A Portait of Barabbas

— John 18:38b-19:16 

[PILATE] WENT STRAIGHT OUT again to the Jews and said: “I find nothing criminal about him at all. But I have an arrangement with you to set one prisoner free at Passover time. Do you wish me then to set free for you the ‘king of the Jews’?”

At this, they shouted out again, “No, not this man, but Barabbas!” Barabbas was a bandit.

Then Pilate took Jesus and had him flogged, and the soldiers twisted thorn-twigs into a crown and put it on his head, threw a purple robe around him and kept coming into his presence, saying, “Hail, king of the Jews!” And then they slapped him with their open hands.

Then Pilate went outside again and said to them, “Look, I bring him out before you here, to show that I find nothing criminal about him at all.”

And at this Jesus came outside too, wearing the thorn crown and the purple robe. “Look,” said Pilate, “here’s the man!”

The sight of him made the chief priests and Jewish officials shout at the top of their voices, “Crucify! Crucify!”

“You take him and crucify him,” retorted Pilate. “He’s no criminal as far as I can see!”

The Jews answered him, “We have a Law, and according to that Law, he must die, for he made himself out to be Son of God!”

When Pilate heard them say this, he became much more uneasy, and returned to the palace again and spoke to Jesus, “Where do you come from?”

But Jesus gave him no reply. So Pilate said to him, “Won’t you speak to me? Don’t you realise that I have the power to set you free, and I have the power to have you crucified?”

“You have no power at all against me,” replied Jesus, “except what was given to you from above. And for that reason the one who handed me over to you is even more guilty than you are.”

From that moment, Pilate tried hard to set him free but the Jews were shouting, “If you set this man free, you are no friend of Caesar! Anyone who makes himself out to be a king is anti-Caesar!”

When Pilate heard this, he led Jesus outside and sat down upon the Judgment-seat in the place called the Pavement (in Hebrew, Gabbatha). It was preparation day of the Passover and it was now getting on towards midday. Pilate said to the Jews, “Look, here’s your king!”

At which they yelled, “Take him away, take him away, crucify him!”

“Am I to crucify your king? Pilate asked them. “Caesar is our king and no one else,” replied the chief priests.

And at this Pilate handed Jesus over to them for crucifixion.

In the moment… 

The Prisoner Lay in the bowels of Gehenna (the name for that lowest, filthiest cell in the whole complex) and was asleep on the floor with his face near to a puddle of his own urine. He started awake when the cell-door flung open.

“To your feet!” shouted the commandant.

The prisoner rose up, cautiously.

He followed the commandant down the inner hallway—past the other cells filled with sleeping wretches—and up the stone stairs toward the higher levels. Only the dimmest torchlight lit the approaches. Stark naked, he could feel the breath of the prison air against the open whip-wounds on his back and legs. Every joint hurt as he moved.

He was certain he was being led to his death.

Yet he walked along numb to that outcome.

Surprisingly, however, when they arrived to the ground-level, when he could see the sunlight pouring in through the colonnade, they turned to the right, not to the left. (The left would’ve taken the prisoner back into the inner courtyard—where the rounds of beatings and miseries always occurred for him.)

Curious now, fully wide awake, he continued following along after the commandant.

They arrived into a large, open room. (Soldiers and others milled about; drank their ration of wine.) Amazingly, the prisoner was handed a fresh tunic and cloak—clean and new—and he slipped the pairing over his head, in a dumb silence. The commandant then led him down a different hallway. A grated gate lifted. The sunlight was bright; the outside air cool.

He followed the commandant out into the morning air. The city was starting to rise and awake around them.

“You are hereby freed,” the commandant said to the prisoner.

The prisoner, a man called Barabbas, couldn’t understand these words; their meaning.

“Go!” the commandant commanded. “And let us never hear of your name again, you wretch!”

The prisoner began to walk off, stunned…

The commandant suddenly gripped the tender top of his shoulder, from behind. “But if you’re interested,” he said, “the road upvalley will take you to Golgotha—there they crucify the one who took your place this day.”

The prisoner considers going to see.