Monday, April 18

Mark 15:6-15

Now it was the custom at the Feast to release a prisoner whom the people requested. A man called Barabbas was in prison with the insurrectionists who had committed murder in the uprising. The crowd came up and asked Pilate to do for them what he usually did.

“Do you want me to release to you the king of the Jews?” asked Pilate, knowing it was out of envy that the chief priests had handed Jesus over to him. But the chief priests stirred up the crowd to have Pilate release Barabbas instead.

“What shall I do then, with the one you call king of the Jews?” Pilate asked them.

“Crucify him!” they shouted.

“Why? What crime has he committed?” asked Pilate.

But they shouted all the louder, “Crucify him!”

Wanting to satisfy the crowd, Pilate released Barabbas to them. He had Jesus flogged, and handed him over to be crucified.

Who was Barabbas?

The New Testament tells us very little about the man who was set free in order for Jesus of Nazareth to be crucified. Then again, maybe we know more about him than we think.

Here Mark uses two words to describe Barabbas that give us a clue. He refers to him as an insurrectionist and a murderer. Many scholars believe that this means that Barabbas was likely a member of a sect of Jews called the Zealots. The Zealots were radically committed to the Torah as the law of God and to the independence of Israel as God’s chosen people. They took the commandment, “You shall have no other gods before me;” very seriously and both resented and distrusted other Jewish groups like the Sadducees and Pharisees for failing to lead the people of Israel in rebelling against what they regarded as the pagan interlopers of Rome.

I think it’s possible that Barabbas grew up in a devout Jewish home and that from an early age he heard the stories of heroes like Moses, Joshua and Gideon, men used by God to defeat the enemies of Israel. I think he may have seen himself and the Zealots as the spiritual descendants of these great leaders.

So the crimes attributed to him, insurrection and murder, were likely committed against the Romans and out of a passion to accomplish what he believed to be God’s will.

Barabbas was also someone’s son. Tradition holds that his full name was Jesus Bar-abbas with Barabbas being his family name. In Hebrew his name means, “Jesus, son of the father.” Some scholars suggest that his name is rather generic – for it could be said that every one of us is a “son of the father” – for every human being has a biological father. There is also the obvious irony that Jesus Barabbas, Jesus, son of the father, was released from his sentence because Jesus of Nazareth, who often referred to his Father in Heaven as “Abba,” died in his place.

And so Barabbas, whatever else he was, was a thief, an insurrectionist, and a murderer. He was likely a Zealot. He was a son. And he was condemned to die for his crimes.

But Jesus of Nazareth, the son of the one he called “Abba Father,” took his place. I believe the story of Barabbas is also my story and your story. In a spiritual sense, we are all Barabbas. That is, we all stand before God guilty of our own sin until Jesus steps in to take our place.

As you consider Barabbas’ story this week – as we look ahead to the Last Supper, Golgotha, and the Empty Tomb of Resurrection morning – try to see his story as your story. What does it mean that another has died in your place?

Brian Coffey