Scripture: Luke 22:63-23:26
An actor died last week whose name you probably don’t know but—at least if you’re of my generation—you would likely recognize his face. His name was James Tolkan. He played Principal Strickland in Back to the Future—the guy who called Marty McFly a “slacker.”
So news of his death made me feel nostalgic…
That same year—1985—gave us another all-time classic movie about high school students: The Breakfast Club.
I can’t deny that one reason I love the movie is because it starred Molly Ringwald, on whom I had a mad crush at the time. And she and I also share a birthday… except she’s two years older.
Anyway, I remember my friend Andy and I walking out of the Northlake Festival AMC movie theater on a Saturday afternoon in the winter of 1985 to the infectious tune of the Simple Minds’ “Don’t You Forget About Me” playing over the closing credits. And we were both thinking, “Whoa! That movie hits hard. It is telling the truth about who we are as American teenagers in 1985.”
But I’m no longer a teenager… as you know… But I still love the movie… even though, with a few years under my belt, I can see how the movie ends before telling the whole painful truth.
What I mean is this: Spoiler alert. At the end of the movie, Claire—the popular, beautiful, affluent girl—reaches out in friendship to Allison, a goth “freak.” By the end of the movie, they are now “friends.” Moreover, Claire becomes the girlfriend of a kid named Bender. Unlike Claire, Bender is from the wrong side of the tracks. He is T-R-O-U-B-L-E, trouble… Everyone considers him a bad seed. There are reasons for that, as we find out—but we know the type.
After all, during my first few years of high school we still had a “smokers’ section”—for students… with their parents’ permission. It was next to the dumpster behind the band room. Bender was definitely one of the kids you’d see hanging out there. When I walked the halls, I gave those students a wide berth because I assumed if I looked at them the wrong way, they’d punch me in the face.
High school was not a “bully-free zone” back then.
Regardless, as the movie ends and the credits roll, the most popular girl in school has reached across the chasm of the adolescent caste system and made friends with two of the most “undesirable” people in the school.
The end. Happy ending all around.
But we know better.
Let’s say, for example, Claire continues to love and care for these two people. What happens then?
With Bender, she’s going to have to answer to her parents—and that’s going to be World War III. And even if she stays friends with Allison, what happens to Claire?
Her circle of popular friends will start asking—behind her back if not to her face—“What on earth is she doing hanging out with that loser?”
And you know what will happen?
On the one hand, Claire’s goodness and beauty and popularity will rub off on the goth freak Allison—and Allison’s status will be elevated in a world that so often rejects her. That’s good.
On the other hand… Claire herself will be brought low. Her reputation will be diminished. She will experience rejection, shame, scorn—maybe for the first time in her life.
Some of what Allison experiences every day, Claire will now experience too.
Do you see what’s happened?
A transfer has taken place. An exchange.
Claire’s goodness lifts Allison… but Allison’s “freakishness” lowers Claire. It’s unavoidable.
That’s what love does. Real love is self-sacrificial. It’s substitutionary.
Real love says, “I’ll substitute my strength for your weakness.”
This happens all the time in marriage… This happens all the time between parents and children.
A trivial example from my family: Lisa and my three kids are terrified—beyond reason—of bugs… spiders… roaches… stinkbugs… You name it. I’m not scared of them. Trust me, I have plenty of other weaknesses—this just isn’t one of them. So I know my job is to “snap to attention” when a bug shows up in the house.
My strength substitutes for their weakness. They don’t have to be paralyzed with fear because I’m there. It’s an inconvenience for me, of course, but it’s good for them.
I’m exaggerating a little—but you get the point.
All real love is substitutionary and self-sacrificial.
Speaking of which…
Let’s talk about Good Friday.
Because Luke gives us a real-life picture of substitutionary love in Barabbas.
Barabbas was a terrorist and a murderer. Unlike Jesus, he deserves death. Yet because Jesus literally dies in his place, Barabbas goes free.
And he does nothing to deserve it. Doesn’t even say “thank you,” as far as we know.
Barabbas is a living illustration of what Jesus accomplishes for all of us: Jesus receives the guilty sentence we deserve. He bears our punishment. He suffers and dies in our place.
And we—like Barabbas—go free. Forgiven. Treated as if we had never broken God’s law.
Even his name points to the gospel truth: Barabbas means “son of the father.” And through Christ, that’s what we become—sons and daughters of our heavenly Father.
Because of faith in Christ, I am now Barabbas… I am a son of my Father…
And you are too.
The question is: Are we okay with that?
My young life changed in a dramatic way on December 8, 1980. That was the day that John Lennon was murdered outside his apartment in New York City by a deranged fan named Mark David Chapman. My life changed because in the wake of that tragedy, my friends and I were exposed to a lot of Beatles music on TV and the radio—and we loved it—and for me, at least, their music was the beginning of my lifelong passionate interest in music.
Mark David Chapman and I are both alumni, by the way, of what used to be called DeKalb Community College—which is now part of Georgia State University. Oddly enough, Georgia State doesn’t advertise that John Lennon’s murderer went there, but it’s true… he went there for one quarter not long before he murdered Lennon.
Anyway, Chapman was genuinely mentally disturbed at the time, and strung out on drugs. I’m not making excuses or saying that that absolves him of his responsibility…
He doesn’t think so either, by the way. He was a cold-blooded killer. He’s now in his right mind, however, and serving out a life sentence in prison. He will likely never be paroled. And he doesn’t seem especially bothered by that.
Why? Because prison has become his place of ministry. Because—oh yeah—he has become a very articulate and outspoken Christian.
Like many formerly bad people—including cold-blooded killers like Tex Watson—formerly of the Manson family, who murdered actress Sharon Tate and others—like David Berkowitz, the notorious “Son of Sam” killer… Like these two, David Chapman found Jesus while serving life in prison. And like these two, Jesus is all Chapman wants to talk about now when he is allowed to give interviews.
Now, when we hear about people like these who are Christians, we might wonder whether Christianity has a public relations problem. We might worry whether all these notoriously bad people who now claim to be Christians are giving Christianity a bad name! I know from Marketing 101 that you want to associate your “brand” with beautiful, successful winners, not a bunch of losers like this sorry lot!
Is it good marketing for the Christian way of life that so many sincere, outspoken Christians also happen to be such notoriously bad people? Are they harming the reputation of Christ that Christ seems so willing to embrace people like Mark David Chapman, or Tex Watson, or David Berkowitz.
Isn’t there something scandalous about the fact that Christ saves even those kinds of people?
But hold on… If we know our hearts… if we know just how much sin God has had to forgive within us in order for us to be in a right relationship with God, then we shouldn’t be too embarrassed to say that we, too, are those kinds of people!
Maybe we’re “relatively better” than the David Chapmans of the world. But if we’re honest with ourselves we know that’s not saying much! Right?
You and I are Barabbas.
In recent years, I’ve heard a lot of complaints about so-called “participation trophies”—you know, the trophies that you get for just “being on the team.” Our popular culture acts as if this is a recent phenomenon and “back in my day” we didn’t coddle children the way parents and coaches do today.
But not so fast. As early as 1975 I was getting “participation trophies” for playing T-Leage baseball. And I was so bad at it, it took me most of my first season to learn to run counterclockwise around the bases—to run to first base and not third base when I hit the ball off the tee.
But you know what? I still got a trophy.
I’m not a fan of participation trophies, by the way. Like anyone else, I want to earn the honor and the glory that comes my way. Don’t you?
But like it or not, if we’re going to be saved by grace through faith in Jesus Christ and his atoning death on the cross, we need to learn to be happy with “participation trophies”—because becoming a part of God’s team—becoming a member of God’s family—does not depend in the slightest on anything that we do other than wave the white flag of surrender to God and his Son Jesus. Good Friday proves that!
All we can manage to do—by our own efforts, left to our own devices—is to put Jesus on the cross!
Yet, because Jesus has chosen to become our substitute, he pays the penalty for our sins; he suffers and dies for our sins; indeed, when he cries out, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me,” he experiences hell for our sins.
So… are you willing to be okay with your “participation trophy”?
If so, let your life be a trophy—not of your achievement—but of God’s grace.
Because in this case, the glory doesn’t belong to us—it belongs to God, for everything he did on the cross to make us his sons and daughters.
And that, my friends, is incredibly good.
And that’s why this day is called Good Friday.
Celebrate that.
Through the cross of Christ… as you believe in him… God has made you his trophy of grace.
To him be glory forever.
Amen.