I wonder how Barabbas slept the night before he was to be crucified and what he thought as he looked back over his life? Was he a proud nationalist who saw his imminent death as martyrdom for the cause, or was he a brute murderer who loved to brawl, and eagerly got caught up in an uprising against the hated occupiers? We know very litte about him, not even his personal name - we know him only as Barabbas - Fathersson. Since all men have a father, it's easy to see him as the archtypical macho man. Not only do we know virtually nothing about him we know nothing of his parentage, nothing about his father or his upbringing. For history, his father was a nonentity.
Jesus was also a Son, and spoke often of his Father. Doing his Father's will was his food and drink. In fact he claimed that he did nothing that he didn't see his Father doing. And his Father was not shy in speaking publicly "this is my Son, in whom I am well pleased." Jesus' Father was none other than God Almighty, the Holy and Righteous God of Israel, the creator of heaven and earth. And throughout his short ministry Jesus worked untiringly to encourage, to teach, to heal, to reconcile, to recognise and affirm the disadvantaged - women, lepers, demon-possessed, the despised and outcast. He stood for righteousness beyond justice and demonstrated through his life what God had intended for all of us. His heart when out to the poor and wretched, but he was not inherently against the better off in society - he was able to make a clear distinction between the person and their behaviour.
The paths of these two sons crossed that 'long Friday' morning, and Barabbas was doubtless taken totally by surprise. Instead of being brought out for another round of brutal nastiness culminating in crucifixion, he is set free. Unplanned, there was no welcoming committee of friends and family - just set free, though a convicted murderer and "terrorist." Instead, a man that the Roman authority pronounced publicly was innocent of anything worthy of death, is led off to be mishandled, public humiliated, ridiculed and hung naked on a cross to die. The righteous for the unrighteous. Where is the almighty righteous God in this scene?
What happened to Barabbas? We have no idea. Authors and film-makers have proposed story lines for him, but there is no record of his life or reaction to his sudden liberation. Did he go back to brawling and insurrection, or was he curious about the man who replaced him and saved his life? Did he join the movement, or did he return to his former insurrectionists?
Nobody knows (but Jesus, as the song goes). And so his life is a blank page for us.
But we all in fact find ourselves in this same picture of Fathersson/Fatherdaughter.
We don't know what happened to Barabbas, Fathersson, but we must make our own response to Christ's death, which was also for all of us, individually.
What will we do with the freedom with which, and for which, He set us free? We have the same alternatives open to us as Barabbas had, probably even more. So what will we write on the blank pages that will record our future?
Jesus was also a Son, and spoke often of his Father. Doing his Father's will was his food and drink. In fact he claimed that he did nothing that he didn't see his Father doing. And his Father was not shy in speaking publicly "this is my Son, in whom I am well pleased." Jesus' Father was none other than God Almighty, the Holy and Righteous God of Israel, the creator of heaven and earth. And throughout his short ministry Jesus worked untiringly to encourage, to teach, to heal, to reconcile, to recognise and affirm the disadvantaged - women, lepers, demon-possessed, the despised and outcast. He stood for righteousness beyond justice and demonstrated through his life what God had intended for all of us. His heart when out to the poor and wretched, but he was not inherently against the better off in society - he was able to make a clear distinction between the person and their behaviour.
The paths of these two sons crossed that 'long Friday' morning, and Barabbas was doubtless taken totally by surprise. Instead of being brought out for another round of brutal nastiness culminating in crucifixion, he is set free. Unplanned, there was no welcoming committee of friends and family - just set free, though a convicted murderer and "terrorist." Instead, a man that the Roman authority pronounced publicly was innocent of anything worthy of death, is led off to be mishandled, public humiliated, ridiculed and hung naked on a cross to die. The righteous for the unrighteous. Where is the almighty righteous God in this scene?
What happened to Barabbas? We have no idea. Authors and film-makers have proposed story lines for him, but there is no record of his life or reaction to his sudden liberation. Did he go back to brawling and insurrection, or was he curious about the man who replaced him and saved his life? Did he join the movement, or did he return to his former insurrectionists?
Nobody knows (but Jesus, as the song goes). And so his life is a blank page for us.
But we all in fact find ourselves in this same picture of Fathersson/Fatherdaughter.
Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows
yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted.
But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities;
upon him was the chastisement that made us whole, and with his stripes we are healed.
All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way;
and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.
He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth;
like a lamb that is led to the slaughter, and like a sheep that before its shearers is dumb,
so he opened not his mouth.
By oppression and judgment he was taken away; and as for his generation,
who considered that he was cut off out of the land of the living,
stricken for the transgression of my people?
And they made his grave with the wicked and with a rich man in his death,
although he had done no violence, and there was no deceit in his mouth.
(Isaiah 53)
yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted.
But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities;
upon him was the chastisement that made us whole, and with his stripes we are healed.
All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way;
and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.
He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth;
like a lamb that is led to the slaughter, and like a sheep that before its shearers is dumb,
so he opened not his mouth.
By oppression and judgment he was taken away; and as for his generation,
who considered that he was cut off out of the land of the living,
stricken for the transgression of my people?
And they made his grave with the wicked and with a rich man in his death,
although he had done no violence, and there was no deceit in his mouth.
(Isaiah 53)
We don't know what happened to Barabbas, Fathersson, but we must make our own response to Christ's death, which was also for all of us, individually.
What will we do with the freedom with which, and for which, He set us free? We have the same alternatives open to us as Barabbas had, probably even more. So what will we write on the blank pages that will record our future?
