"If it has to choose who will be crucified, the crowd will always save Barabbas" - Jean Cocteau
---------[The Thoughts Of Barabbas After Being Released In Jesus' Stead]
He told me to "never look back"
An empathetic glance
with eyes partially swollen, scabbed lips with traces
of dried blood – patches of hair from his head torn
flanked by Roman soldiers
but with a firm will and a spirit undeterred
"I will dance in pools of your blood when you die"
is what people usually tell men like me
rather, what I used to tell my victims. When you rape a woman
your heart feels heavy like black coal inside your chest-
you lose the ability to experience love
watching men bleed, in some sense, permanently impairs your vision
hencoforth all you see is insanity
molesting children erases your childhood from memory
implanting schizophrenia, paranoia in its place
(and it scares you)
For this, I am a pariah forever. meaningless, purposeless Jew
with a worn and conflicted mind:
abused and abusing
dead and yet killing
hard and engendering hardness all about
haunted and troubled
yearning for the empty cross I see on Calvary
from Pilate's steps
the only sanctuary a man has for a wasted life...
He told me "choose life so that you may live"
Before they took off my shackles
"I came to set the captives free";
Scum I suppose, like me
and I suppose now I can feel my heart begin beating
Tears welling
arms trembling and cold
approaching a crowd as numerous as the sand
inveighing against my demise; paradox
a killer released anxiously back into the arms of his victims
and an Innocent Man left behind
I feel I have to keep on walking, weigh further options
because the cross I once craved is no longer empty
and I think....no longer am I
(Im on Holy Ground now)
(Redemption)
--------------------------------
Jesus Before Pilate / Matthew 27:11-26
Meanwhile Jesus stood before the governor, and the governor asked him, "Are you the king of the Jews?" "Yes, it is as you say," Jesus replied. When he was accused by the chief priests and the elders, he gave no answer. Then Pilate asked him, "Don't you hear the testimony they are bringing against you?" But Jesus made no reply, not even to a single charge—to the great amazement of the governor. Now it was the governor's custom at the Feast to release a prisoner chosen by the crowd. At that time they had a notorious prisoner, called Barabbas. 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?" For he knew it was out of envy that they had handed Jesus over to him. While Pilate was sitting on the judge's seat, his wife sent him this message: "Don't have anything to do with that innocent man, for I have suffered a great deal today in a dream because of him." But the chief priests and the elders persuaded the crowd to ask for Barabbas and to have Jesus executed. "Which of the two do you want me to release to you?" asked the governor. "Barabbas," they answered. "What shall I do, then, with Jesus who is called Christ?" Pilate asked. They all answered, "Crucify him!" "Why? What crime has he committed?" asked Pilate. But they shouted all the louder, "Crucify him!" When Pilate saw that he was getting nowhere, but that instead an uproar was starting, he took water and washed his hands in front of the crowd. "I am innocent of this man's blood," he said. "It is your responsibility!" All the people answered, "Let his blood be on us and on our children!" Then he released Barabbas to them. But he had Jesus flogged, and handed him over to be crucified.
---------taken from (http://ukrainiac.wordpress.com/category/mercy/)
John Stott writes in his devotional Through the Bible Through the Year about Barabbas, the one who was granted a Passover amnesty…rather than Jesus.
"It is hard to imagine Barabbas’s incredulity when his cell door was flung open and he was called out not to execution but to freedom. He must have stumbled out dumbfounded into the bright sunshine of a spring day. He was not only released but, in a sense, redeemed.
"Perhaps Barabbas also felt (as we do) the anomaly of his position. The one who had given sight to the blind and had laid his hands on little children was to be crucified, while the ruffian who deserved his sentence was to go scot-free. The apostle Peter referred to this topsy-turvy situation in the second sermon he preached to the crowd in Jerusalem. They had killed the author of life, he said, while asking for a murderer to be released for them (Acts 3:14-15).
"Christians see in the story of Barabbas more than an anomaly; we also see a parable of our redemption. For each of us resembles Barabbas. Like him we deserve death. But like him we have escaped death because Jesus died in our place. If curiosity drew Barabbas to Calvary (though this is purely speculative), perhaps he watched Jesus dying and said to himself, 'He is dying in my place.' Perhaps the sight even touched, softened and redeemed him.'
For whatever reason, I had never really given much thought to Barabbas — other than the fact that an undeserving man had been placed back on the streets again. When I think about the events of that day and put myself in the picture...well, it’s usually as a spectator from afar. I like to think of myself as someone who might have been a follower of Jesus even then.
I certainly never think of myself as Barabbas. Deserving to die and yet redeemed by the blood of Jesus. It's not a pleasant thought to think that within ME is that same potential...
Thank you, Lord Jesus, for paying the price. For being the perfect sacrifice. Dying so that I might live.
Truly amazing.
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