31

Look Out Below.

Pontius Pilate can’t understand what the big deal is. The crowd was worked up to a kosher lather about this Jesus fella from Nazareth and him being guilty of some or another crime. There were always fires to put out in this part of the Roman Empire. He’d just volleyed a few times with this Jesus in an inner room, finding himself confounded by a discussion of what’s true. What’s real.

“I’ve interviewed him,” Pilate announces to the angry assembly. “I don’t see that he’s guilty of anything.”

“He claimed to be king!” yelled one.

“He threatened to destroy our Temple,” said another.

“He thinks he’s God. But we lack the sovereignty to execute him for it!” It was a dog pile now.

Pilate rubbed his head, wishing Passover would pass over. It was customary to release a prisoner to the Jews every Spring, at Passover. The irony of a man playing God with the Israelites, allowing the Exodus of a Hebrew, was not lost on the crowd.

“This year for release, how about I release to you this King of you Jews.” He was trying to put out a fire with sarcasm. Pilate must not have been married for very long.

“No!” They screamed. “Not him. Give us Barabbas!”

Barabbas is labeled here in the story as a thief. But his brand of thievery is different than the guy who busts your window to take your car stereo. Barabbas is an insurrectionist. A Robin Hood type, who leads brigands, who may or may not have been merry, to take from those who have and redistribute it to those who don’t. Barabbas was a revolutionary.

Barabbas, whose name is Aramaic and literally means “son of a father” would have had a following. Supporters. Teens would have worn Barabbas t-shirts. Parents would have been torn over whether a guy like Barabbas was of God, or something else. He had a vision and a challenge to anyone who’d listen. Doubtless he spoke powerful words about what it would require to take the world back from the corrupted powers and set it all right again. There was a way things ought to be. And any means to get it there were justified by that Glorious End. Murder, upheaval, reversal of power. To God be the glory.

“Do you Jews want me to pardon Barabbas,” Pilate asked. “The revolutionary who wants to change things? Change how people are and how systems work and what people value? The change agent with a vision and a strategy and the chops to garner a following…

“or….

“Do you want this other leader? A revolutionary, with a vision, but who goes about things differently does he not? He speaks of a Kingdom superseding Caesar’s while he plays with children, treats women as equals, surrounds himself with bad résumés and washes the feet of people who don’t have any clue what the gesture symbolizes. One who forgives to the point of the ridiculous and who says the trajectory of true Compassion is to be able to love even your enemy.”

“Do you all want a son of a father, or the Son of the Father?”

“Not Jesus,” they said. “Give us our Barabbas.”

So the guards took Jesus, beat him and killed him while Barabbas went home and got a shower. And before I start shaking my head at all this, I should probably admit to myself that I usually ask for Barabbas too. It’s hard to blame the people then. Jesus went to Jerusalem to die; what lasting good could that possibly accomplish?

They wanted something they thought would work. “Give us someone great! We want to be part of something great! This Jesus is the wrong direction if we’re ever going to have lives worth living.”

I would have been right there chanting Barabbas’s name with them. Not because I’m a vile sinner who’s fun to imagine hissing and writhing in the bloodthirsty crowd. But because if things are going to change, if my world, my city, my culture, are going to make it all the way through, then give us someone who can fight to preserve it. To save it! How else will I know we succeeded?

When Jesus got into the city earlier that week he all but set the scene up for his disciples:

“I tell you honestly, unless a seed falls into the earth and dies, it remains just that, a seed. But if it allows itself to die, it bears much fruit. Whoever prioritizes the preserving of his own life ends up losing it, and whoever resists this impulse will find themselves living an eternal quality of life now and forever. If anyone wants to serve my interests, he must follow me. So that wherever I am, you’ll automatically see my servants are there too.”

It’s almost too risky to adopt. It reads wonderfully on Sunday morning, but in the real day-to-day, this is insanity. Especially when it matters most. Why would I rationally choose your interests over mine? Why would I spend my life’s energies calibrating myself to give your interest priority. Why would I choose to throw the game for the opponent?

“Perhaps the answer can be found in the fact that you’ve never been to a Church of Barabbas. That movement didn’t take.

It’s the heart of Ahava, our true self, that responds to Christ’s crazy idea. Even as we call it unrealistic, we read it, we see glimpses of it at work or in traffic, and we feel the whisper of the Cosmos calling to us. The one who showed us how to give himself away for the sake of the other, who Creates not by force but by gentle consideration, and cooperation, is what is deepest within ourselves.

We worship Christ. But we ask for Barabbas.

That may be why he didn’t stop at the seed and the dying and losing thing. He added a bit about following him. Which we can reasonably assume means right into the maw of death, into forgiving those responsible for it, and out the other side prepared to watch the world recalibrated by Love. He didn’t want us to merely agree. We’re supposed to go do this, work it all out in the real world.

I am incrementally more willing to be one who dies as an act of my own will. I’m a seed with strong hands, clutching the vine in desperation, unwilling to be obscured, forgotten, to suffer the loss of me. But I am losing faith in the way of Barabbas, because I’ve tried to make revolution his way and it’s only made me tired.

And, so, here’s to weakened hands and the ensuing strength of Christ.