives only a few blocks away. He has a very checkered past. As a young man he was an alcoholic and a drug abuser. He punished his body beyond any reasonable hope of rehabilitation. Because his habits took him over, he began not only to use drugs, but also to sell them. He was very good at it, too. He had that salesman’s personality that makes you want what he has to offer. One night, however, he sold to the wrong buyer, or maybe we should say to the right buyer, an undercover police officer. And so this young man went off to jail, sentenced for a very long time, on felony charges.
I don’t have all the details, but this much I can tell you: some of God’s people had never stopped praying for this young man, and they didn’t stop now. They prayed, they visited, they witnessed, they did all they knew to do. Their prayers were answered. The day came when he professed faith in Christ and began to make his way back from the abyss. Now he still had time to serve, but while he was in prison he used the time to study both law and theology. When he came out of prison, he went on and completed a university degree, a seminary degree, a doctoral degree, and a law degree, all in an amazingly short time. Today this man is the pastor of a neighboring church; and he is a one-man crusade against everything that draws our children into alcohol, tobacco, and drugs. Yesterday he was a wreck; today he is a powerhouse! Yesterday he was in prison; today he is truly free, even though his body still bears the marks of abuse, and even though his felony conviction bars him from certain privileges. Yet he is free, because Jesus Christ is able to redeem the most broken of lives and turn them into something beautiful for the Kingdom. Jesus Christ is able to do more than to release us from the consequences of our actions; He is able to redeem us to new life.
Barabbas got release; too bad he didn’t stick around for redemption. Too bad, because Jesus Christ can redeem us beyond the consequences of what we do to ourselves.
II
But there is something else. Jesus Christ can also redeem us from whatever happens to us. It’s not only that Christ can bring us back from what we do to ourselves; He is also able to bring us back from what just happens to us, back from the what others do to us. Sometimes our lives run afoul of things we did not choose, and they take us over for a while. But Jesus Christ can redeem us past the consequences of what happens to us.
Many Bible students think that Barabbas was a member of one of the many political protest groups fighting Rome. We think he may have been one of the Zealots, who took up arms against Rome, hiding out in the wilderness, struggling against the injustice and the cruelty of this foreign regime. If this is right, then you could see Barabbas as just an ordinary person caught up in a circumstance not of his own choosing. Maybe Barabbas was just a very small cog in a very large wheel; not a ringleader, not a rebel captain, just an ordinary guy trying to make his voice heard. He just happened to be the one they caught. That’s possible. He just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. That happens, doesn’t it; in the wrong place at the wrong time, but your life is changed in an instant. The issue is, however, when that happens, whether you stay in prison or whether you get power. Whether your life just stops, or whether your life goes on with power and freedom.
Jesus Christ is able to take the circumstances of things that happen to us, and is able to make of them a vessel for an empowered life. Jesus Christ is able to redeem us from the prison of the things that happen to us.
For example, I know people who have gone through messy divorces. Lots of pain. But out of the debris of that divorce Christ has raised up somebody with insight, who can counsel others in the same circumstance. I’ve seen people caught up in divorce, but redeemed to help others save their families.
I know people who have suffered devastating diseases and disfiguring surgery. They’ve suffered long and hard in medical treatments. You would understand it if they just decided to swallow the consequences and move to the sidelines to sit out the rest of their lives. But, no, because of Christ, I have seen people like that become compassionate caregivers. In this church today, if you have cancer, I know somebody I can send to you, somebody who has been through it and understands, and can counsel you. If you are a woman facing a mastectomy, I know someone I can send you, someone who has been through it, someone who can help. Why? Because of Christ, who is able to take us past what happens to us, and, even though the consequences are still there, He is able to redeem us and make something beautiful for the Kingdom.
I suspect most of you followed the news stories about the train and truck crash in Illinois this week. You may have seen the story about two young girls, sisters, who were killed. A family’s life was forever changed by what happened to them in that instant. Well, one of you called my attention this week to that family’s testimony. It seems that this week the parents were interviewed on a morning news program. They asked for this interview because, in previous interviews, editors had cut off part of what they had to say about the death of their daughters. These parents wanted the nation to hear their witness; they wanted us all to know that, first, the only reason they could go on, after the death of their children, was because they had faith in Christ; and, second, they wanted America to know that because of their faith, they were prepared to forgive that truck driver!
Now these are free people! These are redeemed souls! Suffering profoundly the consequences of what has happened to them, and that’s not going to be changed. Their daughters are gone; but nonetheless free to live in victory, free to forgive, free to proclaim their Christ. I would predict that their witness and their love will somehow redeem this truck driver, if indeed he is guilty of negligence. Yes, he must suffer the consequences. Yes, he needs to be punished. But, I tell you, if this family is able to forgive him, then I see him being redeemed. I see him becoming empowered and made whole. Time will tell. But this I know: that Jesus Christ is able to redeem us from whatever has happened to us. The consequences may stick around; but if the Son makes us free, we shall be free indeed.
III
But there is still one more dimension of this that I must address. There is another truth here that I must lift up. And that is that Jesus Christ is able to release us and to redeem us from the most significant consequences of all. There is something else from which He can both redeem and release us.
I am speaking of eternal consequences. I am speaking of salvation. I am speaking of what Jesus Christ can do to save us from consequences that reach out well beyond this life and extend into eternity. Jesus Christ is able not only to redeem us from what we do to ourselves, and not only from what happens to us by others’ actions; He is also able to save us from the awesome consequences of sin and separation from God.
We may not say much about heaven and hell; we may not have talked a whole lot about eternal life and eternal death. I confess that I do not know too much about either the furniture of heaven or the temperature of hell. But this I know: that to be apart from God for eternity is the unspeakable consequence of sin. That to refuse God’s offer of salvation in Christ Jesus brings with it results too devastating to risk. This I know, that all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. This thing called sin strikes a wall of separation between me and my God, and unless somebody tears down that wall, I cannot cross it. This I know, that unless someone helps me, I am lost. And this, too, I know, that if the cross means anything at all, it means that in Jesus Christ God has taken into Himself the penalty we should carry. God has paid the price we should pay. God has borne the suffering we should suffer. God has absorbed the consequences of all our sin.
This I know, that in the mystery of the death of the very Son of God my heart is crucified, my sin is taken away, my lips cleansed, and my life purged. Because of the cross, I am released. I should spend eternity separated from my God. Something foolish in me chose that. But now, because of Christ, I am released. And more than released. I am redeemed. I am made free. I am given power to become a child of God.
Oh, Barabbas, Barabbas. You ran away into the night, thinking you were free. You were not free. You were only released, but not redeemed. Would that you could have stayed to see your brother thief cry out, “We are getting what we deserve for our deeds, but this man has done nothing wrong. Lord, remember me when you come into your Kingdom.” Oh, Barabbas, would that you could have received so great a redemption. Would that you had known not just a moment of giddy flight, but a confidence that your very soul would be saved! The Cross has done just that! Jesus Christ has taken the consequences we should suffer, and has turned His own suffering into love’s redemptive work. For us. For us.
Toward the end of the First World War, a pastor learned about the misery of the people of Germany, and wanted to do something to relieve their suffering. He called upon the young people of his denomination to give clothing and blankets for the people of the enemy nation. They responded with such love and generosity that the little Boston warehouse where these things were to be baled and shipped was soon overwhelmed. And the money to ship the clothes was far too little. No one had expected such a great outpouring of love. How would they ever pay the cost of moving such a mountain of clothing overseas? The owner of the shipping line was not a Christian, but when he saw what Christ’s people were doing for those considered the enemy, he ordered his ship loaded, then brought to the pastor the long invoice with many thousands of dollars in charges, and, in a bold hand, wrote across the face of the bill, “Paid in full”.
Paid in full. Once we were God’s enemies, but now we have been brought near by the blood of His cross. Paid in full. Love’s gift brings love’s gift.
“Jesus paid it all; all to Him we owe. Sin had left a crimson stain. He washed it white as snow.”
All through this season we have been singing, “Behold how many thousands still are dying, bound in the darksome prison house of sin, with none to tell them of the Savior’s dying or of the life He came for them to win.” But now, maybe, for you, the day come when, released and redeemed, committed to a witness in this world, you can sing with triumph, “Publish glad tidings, tidings of peace; tidings of Jesus, redemption and release.”
