October 28
October 28
Jesus was willing to suffer injustice, mockery, and rejection so that we might experience eternal acceptance.
My daughter had gone to a roller-skating party with a group of her school friends. She had gotten a ride there but would need a ride home, so we told her to call us when she was ready, and we would pick her up. When she eventually called, she asked us not to come in but to stay in the car in the parking lot, and she would come and find us. We knew what was happening. She didn’t want to be seen with us. We knew this was typical teenager stuff, but I would be lying to you if I told you it didn’t hurt. It is hurtful when someone you love is embarrassed to be identified with you.
God designed us to be social beings, so we hunger for acceptance. We are made for community with other human beings. We all have hearts that cry out for love. None of us enjoys rejection. None of us feels good about being mocked or being the outsider. Isaiah 53 prophesied that Jesus would be despised and rejected. Being fully human, having feelings and desires like you and I have, means that this was painful for Jesus, as it is for us. But Jesus was willing. He knew what he had come to do, and he was willing to suffer so that sin would be defeated and we would be eternally reconciled to God. Luke 23:18–25 records one of those rejection scenes in the life of Jesus:
They all cried out together, “Away with this man, and release to us Barabbas”—a man who had been thrown into prison for an insurrection started in the city and for murder. Pilate addressed them once more, desiring to release Jesus, but they kept shouting, “Crucify, crucify him!” A third time he said to them, “Why, what evil has he done? I have found in him no guilt deserving death. I will therefore punish and release him.” But they were urgent, demanding with loud cries that he should be crucified. And their voices prevailed. So Pilate decided that their demand should be granted. He released the man who had been thrown into prison for insurrection and murder, for whom they asked, but he delivered Jesus over to their will.
This scene is so heart-wrenching that it is hard to wrap your brain around it. Perfect Jesus, free of guilt of any kind, was in the legal hands of Pilate, who found no wrong in him. But the crowd wanted Pilate to convict Jesus and release the insurrectionist murderer Barabbas. Think about it: the crowd chose a violent criminal rather than the eternally perfect Son of God.
This moment of public rejection was not a failure of God’s plan. No, it was God’s plan, prophesied generations before. It was a necessary step toward the victory of Jesus’s substitutionary death on the cross. Jesus was willing to do everything necessary, no matter how painful, to accomplish his mission of redemption. His rejection was a step toward gaining our eternal acceptance. Today, for each of us, that’s very good news.