Ultimately, Jesus didn’t die because Pilate was weak. He didn’t die because the religious leaders hated Him. He died because you and I are weak and because we have hated Him in our hearts, and because He loves us. We won’t grasp the events of Good Friday unless we stand in Barabbas’ shoes, and find that they fit us.
What story do you live in? What story do you use to make sense of your life?
Maybe your story is that you have been dealt a bad hand in life, or that you are the victim of other people’s actions, or that you would be a hero if others would just give you a chance. Or maybe your story is that you’ve worked hard and figured things out and so you deserve the good life that you currently enjoy. And maybe there’s an element of truth to some of that.
But the Bible tells a fundamentally different story. It tells us that we are all rebels against God, and that when God came to earth, we banded together in cowardice and anger and envy to kill Him. And so the real hero of our story came to save us and deliver us from ourselves. Jesus stood in our place; He took what we deserved. And now that He’s done it, we are free and able to live differently. Our chains have been removed; we are no longer God’s enemies. Life is now ours to live for God’s glory, free from slavery to sin and the crippling fear of what other people think of us.
If you have Jesus, then you are invited to live your life with gleeful freedom, in the light of the greatest, most exciting story imaginable. It changes everything when you live in God’s story, because only there can you be truly free.
— Michael McKinley
Passion: How Christ’s final day changes your every day