Much Greater Grace
4 min read
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, “Crucify him!”
15 Wanting to satisfy the crowd, Pilate released Barabbas to them. He had Jesus flogged, and handed him over to be crucified.Mark 15:12-15
Sadly, this text is a perfect example of everything that is wrong with the world. It reflects the human condition and the curse of sin. Justice is sometimes (and maybe often) merely a weapon of politics and power.
The Jewish authorities hated Jesus because He threatened their hegemony. They were so threatened by Him that they conspire to have Him killed in the most shameful and horrific way possible—by public crucifixion as an enemy of the state.
And while they hated Jesus for the truth that He spoke and for threatening their hegemony, they loved the insurrectionist Barabbas because he could be useful as a pawn for their own political agenda.
For his part, Pilate was caught between his own hatred of the Jewish authorities and his need to keep peace in a highly volatile region of the Roman empire. His political sponsor in Rome had been assassinated, and so he could not afford to make any wrong move politically—for example, by having a riot or revolution break out in his jurisdiction.
That is the world that we live in. And if an innocent man is sacrificed for the sake of political expediency, so be it.
But God so loved the world, that He sent His one and only Son to surrender to the completely selfish and senseless evil of the world. The world did to Jesus exactly what is in its nature to do against righteousness and truth.
But in surrendering to the evil of the world, the evil of the world was nullified and snuffed out by the grace of God, which is greater. Much greater.
Evil has no power because God is good and God is love. Praise God. Because Jesus obeyed and surrendered to the cross, we can stand boldly against evil.
Father, Your righteousness reigns even when evil abounds in this world. It is so easy for us to get caught up in the senseless evil of this world. But keep us away from that evil and give us courage to stand against all evil. Empower us to fight against the wrong and to fight for the good. For Your glory. In Jesus’s name. Amen.
