{"id":5341,"date":"2026-04-03T09:07:41","date_gmt":"2026-04-03T13:07:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/?p=5341"},"modified":"2026-04-03T09:07:41","modified_gmt":"2026-04-03T13:07:41","slug":"which-jesus-do-you-want","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/2026\/04\/03\/which-jesus-do-you-want\/","title":{"rendered":"Which Jesus Do You Want?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

To listen to today’s reflection as a podcast,\u00a0click here<\/a>
\u00a0
Throughout the season of Lent, we’re taking a close look at the Apostles’ Creed – one of the earliest and most concise summaries of what followers of Jesus believe.<\/em>
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Very few Hollywood films feature a family praying together before dinner.\u00a0
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After listening in on the table grace in Talladega Nights: The Legend of Ricky Bobby, <\/em>that might be just as well.
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Ricky Bobby, played by Will Farrell, folds his hands and prays:\u00a0\u201cDear Lord Baby Jesus, I want to thank you for this wonderful meal, my two beautiful sons, Walker and Texas Ranger, and my red-hot smokin\u2019 wife, Carley.\u201d
\u00a0
Ricky goes on: \u201cDear eight-pound, six-ounce baby infant Jesus \u2026 lying there in your little manger, lookin\u2019 at your Baby Einstein developmental videos, learnin\u2019 \u2018bout shapes and colors\u2026\u201d\u00a0Carley cuts in: \u201cHey, um, Sweetie \u2026 Jesus did <\/em>grow up.\u00a0You don\u2019t always have to call him a baby.\u201d
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Ricky responds: \u201cLook, I like the Christmas Jesus best, and I\u2019m sayin\u2019 grace.\u00a0When you say grace, you can say it to the Grownup Jesus or Teenage Jesus or Bearded Jesus or whoever you want.\u201d
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What follows is a bit of a theological free-for-all.\u00a0Everybody in the family votes for a favorite Jesus.\u00a0
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\u201cI like to think of Jesus like a Ninja, fightin\u2019 off evil samurai,\u201d says one of the boys. \u201cI like to think of Jesus like a muscular trapeze artist,\u201d says the other.\u00a0Ricky\u2019s race partner adds:\u00a0\u201cI like to picture Jesus in a tuxedo T-shirt. \u2018Cause it says like, I wanna be formal but I\u2019m here to party, too.\u00a0I like to party, so I like my Jesus to party.\u201d
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As a general rule, it\u2019s wise not to go to Ricky Bobby for theology.\u00a0
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But Ricky\u2019s family is at least\u00a0willing to do openly what most Americans do more discretely:\u00a0We choose our own Jesus<\/em>.
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When an anxious\u00a0Jerusalem crowd stood before\u00a0Pontius Pilate on a Friday morning twenty centuries ago, those present had to choose their own Jesus as well.
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On the surface of things, the choice\u00a0seemed straightforward.\u00a0Pilate presented two prisoners: a convicted felon named Barabbas and a teacher from Galilee named Jesus.\u00a0He declared his intention to set one free.\u00a0Which one would the crowd prefer?
\u00a0
Matthew described Barabbas as a notorious criminal.\u00a0The word “notorious” in this context has\u00a0a connotation of popularity.
\u00a0
He was\u00a0what you might call a celebrity terrorist \u2013 a brave patriot or nationalist revolutionary who had had the guts to do what a lot of other people had only dreamed of doing: He had\u00a0stood up to the despised Romans.\u00a0Luke tells us that he had committed murder, presumably of someone sympathetic to the empire.
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Here we need to take note of something that doesn’t appear in many\u00a0modern Bible translations.
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In some of the oldest manuscripts of the Gospel of Matthew, we discover\u00a0that Barabbas has a first name.\u00a0His first name is Jesus.\u00a0Jesus (Yeshua<\/em>, in Hebrew) was a common name in Bible times.\u00a0It is essentially the English name “Joshua,” and means “the Lord saves.”
\u00a0
Here’s how Matthew reads in the oldest manuscripts:\u00a0“At that time they had a notorious prisoner named Jesus Barabbas.\u00a0So when the crowd had gathered, Pilate asked them, ‘Which one do you want me to release to you: Jesus Barabbas, or Jesus who is called Christ?” (Matthew 27:17)
\u00a0
It is a dramatic moment:\u00a0Which Jesus do you want?\u00a0This Jesus or that Jesus?\u00a0<\/em>
\u00a0
So why doesn’t “Jesus Barabbas” appear in many\u00a0modern English translations?\u00a0Most reputable Bible scholars, after all, are convinced of its authenticity.\u00a0
\u00a0
There is strong evidence that early in Christian history\u00a0copyists purposely dropped the name “Jesus” before Barabbas out of respect for the “real” Jesus, the one who claimed to be God’s Messiah. The\u00a0tradition of omission continues with many translators today, since most later copies of Matthew do not, in fact, include Barabbas’ fascinating first name.
\u00a0
The two prisoners stood before the crowd.
\u00a0
It may have seemed as if they<\/em> were on trial.\u00a0But in\u00a0truth, it was now the crowd<\/em> that was\u00a0on trial.\u00a0Which of these two figures held the greater promise for the nation of Israel?\u00a0
\u00a0
Was it Jesus Barabbas, who would hit the Romans hard, make something important happen, and inspire the masses to revolution?\u00a0Or was it Jesus of Nazareth, whose primary weapons were trusting God, refusing to worry, and loving one’s enemies?\u00a0
\u00a0
The crowd chose Jesus Barabbas.
\u00a0\u00a0
In the words of commentator Dale Bruner:\u00a0“The wrong Jesus was released, the wrong Jesus was scourged, the wrong Jesus was crucified, but God used all these wrongs to make everything right.”\u00a0
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Every day, like those in the crowd, we must decide which Jesus we want.
\u00a0\u00a0
Perhaps I want the Jesus who endorses my political views.\u00a0Or\u00a0the Jesus who doesn’t crowd me sexually. Or the Jesus who, amazingly, can’t stand the very same people I can’t stand.\u00a0Or the Jesus who is entirely adjusted to my current behavior.
\u00a0
There’s just one problem with that strategy.
\u00a0
The only\u00a0Jesus who can save me is the one who is actually real.
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And that\u2019s the Jesus who went to the cross on what would become known as Good Friday, willingly sacrificing his life so we might live.
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At the beginning of this special weekend, may your heart be renewed by the love and grace of the true King of Kings.

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

To listen to today’s reflection as a podcast,\u00a0click here\u00a0Throughout the season of Lent, we’re taking a close look at the Apostles’ Creed – one of the earliest and most concise summaries of what followers of Jesus believe.\u00a0Very few Hollywood films feature a family praying together before dinner.\u00a0\u00a0After listening in on the table grace in Talladega Nights: The Legend of Ricky… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":5342,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[1095,1001,1061],"class_list":["post-5341","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-barabbas","tag-choice","tag-pontius-pilate"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5341","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5341"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5341\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5343,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5341\/revisions\/5343"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5342"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5341"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5341"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5341"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}