…….I'm a substitute for another guy
I look pretty tall but my heels are high….
It was that time, the ’60s and I had just become a teenager and the Who were on stage in destruction mode, guitars and drums being sacrificed on the altar of crowd popularity….very little has changed since then, and the Who as performers sought to give their audiences what they wanted, regardless of the cost of equipment or Pete Townshend’s windmill impressions.
Still, despite their auto-destruct mode, they were one of the most influential bands of their time and Substitute was an all-time favourite.
The song is about the Who, how they considered themselves a substitute for the Rolling Stones, a poor man’s Rolling Stone perhaps…. musical stand-ins.
I watched an action movie last night admiring the action stunts and the men who carry them out; stuntmen – stand-ins, substitutes for the stars, those who risk life and limb so that someone else stays safe.
As we watch our favourite action movies we inevitably cheer for our hero, we live every moment of his adventure with him, especially the parts where his life is at risk, we see him trapped, death seems certain, he is captured and awaiting his demise at the hands of his current enemy but astonishingly he escapes, the enemy will not have the last laugh today…at least not in this film!
There was someone else who found himself imprisoned and awaiting death over 2000 years ago; Barabbas, a man who was guilty of insurrection and murder. Mark 15:7
This man is a rebel, a murderer and is deserving of the death penalty; Genesis 9:6
“Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed, for God made man in his own image.” Barabbas is not a misled youth in a rehab facility, but a murderer on Death Row….this man is not our hero, this is not an innocent man, this is not who we are cheering on, this man is guilty, surely he will not escape his deserved fate.
Barabbas can hear the crowd baying for blood in the distance, but he didn’t realise it wasn’t his blood they were after, he had heard his name being chanted Matthew 27:21 Luke 23:18 and now he heard shouts of “crucify him, crucify him” Luke 23:21
We can only imagine the thoughts running through his head as the soldiers came into his cell and bundled him out, the panic, the fear, the horror…..but to his surprise, he found himself released onto the streets…a free man.
We know in horrific detail the rest of the story, that the crowd had made their choice and guilty Barabbas was to go free and Jesus was to die in his place.
Despite Pilate declaring that he could find no guilt in him Jesus was taken away to be crucified John 18:38
Jesus was substituted for Barabbas, our hero had no stand-in, no stunt man, no re-takes, just a painful death on a cross.
Jesus died in place of Barabbas and Jesus died in place of you and me, we are Barabbas, we are sinners and just as Barabbas was held in a stinking cell we are in a spiritual prison, bound and awaiting like Barabbas the just punishment we deserve for our horrible sins—our shameful desires, destructive tongues, our hatred, our greed, our pride—waiting for the time we will stand before God and His righteous judgment.
And yet, if you believe in Jesus, if you are in Christ Jesus, he speaks these stunning words to you: “Neither do I condemn you.” Why? Because he has been condemned in your place. All your guilt, all my guilt has been removed. Jesus goes off to the cross in your place. He gets what you deserve; you get what he deserves.
Paul explains this substitution perfectly in Romans Chapter 8: V1 “There is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus’, the charge against us has been removed, in Gods great courtroom, we are Barabbas, set free because someone else has died in our place, we are declared innocent.
“For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death. For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.” Romans 8:2-4
You see we broke God's law, we rebelled against Him, we fell short of His requirements, we didn’t trust him, love him, or live for him.
Just like Barabbas we are guilty, and that crime must be paid for, that sin must be punished, God cannot just brush it aside, God does not sweep our sins under the carpet, those sins must be paid for, there is a righteous requirement of Gods law that they be paid for because our God is just and to choose to not punish all sin would make Him unjust, it would make Him capricious. So, Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who never sinned, got in my place, in your place and took the wrath of God for us, and died in our place….he became our substitute.
Sometimes, as we go through our lives as Christians who are in Christ Jesus it’s easy to forget that while we are forgiven God did not justify our sins away, he did not deny that we had sinned, he did not ignore our sins, He looked at our sins and took them and nailed them to the cross with His beloved Son. Our forgiveness was not an easy process, the price for our sins had to be paid for, there had to be a substitute so that our guilt, our record of sin could be erased…and we would do well occasionally to remember Barabbas, to remember that we too were once sitting on death row but are now free because of Jesus, the same Jesus that says because I love you, I have chosen to go to the cross for you…. “I’m a substitute for another guy”…..
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