file: /pub/resources/text/Our.Daily.Bread: db940331.txt
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          OUR DAILY BREAD                         Thursday, March 31, 1994
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          Read:  Matthew 27:15-26

                               THE JACKAL OR THE LAMB

                          "Which of the two do you want me
                     to release to you?"  They said, "Barabbas!"
                                   --Matthew 27:21

          The  crowd  had gathered, and they wanted  someone  released.  In
          Jesus' day, it was customary during Passover for a prisoner to be
          set  free in commemoration of the Jews' deliverance from  bondage
          in Egypt.

          Pilate  was  no political novice.  So he gave the mob  a  choice:
          the  One who raised Lazarus from the dead or the one whose  sword
          had  probably  sent many to an early  grave.  The  choice  seemed
          obvious.  But the people chose the murderer Barabbas.

          Mob  rule always prefers the wild, the rebel,  the  maniacal.  It
          chooses the jackals: the Barabbases, the Stalins, and the Hitlers
          of  the world.  It rejects the lowly, the humble,  the  servants,
          the lambs.

          What if we had been there?  Whom would we have chosen?  We  would
          like  to believe that we would have chosen Jesus.  But would  we?
          The  voice  of the crowd is so powerful.  A few days  before  the
          trial, the crowd had shouted, "Hosanna to the Son of David!"  Now
          the  people were crying out, "Crucify Him!"  The pressure of  the
          multitude can confuse us, frighten us, and carry us away.

          O God, help us.  Sometimes in the crowd, in spite of all that  we
          know,  we're  still  tempted to choose the  jackal.  Help  us  to
          choose the Lamb.

          Author:  David C. Egner

                          The world will try to pressure us
                                To fit into its mold,
                          But with God's help we can resist
                              If to His truth we hold.
                                       --Sper

          THOUGHT FOR THE DAY:
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          To  resist the pressures of the world, rely on the power  of  the
          Lord.

          THE BIBLE IN ONE YEAR:  1 Samuel 17-20





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