As we prepare for the big game tomorrow with the Oklahoma Sooners, I want to congratulate the Baylor Women’s Volleyball team (11-3, 1-0) who recently outmatched Texas Tech in Waco last Wednesday evening. The team faces TCU on Saturday at 2:00pm in Ft. Worth.
Rather than write a typical sports-related column this week, I wanted to share something that has been on my heart. Throughout my life, I have known very little about the biblical character Barabbas, the prisoner who stood in judgement with Jesus before the Roman governor Pontius Pilate and an angry mob of Jewish leaders. I just know I despised him. The bible describes him to be a murderer and a rebel. And, he was the guilty criminal who Pilate chose to set free instead of Jesus due to a religious tradition and pleas from the hate-filled public crowd. Oh yeah, I didn’t like this dude at all. Yet, despite my dislike for him, I have been curious about this man and how the decision to set him free is relevant in my faith. As I began to examine the scriptures, the more I realized the decision to let Barabbas go free and deliver Jesus to the crucifix actually provided a glimpse at my own salvation.
Through Barabbas, I am reminded of my own guilt and the arresting grace of Jesus, and it is His acceptance and embrace of the cross through which I am set free. So as Pilate releases Barabbas the guilty, and sentences to death Jesus the innocent, I am able to see a picture of my own release to freedom effected by the cross through faith.
The more I understand the depths of my sin, the more I understand that “I am Barabbas.” I am the one so clearly guilty and deserving of condemnation but set free because of the willing substitution of the Son of God in my place.
Thank you for allowing me to express my thoughts.
Sic ’em!
Walter Abercrombie
Executive Director, Baylor “B” Association
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Great post. We are all Barabbas.
Thank you, Paul. Hope all is well in your world.
Walter, I so appreciate you for using this platform to remind us all that, apart from Christ, we are all guilty. We are all responsible for putting Jesus on that cross. And for us, 100 years from now, it won’t matter what our position was in this world. It won’t matter how wealthy, or how poor, we were on this earth. The only thing that will matter is what we did with Jesus, when He stood at our heart’s door and knocked.
God bless you, friend.
Joe, well said, my friend. Thank you for taking the time to read my piece and for sharing your wise and thoughtful response. – WA
Superb testimony, Walter.
Robert, thank you for your feedback. Sic ’em! – WA