PILATE and BARABBAS

While the Chief High Priest (and the Sanhedrin)
was charging Jesus with blasphemy,
they sought to enlist the help of the Roman governor, Pilate,
in seeking a death penalty
by saying that Jesus was the self-proclaimed King of the Jews.
Perhaps this would cause Pilate to see Him as a threat to his own position.

Because Jesus made no defense when questioned,
Roman law dictated that Pilate would have to pronounce against Him.

Tradition was that on special occasions a prisoner would be released.
This was the time of Passover,
and the crowd that gathered asked Pilate if he was going to do
as his custom was.
Seeing this as an opportunity to release Jesus,
Pilate asked whether they wanted to request Jesus' release.
He knew that it was “out of envy
that the chief priests has handed Jesus over to him.”
(NIV Mark 15:10)

But the chief priests prevailed upon the crowd,
and they requested the release of Barabbas,
convicted of involvement in an insurrection likely against the Roman rule.

The crowd, in reply to Pilate's question of what he should do with Jesus,
unanimously cried “Crucify Him!”
Pilate's question: “”Why? What crime has He committed?”
went unanswered, except for another chorus of “Crucify Him!”

The death sentence procured, Jesus was handed over to be crucified
and Barabbas was released.

The meaning of Barabbas is “Abba's son”.

To ponder:
The Roman governor provided a way for Jesus' release,
but the chief priests prevailed upon the crowd
for Barabbas' release and Jesus' crucifixion.
Thus, Jesus was sentenced to die by His own people
and the Roman governor handed Him over to be crucified.
We are all, Jew and Gentile alike, guilty of Jesus' death on the cross.
The one and only Abba's Son, Jesus, died
so that we could be released from the penalty of our sin;
God provided us with the opportunity to become
“Abba's sons and daughters.”

I wonder if Barabbas recognized and acknowledged his rightful death penalty.
I wonder if he sought to know the One Who died in his place.
And I wonder how he lived the rest of his life.

Twila Charles Leichty, L29

ISAIAH

Chapter 3

God is “emptying” His city, the country in which His people are living,
of the basic necessities and all that they have depended on.
Children, those without knowledge and wisdom, will be in charge.
Confusion and chaos will at the controls.
This is what the people have “earned” through their rebelliousness.
Their defiance, their refusal to acknowledge me,
their choice to be self-directing and meet their needs in ways
that were in opposition to God's directives
has brought them into court.
God is judge and judges first those in positions of authority.
Their lack of God-directed leadership
has allowed His people to wander further and further from Him and His ways.
His people are as prostitutes,
attiring themselves with the things the world has offered as desirable,
seeking to draw others into relationship
devoid of any true value and with only transitory commitment.
Consequences will be visited upon her.

But, those who have sought to worship God and follow His ways
He reassures of His ongoing blessing.


* * * *

ISAIAH

Chapter 4

War will claim many men.
Women will seek to identify themselves through relationship,
while still remaining independent.
God's people, those who have survived, will be cleansed.
God will make His presence known among them,
be their light in the darkness,
shelter them from the heat of the day,
and be their refuge in the storms.

Twila Charles Leichty
03-25-09

* * * * *

ISAIAH

Chapter 5

God prepared a vineyard.
The soil was cleared of stones and cultivated.
It was planted with the choicest vines.
A watchtower was erected and a winepress was hewn out of stone.
He anticipated a crop of good grapes,
but, alas! he was “rewarded” with bad fruit.
He had done all He could have done.

So, He tore down the hedge that kept out those who take without the right to do so.
The garden became a wasteland.
The vines were not pruned; briers and thorns took over.
And there was a drought.

What He wanted and what He got were two different things:
instead of justice, there was war,
instead of righteousness, the distress of evil.

The accumulation of material wealth,
the indulgence of self and disregard for the needs of others,
leads to ruin.
His people, forgetting the One who had created them
and provided them with instructions on living
(that would yield good fruit),
chose to find a way of their own.

Their waywardness was destined to take them into exile.
By choosing not to follow Jehovah,
they were choosing to follow the god of their own making,
one that would lead them further and further away from the blessings
He wanted to bestow upon them.
They were choosing their thinking and logic,
their preferences and feelings as guides in behavior.
Their judgments were producing the odor of decay
and the stench reached God's nostrils!

The judgment of God was visited on His people.
Their self-indulgence, disobedient and rebellious ways,
tore down the walls of God's protection
and provided their enemies easy access.
Their ways led them into captivity.
The light that God had given was but dimly seen;
They were captives by their own choosing.

Twila Charles Leichty
3-25-09

PRESENT IN THE PRESENT

Jesus was present in the present,
whether He was healing a blind beggar,
speaking truth to a rich young ruler,
cleansing the temple,
revealing heart motives to the Pharisees,
answering questions designed to trap Him,
watching those who were depositing their gifts in the treasury,
defending the act of a grateful heart,
eating a meal with his disciples,
knowing His betrayer was there
and had already struck an agreement with the priests,
listening to Peter's declaration of faithfulness,
struggling to align His will with the Father's in the Garden
while His disciples slept,
standing before the Sanhedrin,
hearing the cries of “Crucify Him!” and “We want Barabbas”,
or enduring the weight of our sin and the shame of the cross
until He breathed His last.

Being present in the present was a gift to those about Him.
He involved in the present,
letting go of what had been without regret
and
without dread of what was yet to be.

He had the simple trust of a child in His Father,
a confidence that God Almighty is the great “I AM,”
sufficient in strength to meet all of His needs,
aware of, and unintimidated by, all that was, is, and will be,
and capable of bringing it all together
in a way that will bring Him honor and glory
when the whole story is known.

To ponder:
Because living in the present is such a gift to those around us,
we should learn the “how to” of doing it.
It is choosing not to focus on what was or yet may be;
it is not wishing to be elsewhere or in a different time frame.
To live fully in the present, one must embrace what is.
By issuing a directive to ourselves that
God is Who He says that He is,
and reminding ourselves of His past faithfulness,
we can live with confidence in the present.

Twila Charles Leichty - L30

ISAIAH

Chapter 1

God's children, those He created and chose to be His children,
those He taught and nurtured, watched over and protected,
have turned their back on Him and His ways.
Even animals express a greater loyalty to the one who has cared for them.
They know where home is.
But God's children gave no thought to the One who has had their good
as the focal point of His watchful care over them,
His instruction to them.
They had done their own thing
and, by so doing, had encouraged others to do so as well,
building a kingdom of self-focused interests
and amassing a burden of tremendous guilt.
They had been punished, but their waywardness persisted.
Their lives were a wreck.
They had cast aside all that they were taught,
had abandoned everything of value.
They were on their way to total destruction.
Yet they continued with the practice of making sacrifices.
It was what they were used to doing.
But their words and actions in worship were empty,
contradicting their everyday behaviors.
It was without purpose or meaning; it was tradition.
It failed to bring with it an acknowledgement of their wrong-doing,
repentance and a commitment to follow God's law,
His instructions that would give life.
God was tired of what He saw and heard.

Yet He continued to reach out and plead with His children.
He presented another invitation for them to repent.
Willing obedience to His ways could yet change their course.
Their refusal and on-going rebellion would, however, seal their fate.
God was through with protecting them from the consequences of their waywardness.

Still God knew that there were those of His children,
though few in number,
who were sincere in their worship.
He is a righteous God and the released consequences
would separate those who were truly penitent, repentant,
and willing to commit to obedience
from those whose hearts were hardened through their rebelliousness.
And they would be known as His faithful children,
restored to their rightful position with Him.

Twila Charles Leichty
March 7, 2009

THE TRUTH

Standing before the Sanhedrin,
Jesus knew the Jewish supreme court was convened for one purpose,
to find cause to put Him to death.
They sought testimony from witnesses
and found that their testimonies did not agree.
(Jewish law held that if the testimony of witnesses did not agree, the charges were invalid.
...”but one witness is not sufficient testimony against a person for the death penalty.” Numbers 35:30b)
Jesus was silent. He had no cause to speak.
He was listening and waiting for His Father's direction.
And that time came, when the High Priest asked:
“Are you the Christ, the Son of the Blessed One?”
“I am,” replied Jesus.
“And you will see the Son of Man
sitting at the right hand of the Mighty One
and coming on the clouds of heaven.”
(Mark 14:62)
Jesus spoke truth and, thus, supplied the testimony they sought,
that which they would use to think Him deserving of death.
Blasphemy was the charge.
They had already determined in their hearts
that He was not the Messiah
so Jesus' claim that He was, indeed, the Messiah
provided them with “proof” of blasphemy.

Yes, Jesus spoke truth.
But ruth did not bring His release.
It “incriminated” Him before the Sanhedrin
and he was judged deserving of death.
Jesus knew the high priests, elders, and teachers of the law
did not acknowledge His identity as the Son of God
though angels had proclaimed it,
and others accepted it.
Jesus knew they were seeing what they wanted to see,
but He told them that they would someday see
and know the truth of who He is -
when He comes to claim those who are His!

To ponder:
When truth goes against what others choose to believe,
it can sometimes lead to “death encounters.”
The truth that Jesus spoke earned Him a sentence of death,
but it would give us the opportunity to embrace
the release from our sin-bought captivity
that His death provided.

Twila Charles Leichty – L27

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The chief priests also, mocking among themselves with the scribes, said,
“He saved others; Himself He cannot save.”
Mark 15:31

Jesus was on a search and rescue mission during His ministry on earth.
He wanted to save as many people as He could from the destructive force of sin.
He did what He could.
He touched those with leprosy, those shoved out of the larger community,
confined to live only among others with their same condition and healed them,
allowing them to return and live among family and friends once more.
He brought sight to blinded eyes,
and people saw what had previously been unknown to them.
He opened the ears of the deaf
so that they could discern the truth that he taught.
He made the lame to walk again and breathed into the dead the breath of life.

He did not come to save Himself.
He came to save any and all who recognized their need for a Savior.

He walked and talked with people, making Himself accessible to mankind.
He was God's Word, incarnate, Truth.
He challenged the thinking and practices of man,
showing the limits of human reasoning and revealing heart motives.
He answered questions, both those that were verbalized
and those that had not yet found words.
Those who sincerely wanted to be found and rescued,
who recognized that He could do for them
what they could not do for themselves,
accessed His saving power!

To ponder:
Sometimes God doesn't do something we think He should do.
Concluding that God cannot do something because He does not do it
is but evidence that we don't see or know the whole story!

Twila Charles Leichty - L28

ORPHAN ~ BELOVED CHILD

A child whose parent dies is an orphan,
but there are children
whose parents have relinquished the parental roles
of protecting and nurturing
those entrusted to their care
in order to address a personally-assigned agenda.
To be "orphaned" while a parent is still present
in the child's world
brings with it a conflict not easily resolved.

Children tend to determine their value and worth
by the way others relate to them,
the input of those who have given them life.
Their hearts are loyal.
Experiences are interpreted
in ways that "make sense" to their limited worldview.

Being helpless in the world
where power resides with those who are bigger and stronger
provides no hope.
Some give up, becoming victims.
Others seek explanations that allow them to continue on
in their fight to survive.
One may conclude that if he tries harder,
he may win the parent back into the God-appointed role.
Another may conclude that she is defective
and seek to "hide" what she deems unacceptable to the parent.
Still others may retaliate and angrily challenge
any and all present in their world to a duel,
trying to feel some sense of control
or to redistribute their pain
in an effort to make it more manageable.
And the list goes on…

But the Bible provides a different hope in Psalm 27:10:
”Though my father and mother forsake me,
the Lord will receive me.”
It speaks of receptive arms outstretched,
a heart that extends a warm welcome
to a child, of any age, left to weather the storms of life
without the protective and nurturing presence of an earthly parent
who's absconded from his role to pursue a different goal.

God will not force His way into any child's world.
He waits, inviting the abandoned ones into His embrace,
eager to hear a response like that in Psalm 27:11a:
“Teach me your way, O Lord…”
He is a teacher, and there is much to learn.
Moving from one family system to another
means learning new ways of relating.
It is risking to trust, accepting a new identity,
letting go of self-protective behaviors.
It seems a daunting task,
the move from orphan to a beloved child!

Twila Jean Charles
February 26, 2008