The whole place is in an uproar. Nothing but canvassing and election speeches! What excitement! What a great ado! And soon it will be voting day. Then the excitement will reach its height.
Meanwhile the cry is: "Who will be the man?”
Strange to tell, that was just the cry in a certain city many hundred years ago. It was voting day in Jerusalem. What! You say you did not know there was any voting day there? Oh, but there was. And what crowds, what excitement there was then! You could have numbered the people by the thousands—aye, by the tens of thousands.
It was election day! There never had been a day like it before, nor has there been a day like it since. The governor of the city presided and took the vote of the people as to whether they were for Barabbas or Christ—Barabbas the murderer, or Christ Jesus, the Son of God, the Savior of lost sinners.
"Who will be the man?" That was the question—and it would soon be settled.
"Whom are you for?" said the governor. "Are you for Christ?”
"No," they cried out as one man. "Away with this Man, and release unto us Barabbas.”
Their choice is made; their vote is recorded. They have elected Barabbas. They will not have Christ. They will have anybody but Him; rather Barabbas, murderer though he be. Then what should be done with Jesus which is called Christ?
"Away with Him! Crucify Him!”
Barabbas, the people's choice is elected! He is set free; and Christ, the rejected One, is led forth and nailed to a cross on Golgotha's hill. There between heaven and earth He is lifted up as if unworthy of a place in either!
Friend, behold Him there. On that cross of shame He is willingly bearing your guilt and mine. But your own heart must answer: What will you do with Jesus which is called Christ?