Barrabas, Jesus, and Us
At the heart of Easter is the story of the innocent dying for the guilty.
Two men, completely different in every single way, cross paths at the pivot point of history. Jesus Christ and Jesus Barrabas, as some early manuscripts referred to this notorious criminal.
We don’t know if the two ever met, if when Jesus passed through Judea many times, Barabbas was within earshot, or if Barabbas and his murderous thugs were in the crowd at the temple when Jesus spoke or turned over the tables of the money changers. It seems unlikely.
Barabbas, having unsuccessfully plotted an insurrection against Rome, languishing in a filthy prison with other convicted men, like wasn’t captivated by the message Jesus had. The one who would use any means necessary to live out his fantasy of being a freedom-fighter, would not take well to hearing Jesus urge love for enemies and of a kingdom, not of this world. He’d love the critiques of the feckless religious authorities, often so subservient to their Roman overlords, protective of their power. But he probably recoiled when Jesus commended the faith of a centurion as being the greatest in Israel.
Their lives are so different. Jesus Christ, the child of a poor Nazareth couple, a rabbi who heals and restores, and Jesus Barrabas, a dangerous revolutionary, who tears down and destroys. One, with unimpeachable character and perfect purity, whose guilt was known and established.
There is such a mosaic of evil on display here at Jesus’ trial: an unjust system of government, a violent terrorist with no regard for human life, a feckless leader in Pilate, and religious leaders threatened by the Son of God. In stark contrast, there stands the Innocent One, who is the antithesis of all of this. The fruits of sin’s first seedling in the Garden in full bloom: systemic injustice, murder, corruption, and cruelty converging on a lonely hill outside Jerusalem with the Son of God. And so it is that at Easter we realize that the solution to the vexing sins that marble through God’s good creation and so infest human hearts is that same crude instrument of torture, meant for Barrabas. At the cross we find both the just one and the justifier, the one who defeats the enemy powers and redeems the hearts of men.
Barabbas, he didn’t know, couldn’t have understood the role he’d play in human history. What was Barrabas thinking as he paced the cold, dank Roman cell, in the tense hours before what he thought was the end of his life? He knew his crimes. He knew what lay ahead. Crucifixion by Rome was the cruelest form of capital punishment, reserved only for the most heinous of criminals and for slaves and foreigners.
This is the death that awaited Barabbas and the two fellow insurrectionists to be strung up alongside him. What went through Barabbas’ mind, through the minds of the others, as they awaited the shuffle of the boots, the opening of the cell doors, and the rough hands of their executioners shoving them toward the ignominious hill outside Jerusalem? Was he recalling his life, regretting the path he chose for himself, one of a mercenary insurgent, a murderer for hire for a hopeless cause? Was he thinking of his mother or father, his home, wherever that was? Was there any remorse? Repentance? Relief?
What he couldn’t have known was the circus taking place outside Pilate’s court. He couldn’t have known a furious and self-righteous multitude was setting his sights on another Jesus, Jesus of Nazareth. He had no idea that his life hung in the balance, between a weak governor and a raging mob in the thin line between innocence and guilt.
The real story of Easter as seen through the eyes of Barrabas, the one that pulsates from this very scene and spills onto the pages of eternity is not the injustice of a corrupt legal system or the fecklessness of Pontus Pilate or the dark turn of the people demanding Jesus’ be crucified. The real story is that an innocent one, Jesus, died for the one who was so obviously and unapologetically guilty. If we cringe at this guilty man going free, we have to cringe at ourselves, who, were just as guilty before God. The Bible tells us that every single member of the human race is Barabas:
We all went astray like sheep;
we all have turned to our own way;
and the Lord has punished him
for[c] the iniquity of us all. Isaiah 53:6There is no one righteous, not even one. (Romans 3:23)
This is, of course, not a popular sentiment, even at Easter. We don’t dress up in our favorite pastels and go to Grandma’s house because we think we are depraved sinners, but the truth is that in the eyes of a holy God, everyone, from the saintliest saint to the most morally repugnant villain is guilty. Convicted and sentenced, not by a powerless governor like Pilate or an unruly mob, but by God himself.
And yet like Barrabas, we have the chance for freedom. Like Barrabas, we can thrust off our chains, walk out of the prison of sin and death, and have a miraculous and undeserving opportunity for new life.
I just love the way Sinclair Ferguson so eloquently writes about the juxtaposition of Barrabas and Jesus:
Without knowing it, the religious leaders and Pilate and Barabbas were all part of a tapestry of grace which God was weaving for sinners. Their actions spoke louder than their words, louder than the cries of the crowds for Jesus’ blood. Jesus was not dying for His own crimes, but for the crimes of others; not for His own sins, but the sins of others. He did not die for Himself, he died for us!
Jesus was crucified for the crimes Barabbas committed. The one who resisted earthly revolution and urged respecting Caesar and paying taxes was crucified for treason while the one who plotted sedition was set free. The cross was meant for Barabbas. The cross was meant, really, for you and me. Even a fellow insurrectionist could see this, whispering in his dying breaths:
We are receiving the due reward of our deeds, but this man has done nothing wrong.” And he said, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.” And he said to him, “Truly, I say to you, today you will be with me in paradise.” (Luke 23:39-43).
This promise, given by Jesus, is the real heart of Easter. The Son of God, the innocent one, pure and holy, God and man, went to that cross not ultimately because Pilate got it wrong or because the crowds lost their sense, but because this was God’s divine rescue plan all along. The prophet Isaiah says of Jesus that it “pleased the Lord to bruise him (Isaiah 53:10). The entire sacrificial system in the Old Testament, the killing of innocent animals as an atonement for sin all pointed to this moment when the Lamb of God would be slain for the sins of the world (Revelation 13:8), crying in his final breaths, “It is finished.” In many ways, that cross was made for Barabbas and it was made for sinners, like you and me, but it was made for Jesus all along.
Jesus died the death Barabbas should have died, paid the penalty for sin we should have, but could not bear, and in exchange offers us freedom, freedom from sin, and reconciliation with the Creator who created us. “For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive,” (1 Corinthians 15:22). This idea—that Christ is our substitute, that he took on the full wrath of God in our place, is central to the gospel, central to understanding what Easter is all about.
In those lonely moments on the cross, as a bloody and bruised Jesus gasped for air, the entire burden of sin of God’s people was thrust upon him. This is why the earth grew dark, why the Father turned his face away. At that moment, the ugliness of sin—Barabbas’ sins, our sins, the heinous and the evil from the beginning to the end of the time, was on Jesus’ shoulders. He bore our sin. He took our shame. It is the greatest act of love in the world.
He made the one who did not know sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. (2 Corinthians 5:21).
Barabbas walked free, with no charges against him. And so do you if you know Jesus as Savior and Lord. “There is therefore no condemnation,” we read in Romans, to those who are in Christ (Romans 8:1). You bear no guilt. You carry no shame. You are reconciled back to the Creator who created you.
I have always wondered what happened to Barabbas. What did he do with his new chance at life? Did he go back to his devilish ways or did he look up at the cross where he should have been and wonder, in awe, how God spared his life? I want to imagine, though there is no tradition or proof that this actually happened, that Barabbas is there among many disciples gathered in Galilee when a resurrected Jesus declares that God has given him all authority in heaven and earth. When Jesus urges people to declare the gospel to the nations. I want to think that Barabbas not only saw Jesus as the unlucky innocent who was killed to satiate the bloodlust of a crowd, but also the spotless Lamb of God who took his place, that he saw Jesus as both his physical and eternal substitute for sin. We don’t know. Maybe we will see him in Heaven. Maybe we’ll call him brother Barabbas.
What we do know—what you can know this Easter—is that the innocent one nailed to the cross was nailed there for you. He bore your sins and took your punishment so you could have abundant and eternal life. Will you look up at that cross this Easter season and see your Savior?
This adapted and reprinted from The Characters of Easter: The Villains, Heroes, Cowards, and Crooks Who Witnessed History's Biggest Miracle