WHY DO HIS OWN PEOPLE STILL CHOOSE BARABBAS?

Today begins what the Christian Church often calls the “passion week” of Jesus Christ.  Much attention is paid to the final events of Christ’s life prior to his death by crucifixion, a method of torture used by the Roman government (then occupying the Palestinian and semitic portion of our world) mostly for government resistors and alleged insurrectionists. 

One of the strangest storied events found in the Christian Bible seems to have originated in Mark’s account (15:6-15) of Christ’s trial before Pilate, who was Roman territorial Governor over Judea where the trial took place.   I say strange largely because Mark tells of a custom no historical evidence can possibly support.   He references “the (Jewish) custom at the Feast to release a prisoner whom the people requested."    

On the feast of Yom Kippur, the Jews did have a custom of releasing a goat from slaughter as a sign of God’s forgiveness of sin.   But this was not Yom Kuppur.  It was the feast of Passover, a Jewish holiday commemorating freedom from slavery in Egypt.   Such a holiday may favorably compare in my own nation to July 4th, celebrating America’s declaration of independence from England.   But the notion of any custom where the Jewish people could talk a Roman Governor into releasing one of their prisoners, not to mention an alleged insurrectionist who tried to overthrow the Roman government, makes zero sense.   Absolutely no historical evidence to support such an event or "custom." Compare it to our American custom every July 4th of asking one of our Governors to release a prisoner who had attempted to overthrow our own government.   There is no such American custom.  

I personally wonder why, then, Mark places this non-event into the pages of his gospel story.  Or why both Matthew and Luke then copied it into their own gospel stories.    At best it represents a kind of mixing of metaphors, a releasing of the Yom Kippur scapegoat for the Passover.  As if the gospel of forgiveness from judgment applied to the gospel of freedom from slavery, rendering God some kind of slave owner.

But let’s just suppose that was or still is the case.   That this Barabbas story was included into the larger gospel of Jesus as metaphor, not literal event, for some divine purpose.   What can we make of this metaphor?   And does it apply itself in our own world today?

William Barclay, in his own Bible commentary, describes the character of Barabbas in this drama by the name of Jesus Barabbas.  He notes the earliest Gospel manuscripts used that name, Jesus being very common, and the surname of Barabbas meaning “son of the Father” as denoting some higher status in his own family’s standing in the territory.   His populist appeal to the crowd came from a position of privilege, not related to actual performance.  As an insurrectionist he had failed at overthrowing the government.   He was now a felon and perhaps awaiting further trial and punishment.   But, of possible importance, he was something the other Jesus (the one his followers called the “Christ”) was not.  

Jesus Christ was soft power.  He represented some softer Kingdom of loving influence. 

Jesus Barabbas was hard power.  He represented some harder Kingdom of fearful control.  He played “hardball” with Rome, the kind Caesar understood.    None of this “enemy love” kind of diplomacy that wouldn’t work to overthrow a powerful government.   Any more than a plague of frogs worked on the Egyptian Pharoah of old.   It took killing a lot of young boys to free the slaves from Egypt, and now with this Passover holiday feast it was all about remembering what worked and what didn’t work in achieving independence or freedom.  

My mind sometimes wanders into my own country’s history and imagines that this forefather we call George Washington was sitting next to that Indian revolutionary, Mahatma Gandhi.   Both were asked to speak on the merits of how best to achieve independence from the British throne.  

Hard power.

Soft power.

Violence.

Non-violence.  

Fearful control.

Loving influence.  

Washington vs. Gandhi.   Barabbas vs. Christ.  Plague on the first born vs. plagues of the polluted river, the frogs, the gnats, the flies, the livestock, the boils, the hail, the locusts, and the darkness.     

Christ’s own people wanted to overthrow the Roman government.   They felt victimized and persecuted.   They chose Barabbas.   Somebody more like Moses after those 9 failed plagues against Pharoah.   Somebody more like who they were celebrating on that Passover.   Somebody who understand how to take fearful control over the enemy, not how to give loving influence with the enemy.  

But do you want to know something?

I believe Christ’s own people would do the same thing today.  They would still choose Barabbas.   They would give up on the Jesus called “the Christ.”   They would sacrifice soft power for hard.  Sacrifice their loving influence for the opportunity to wield fearful control.  

I doubt Christ's own people in America would recognize any difference between Yom Kippur and Passover, between a metaphor for God's forgiving of their own guilt and another for God's punishing of others' innocent sons for the sake of their own personal freedom.

11 But the chief priests stirred up the crowd to have him release for them Barabbas instead. 12 And Pilate again said to them, “Then what shall I do with the man you call the King of the Jews?” 13 And they cried out again, “Crucify him.”   (Mark 15:11-13)            

No wonder Jeus wept then. And probably still weeps today.