not one of them but bore inextinguishable in his inmost heart the
faith in 'one Christ a King.' And if that meek and silent martyr had
only lifted His finger, He might have had legions of His accusers at
His back, ready to sweep Pilate and his soldiers out of Jerusalem.
They saw Christ's goodness and holiness. It did not attract them.
They wanted a Messiah who would bring them outward freedom by the use
of outward weapons, and so they all shouted 'Not this man but
Barabbas!' The whole history of the nation was condensed in that one
cry--their untamable obstinacy, their blindness to the light of God,
their fierce grasp of the promises which they did not understand,
their hard worldliness, their cruel patriotism, their unquenchable
hatred of their oppressors, which was only equalled by their
unquenchable hatred of those who showed them the only true way for
deliverance.

And this strange paradox is not confined to these Jews. It is
repeated wherever Christ is presented to men. We are told that all
men naturally admire goodness, and so on. Men mostly know it when
they see it, but I doubt whether they all either admire or like it.
People generally had rather have something more outward and tangible.
It is not spiritualising this incident, but only referring it to the
principle of which it is an illustration, to ask you to see in it the
fatal choice of multitudes. Christ is set before us all, and His
beauty is partially seen but is dimmed by externals. Men's desires
are fixed on gross sensuous delights, or on success in business, or
on intellectual eminence, or on some of the thousand other visible
and temporal objects that outshine, to vulgar eyes, the less dazzling
lustre of the things unseen. They appreciate these, and make heroes
of the men who have won them. These are their ideals, but of Jesus
they have little care.