Matthew 27:15-26
Barabbas is described in today’s text from St. Matthew, as a “notorious” criminal. St. Mark’s Gospel adds the detail that he was an insurrectionist and a murderer. And St. John’s Gospel tells us that he was a robber. It’s easy to see why he was notorious.
As an insurrectionist, he was a flagrant denier of the authority of those who had been placed over him in the realm of civil government, as representatives of God for the maintenance of law and order.
Jesus had taught that we are to render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s. But Barabbas didn’t think that Caesar had any claim on him. He opposed Roman rule actively and violently.
His being called a murderer suggests that he had killed someone, or maybe more than one person, not just in a street battle, but deliberately and personally. He had made a decision that the life of another person had no value that he was obligated to respect.
And Barabbas, as a robber, not only had no regard for the lives of others, but also did not respect the property of others.
One more thing we know about Barabbas is the meaning of his name. “Barabbas” means “Son of the Father.” That’s interesting.
Jesus, of course, had previously described himself as the Son of the Father. In St. John’s Gospel, he says: “My Father is working until now, and I am working.”
John adds the comment there that “This was why the Jews were seeking all the more to kill him, because not only was he breaking the Sabbath, but he was even calling God his own Father, making himself equal with God.”
But there is some sense in which the New Testament invites us to see this notorious insurrectionist, murderer, and robber also as a son of the Father. His name is used, and our attention is drawn to his name and to what it means.
As a Jew, Barabbas was a member of God’s chosen nation and in that sense was a son of the Old Covenant and of the God of the Old Covenant. But clearly, he was a prodigal son. He had broken the Fourth, Fifth, and Seventh Commandments, and thereby had broken the First Commandment as well.
His crimes were also capital offenses under Roman law. He had been caught and convicted and was accordingly destined for crucifixion. The cross on which he was to be nailed was already prepared.
But now, at the trial of Jesus, a most unexpected and undeserved reprieve has changed the trajectory toward death that Barabbas was on. Now, Barabbas will not die. Another will die in his place, and he will go free.
Have you ever considered that the very cross that Jesus carried to Calvary, was more than likely the cross that Barabbas was originally supposed to carry?
Jesus took Barabbas’s place even in that most literal of ways. Also the nails that were supposed to be driven into Barabbas’s hands and feet, were now driven into Jesus’ hands and feet.
In Barabbas and in his story, we see a very fortunate man. But also in Barabbas and in his story, we see a picture of other men. We see a picture of all men. We see a picture of ourselves.
In his speech to the Athenians, recorded in the Book of Acts, St. Paul said with reference to Adam and to all his descendants:
“The God who made the world and everything in it…made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place, that they should seek God, and perhaps feel their way toward him and find him. Yet he is actually not far from each one of us, for ‘‘In him we live and move and have our being,’ as even some of your own poets have said, ‘‘For we are indeed his offspring.’”
So there is a sense in which all the descendants of Adam can be thought of as “offspring” or children of God. All human beings are, in this sense, “Barabbas” – that is, sons of the Father.
And all human beings, by nature, are like Barabbas also in that they are prodigal sons of their creator, turning against him and rejecting his ways.
In our hearts, if not in our bodily actions, we are insurrectionists. In our many sins against God’s law, we are resisting God’s rightful authority over us, and are rebelling against that authority.
Through Jeremiah the Prophet, the Lord says that he is bringing judgment upon his people “because they have forsaken My law which I set before them, and have not obeyed My voice, nor walked according to it, but they have walked according to the dictates of their own hearts.”
Does that describe you?
And, like Barabbas, we are murderers. Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount:
“You have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not murder, and whoever murders will be liable to judgment.’ But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment; whoever insults his brother will be liable to the council; and whoever says, ‘You fool!’ will be liable to the hell of fire.”
So, you don’t have to raise your hand physically against another for the hatred and animosity that is in your heart to be counted by God as a damnable sin.
The Fifth Commandment not only forbids us from harming others but also requires us to help and protect others and to do what we can to keep them safe. Yet how often have we made sacrifices, or gone out of our way, to fulfill such an obligation of love for a vulnerable or threatened person?
And like Barabbas, we too are robbers – in will and mind even if not in outward actions. The Ninth and Tenth Commandments forbid not only stealing but also coveting – that is, desiring what belongs to others and not respecting their right to enjoy what God has given them.
This is a sin of the heart, closely allied to greed, envy, and jealousy. It is the opposite of contentment with what God has given you, and it invites the anger of God.
But we are Barabbas also in that we, too, have been reprieved from the punishment we deserve for our many sins: not before the bar of Roman justice, but before God’s tribunal. Jesus died for our sins, so that we need not die, but can live forever in a reconciled fellowship with God.
In the Prophet Isaiah’s vivid description of Christ, the suffering servant, we are told:
“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; the chastisement for our peace was upon Him, and by 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.”
We know about Barabbas’s criminal past, before the day when he was released. But we don’t know about what he then did with his life after his pardon.
Once Jesus had died in his place, so that he was not obligated to die for his own sins on Calvary, did he repent of how he had lived, and humbly receive God’s forgiveness? Did he become a changed man?
Or did he live as before, committing the same crimes as before, so that the Romans probably caught up with him again and executed him at some point in the future?
Did Barabbas allow the sacrifice that Jesus had made for him, go to waste, in time and in eternity? Or did he appreciate that sacrifice, and in faith receive its benefits? Again, we don’t know.
But what about you? What difference does it make to you that Jesus died on your cross and as your substitute, suffered for your sins under the judgment of God’s law?
Holy Week is a very good time for you to think about this. As we remember the suffering and death of Jesus, it is a very good time for you to consider what his death means to you and to heed the exhortation that St. Paul gives us in his Second Epistle to the Corinthians:
“Examine yourselves, to see whether you are in the faith. Test yourselves.”
Because you are a human creature of God, you are, in that sense, the “offspring” of God. And because God loves you, he sent his Son to die for you. God invites you to repent of your sins and to trust in Christ for your salvation.
But are you a son or daughter of God also in that deeper sense of having received a supernatural adoption into God’s eternal family, through faith in his only-begotten Son? Are you able to rejoice personally in these words of comfort from St. Paul’s Epistle to the Galatians?:
“But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons. And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, ‘Abba! Father!’”
As we head into Holy Week together, let us listen together to what St. John writes in his First Epistle:
“If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, [God] is faithful and just- to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.”
“My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. He is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world.”
“Then [Pilate] released Barabbas to them; and when he had scourged Jesus, he delivered Him to be crucified.” Amen.