Article:
Dissecting Barabbas: Releasing a Murder Among Us
by David Litwin
“So when the crowd had gathered, Pilate asked them, “Which one do you want me to release to you: Barabbas, or Jesus who is called Christ?... “Barabbas,” they answered.”
Matt. 27:17-21 (NIV)
Even if your only experience with church is the occasional Easter or Good Friday Service, chances are you have heard the story of Barabbas. Although the Bible gives us little backstory on the man, he played a crucial role in the rejection of Jesus and Christ’s ultimate crucifixion. The story unfolds in Matthew 26-27. The Roman prefect Pilate – finding no true fault in the person of Jesus and not wishing to become the scapegoat in the death of an “innocent” man – offers the turbulent crowd two options. The crowd could either release the now-bloodied and disfigured Jesus, who Pilate believed had suffered commensurately for his “crimes,” or emancipate Barabbas, a known murderer and thief currently incarcerated under Caesar’s governmental control.
Either way, Pilate was to wash his hands of the matter. The choice and responsibility now lay in the hands of the peoples. The crowd chose Barabbas. But Barabbas’ release, though the volitional and personal decision of the crowd, had nothing to do with concern for Barabbas’ well-being. Barabbas’ freedom merely ensured Jesus’ elimination. Because Pilate’s offer to the crowd was volitional and personal; Barabbas became a means to an end.
There is a well-captured moment in Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ that displays this tension. During the trail scene, the released Barabbas passes directly in front of the High Priest Caiaphas, the man shouting the loudest for Barabbas’ release. As the two men brush shoulders there is a forced moment of acknowledgment. Caiaphas’ face grossly displays the disdain he holds for Barabbas. To Caiaphas, Barabbas is of no value. Barabbas merely serves as the conduit to eliminate the dissident that had been diverting and converting much of the High Priest’s former flock. As the two men pass out of view, and attention shifts back to the now condemned Christ, we never see or hear of Barabbas again.
But this particular historical moment did not exist in a vacuum. And by dissecting the very few bits of information we are given about Barabbas and unlocking his untold story, I will illuminate the ultimate enemy of mankind; uncloak his objective patterns of destruction; unlock where mankind has partnered with these patterns; expose the church’s tragic failure; and provide the precise area for repentance and regeneration. The path toward those discoveries begins where the Bible leaves off. It begins with Barabbas’ release.
UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCE
When the angry mob chooses Barabbas over Jesus, the story doesn’t end for Barabbas, or for those shouting for the murderer’s emancipation. The mob’s decision discharges a host of new and potentially catastrophic possibilities. But the mob itself has no say in these new contingencies. From that moment on, the future is no longer theirs to control. They had granted this man Barabbas far more freedom than they could have imagined. Though the religious leaders and the mob thought they were simply ensuring the crucifixion of the One they so vehemently despised, in actually they were sanctioning the possibility for their own death.
Releasing a murderer meant that eventually that man might choose to murder you.
“Give us Barabbas,” was actually the unwitting declaration of, “Free the man who may someday murder us.” The mob’s decision was final. They had chosen the execution of the Christ. But the consequences of that decision were just beginning. After the riot had ended, and the darkness of night rested over the three crosses on the hill of the skull, the mob had successfully crucified their rival, and released a murderer into their community. Though they had shouted, “Let Jesus’ blood be on our hands and children,” it is doubtful that either the mob or the religious leaders had the foresight to see the cataclysmic consequences of that proclamation. In the elimination of one, they had gained the other. If any of those who had shouted for Barabbas’ release were to wake up the next morning and find their children murdered, their wives brutally raped, and all their financial security stolen away, there would be no one to blame but themselves.
There was now a killer running loose in their community. And they’d been the ones to release him.
But the mob’s decision extended far beyond merely those gathered at the trial. With his release, the entire human landscape became his potential prey. The phrase, “Give us Barabbas,” – if Barabbas was endlessly crafty and cunning enough – had the capacity to translate to, “Kill us all.” Of course it is highly unlikely that one man could eliminate an entire population. And although this scenario is highly implausible – theoretically, it is possible. But metaphorically, I believe the Holy Spirit was uncovering something far more diabolical and objective.
A FAR BIGGER – AND MORE RELEVANT – STORY
It is possible that much more is being disclosed here than just the unwritten story of a lone murderer running loose in Jerusalem after the death of Christ. Over the context of the four Gospels, we are given three key characteristics of the man Barabbas. He is referred to as a robber (John 18:40), a murderer and an insurrectionist (Mark 15:7, Luke 23:19). If we translate insurrection as the desire to overthrow and/or cause violent destruction of an authority, Barabbas’ three main motivating drivers were to “steal, kill and destroy.” Does this sound familiar? It should.
The thief (Satan) comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full. John 10:10 (NIV)
Barabbas was just a man. But his three characteristics uncover what the man represents: an ultimate spiritual enemy with a single collective goal of killing, stealing and destroying humankind, or those made in the image of his ultimate enemy. And just like releasing the man Barabbas, with the rejection of the One (Christ) we are granting full authority to the other. Jesus claimed He was the only way. But he verified His statement and exposed the danger of His rejection in the story of Barabbas. Rejecting the Christ does not give man the option to go his own way, to seek a different path toward the same ultimate Truth. There are, and have always been, two paths. And the path “more traveled,” the path that rejects Christ, comes with a powerful price tag. Just like the gathered mob shouting for Christ’s death, the consequences to rejecting God are once again outside of man’s control. But the potential for destruction is far, far greater.
Barabbas, the man, may have never killed again. Other things may have chosen to occupy his time after his release. But we, as self-sufficient humanity with no need of Christ, have released an ultimate murderer into our midst with no other agenda but destruction. And his evidence is all around us if we have the eyes to see clearly. Ask the mother who must I.D. her 17-year-old daughter’s dead corpse after a heroin overdose, or the millions of children dying of AIDS in Africa, or the one in four women who has been raped or sexually assaulted in America, or the gaunt inner-city families barely able to afford enough to eat a single meal a day. The list goes on and on, if we are really paying attention. While a minute portion of the world appears to be living free and easy, the rest of humanity has been ransacked and decimated by the ultimate Barabbas that has long since been released. Rejection of the one granted authority to the other. And his authority manifests through mankind’s demise. Just like the mob having released the original Barabbas, we have no one to blame but ourselves.
A QUESTION TO PONDER
Is this correlation between the two “Barabbases” too great a stretch? Am I grasping at straws in order to prove my own allegorical point? To answer those questions requires us to step back into the original story once again. How might the man Barabbas have gotten away with recurrent murder after his release? If your ultimate desire is unabated bloodlust, would you annihilate the society’s most influential, wealthiest, and publicly known? Certainly not. By attacking the social elite and well respected, you guarantee a quicker capture. Investigations would ensue, curfews would be imposed, social militias would be formed – all bent on your exposure, incarceration and ultimate annihilation. Why? Because you attacked those society cared the most about.
But if you attacked and destroyed the nominal, the unloved and the outcasts, who would call for an investigation? As long as you kept yourself hidden, predominantly attacked the fringe of society, and maintained some control over your pathology, your murderous rampage could continue and perpetuate. Sadly, many might even claim you were doing these rejected and nominal people – and people groups – a favor by eliminating them.
