Insurrectionist and Murderer

Notes and Confession Lent 2022

Then they all shouted out together, ‘Away with this fellow! Release Barabbas for us!’ (This was a man who had been put in prison for an insurrection that had taken place in the city, and for murder.) [Luke 23: 18-19]

Give us Barabbas. 

I'm 58 years old, grew up in the church, so it's fair that I've heard the story of Barabbas at least 58 times and quite likely some multiples of that (former seminarian and all).  Today, Palm Sunday 2022, I heard it in a new way. 

Of course, the words that jumped out to me this morning, thanks to current events in these United States, are "insurrection" and "murder." 

I questioned, for the first time, why the people would ask for Barabbas. Perhaps because they had more hope in Barabbas than they currently had in Jesus. The one who was actively trying to overthrow the Roman rule seemed like a better choice for a messiah than this itinerant preacher and healer. On top of all the ways that Jesus ended up in Pilate's court, he just wasn't all that promising for bringing liberation for the Jewish people. In fact, he was maybe in the way. Let him hang. Give us Barabbas. 

This is all off the top of my head, and more eisegesis than exegesis. But let's work through this a little bit. 

First, we should never read anything in the New Testament as pro-Rome. So, it's not like we should read this and feel sorry for Rome or Pilate. They were crucifying people, for crying out loud. Not nice people. Not a nice regime. We might feel Pilate sweat that the people preferred Barabbas over this preacher-healer who maybe said suspicious things about the Reign of God but wasn't actively trying to overthrow Rome, but we needn't feel sorry for him. 

And Barabbas? Depends on where you land on violent revolution. Revolutions make heroes and villains of the same people, depending upon where you stand. We can only take at face value that in this moment, he was preferable to Jesus. Given the choice between a troublesome healer and a murderer, it seems we lean towards the murderer.

In our current situation in the USA around these situations, my mind cannot help but turn to the January 6, 2021 attack on the nation's capitol. Who is playing Barabbas in our modern drama? There are a few candidates, I guess, though most of them not directly murderers. Playing Pilate/Rome is the US government at large. Let's not fool ourselves that we're anything but an empire with enough history to say we are not a nice regime. 

Jesus . . . I don't see a Jesus figure in our modern story. And that's okay. It's almost better not to look for one. 

Because I feel we are in a situation without heroes. If anything, we are to look at Jesus in this scenario and look at that famous "third way" that Jesus represents. 

I'm not going to lie. The third way in the USA right now makes me very uncomfortable. I don't see a third way that doesn't make you an enemy of everyone. Which isn't off brand for Jesus, really. 

A third way of healing, of preaching the Reign of God--we see what that gets a body. 

So here is where I start Holy Week, 2022.