It's All About Easter - Why Barabbas? Why not Jesus?

Pilate:

"But it is your custom for me to release to you one prisoner at the time of the Passover. Do you want me to release the 'King of the Jews'?"

The crowd:

They shouted back, "No, not him! Give us Barabbas!"
Now Barabbas had taken part in a rebellion.

(John 18:39-40)





The world will always choose a robber, insurrectionist, or murderer to the innocent Jesus.

Why? Because Barabbas is one of them, and however dangerous he may be, he is at least controllable.

They can handle him. 

But how do you handle Jesus?



Tom Skinner writes in Words of Revolution:

Barabbas is the guy who was going to destroy the system. Barabbas was going to burn them out. Barabbas was going to kill them. Why would they want Barabbas?

It's very simple.

If you let Barabbas go, and he starts another disturbance or another riot, you can always call out the National Guard, the federal troops or the Marines to put his thing down. All you have to do is push a few tanks into his neighborhood and you can squash whatever he's up to. You can find out where he's keeping his guns and raid his apartment. You can always stop Barabbas.

But the question is: How do you stop Jesus?

How do you stop a Man who has no guns, no tanks, no ammunition, but still is shaking the whole Roman empire?

How do you stop a Man, who -- without firing a shot -- is getting revolutionary results?

They figured there's only one answer -- get rid of Him.

They made the same mistake people have made down throughout the history of man.

They thought they could get rid of the idea by getting rid of the man from whom the idea comes.

So they said, "We can get rid of Jesus. We don't want him to rule over us."

Barabbas would never really ask to run your life.

Jesus would ask to run you life. Jesus would ask for the right to rule  over you!

And that's the problem.

Men would rather be enslaved to tyranny than let Jesus rule their lives. They would rather be exploited  than let Christ determine their lives.

So they said, "Give us Barabbas!"

So great was their opposition to Jesus, that they chose a convicted dangerous murderer over the mild Jesus.


Barabbas is an Aramaic word meaning "son of a father" - "Bar" means "son" and "abba" means "father."

So by his name we can consider him a representative type of all the sons of all the fathers who have ever been born into this world.

We, like Barabbas, are all of Adam's race. We are in rebellion against God. We are robbers of His glory. We are murderers of our souls and the souls of others. We are bound in the dark prison of our sin.

Like Barabbas, we all seek freedom.

And like in the case of Barabbas, Jesus gave His life to bring us that freedom!