Love Unknown

Passage: Matthew 27:16-23

Yesterday at an Ash Wednesday service I sang the hymn, “My Song is Love Unknown”.  One of the verses goes like this:

They rise, and needs will have
My dear Lord made away;
A murderer they saved,
The Prince of life they slay,
Yet cheerful He to suffering goes,
That He His foes from thence might free.

What’s the hymn writer talking about?  A Bible story that was part of my devotions earlier this week.  It’s the story of Barabbas.  Jesus has finally fallen into the hands of his enemies, the religious elite of Jerusalem.  They have handed him over to a Roman court to be tried for capital crimes.  And the Roman governor, Pontius Pilate, senses something’s up.  He doesn’t find that this Jesus is guilty of much of anything, except ruffling the feathers of his very reactive subjects.  But they are so insistent, that finally Pilate gives them a choice.  Every year at about this time Pilate made a habit of releasing a Jewish prisoner – as a kind of good will gesture.  So Pilate hauls a guy named Barabbas out of jail.  He’s a convicted murderer and terrorist.  Pilate stands Jesus and Barabbas side by side.  He says, “Okay, here’s the deal.  You get to set one guy free.  On podium A you have Barabbas – he’s killed a bunch of people; he’ll probably kill again; plus he’s pretty ugly – look at that face.  On podium B you have Jesus.  Never hurt anyone; mild-mannered – look, he’s just standing there.  So, what’ll it be.”  Everyone on the stage except Jesus is shocked to hear the crowd shout, as with one voice, “Barabbas!”  Barabbas stops jeering and making lewd gestures, and raises his hands as if he’s just won the lottery.  Which he kind of has.  Jesus is quiet and resolute.  This is what he came here for.  To take the place of a murderer.  Of a race of murderers.

But what about Barabbas?  We don’t know.  Does he leave the stage with murder in his heart?  Or, having been given a new life, does he commit to living a new way? It seems awfully irresponsible to set a guy like that free.

Isn’t this what Jesus does for us?  Though we all have murder in our hearts, he sets us free.  And there’s no guarantee that we won’t go out and keep being murderers; thieves; liars. 

Maybe, having experienced this love previously unknown, Barabbas loses his taste for murder.  Maybe he disappears into the crowd intent on slaking his thirst for blood.  But then when the opportunity arises, he discovers that his thirst is gone.  And that it has been replaced with a different kind of desire.  A desire not to end life but to preserve it.  A desire not to take life but to give it.  Maybe this is what will happen to you and me, too.  That having experienced this love that gives its life for ours, we’ll start living a new kind of life.  We who have received the gift of life will learn to give it in return. 

My song is love unknown,
My Savior’s love to me;
Love to the loveless shown,
That they might lovely be.
O who am I, that for my sake
My Lord should take, frail flesh and die?