Week 39: Day 1

Intro: Hello, welcome to Orbit. My name’s Beth, I live in Preston and I have a dog called Gus. Orbit is a short reflection to help you put God at the centre of your life. Each weekday this week you will be seeing my face popping up on your screens and we’re going to be diving into the world of Mark together, looking through chapters 15 and 16. On Friday, we have a bonus episode looking at psalm 8.

Bible: We’re going to kick off with reading from Mark 15:7-13

A man called Barabbas was in prison with the insurrectionists who had committed murder in the uprising. The crowd came up and asked Pilate to do for them what he usually did.

“Do you want me to release to you the king of the Jews?” asked Pilate, knowing it was out of self-interest that the chief priests had handed Jesus over to him. But the chief priests stirred up the crowd to have Pilate release Barabbas instead.

“What shall I do, then, with the one you call the king of the Jews?” Pilate asked them.

“Crucify him!” they shouted.

Thoughts: We have launched into Mark with a bang. For a bit of back story, to get us all on the same page, Jesus has been bound up and taken to Pilate, who was kind of like the Boris Johnson of the time.

At the time it was the tradition for one prisoner to be released in trade of another, which is where Barabbas comes into it. Barabbas is released and Jesus is set to be crucified.

Barabbas is a pretty lucky guy. Have you ever watched somebody take the blame for something you’ve done, and you got away with it? Or maybe it’s the other way round. I remember being in Year 2 sat in assembly and as all the teachers were shushing us and getting ready for assembly my friend started talking really loudly and I got the blame. The headmaster pointed me out, I had to walk all the way to the front of the hall and sit against the wall. I remember trying to laugh in all the right places, when it was time to pray I had my hands together and my eyes closed perfectly and I tried to make up for it through the assembly. After assembly finished all the other teachers walked past and each of them had a jab at me until I was finally told off by the headmaster. I took the blame for something I didn’t even do, and my friend got away with it.

What we’ve just read isn’t just Barabbas’ story, but it’s our too. Jesus took the blame for something that we did wrong. I wonder if there is something in your life that fills you with guilt when you think about it, maybe it’s something you do repetitively, or something that when you think about you get that cold but hot feeling, where you can feel the heat rising from your toes and your face feels like its burning. Whether those things are false guilt, or guilt because of something we have done, you are Barabbas, without the murdering part. Jesus has taken your place willingly, he’s taken the blame which means you can have freedom you are completely forgiven by God without any grudges held, or the risk that he may bring up what you’ve done again, and we can have a relationship with God without separation.

Pray:

Action: Sometimes it’s difficult to word things that we feel guilty about. I want to encourage you to write it down, write a letter either to God or to yourself to help you to process what you are feeling, the guilt you might be carrying, or where you might want forgiveness. Pray through the letter and accept the forgiveness that God has for each of us.