I was struck by that phrase at our Good Friday service, “Barabbas the insurrectionist”.  He wasn’t just a common criminal, he was almost an anti-Jesus.   It calls to mind all the historical context which was the backdrop for the life of Jesus.  Israel was occupied territory.  This wasn’t exactly anything new.  Babylon conquered Jerusalem in the instance mourned over in Lamentations and Jeremiah.  The people returned to the land after Persia conquered Babylon.  Then Alexander the Great conquered them again in 332.  But then there was the revolt led by the Maccabees.  These events are detailed in the apocryphal book of the same name.  A new priestly ruling line was established that began the Hasmonean dynasty.  The temple was rededicated and everything seemed swell.  Now we come to the Romans who installed Herod the Great, the first in a line of Herods who were Idumean Jewish puppets for Rome.  These are the men who ruled over the course of the New Testament.  They were cruel but effective leaders.  Needless to say the Jewish people were not happy about this situation.  They were the chosen people of God this was there land and how dare another entity impose itself on them.  Never mind the fact that they were living in complete apostasy.

The Jews were looking for another Maccabean type leader to revolt against the Romans, liberate the Jewish people and rededicate the temple and things would go back to normal.  This was the cause of many groups in Israel at the time of Jesus.  No doubt many of the disciples of Jesus followed him for this very reason.  It was obvious that he was a prophet, and the scriptures were clear that Messiah would come and establish his eternal kingdom in the line of David. But they were not thinking big enough.  This was obviously what was motivating Judas.  He saw the power of Jesus and was sure that he would overthrow Rome.  He wanted to be in on the ground floor when the action started.  Then when things didn’t go according to his plan, he betrayed Jesus and came to him with a mob in the garden (This gives new light to the statement “he who lives by the sword will die by the sword”, for every man who stood up to Rome was killed.  The final hold out was in Masada where 960 people committed suicide as the Roman army broke down the walls of the city about 73 AD.  Jesus was no pacifist, but his time called for this action.  His comments were out of love for preserving his people, both their lives in the coming conflict and their souls in eternity.  There are times when we are called to fight and there are times when we are called to love our Messiah.  It requires wisdom and faith to discern which is which.  Silly mantras of pacifism or rebellion will do you no good if you are in the opposite situation).  No doubt he thought he could force Jesus to submit to his plan and overthrow Rome.  This was also the motivation of the mob who wanted to make Jesus king by force in John 6.  How silly is this.  It is a theme repeated often in movies today as the diabolical evil genius is sure he can turn Spiderman or Batman or whomever to his cause and then they will rule the world together, ha, ha, ha.  But it didn’t work out this way with Jesus.  He kept talking about the temple being destroyed, and he seemed to be always spouting blasphemies agains the new religion that the Jews had become quite comfortable in.  Of course if they really knew Moses Jesus would not have been a surprise.  But they didn’t, so when this Jesus, clearly a powerful prophet of God got out of hand, they thought they could take care of him as they had all the other prophets.  And better yet they could trade Jesus in for this Barabbas person, who was really true to the cause.  He had already started an insurrection and killed some people.  Maybe he can be our leader.  In this judgement they made the biggest error of all of history.  Just like the original radical, Lucifer, they looked over God’s shoulder at what he was making, and they thought they could do things better.  They thought their plan was the way to go.  So they got Barabbas, a murderer.  

This instantly called to mind another murderer, Moses.  If you remember a young Moses decided he was going to free his people single handedly from Egypt.  So he killed an Egyptian.  Pharaoh tried to kill him so he fled to the desert for 40 years.  Moses was trying to do things his own way too.  Even though he was the person God planned to use to liberate the people of Israel from Egypt, this was not the time or the way he intended to do it.  Stephen lays out these events, at his execution, showing that the religious leaders were not true followers of Moses but Jesus and Stephen as his disciple were the true followers of Moses.  But now you have Jesus, is even better.  He was a true son of God, he did the will of his father.  He didn’t try to do things his own way.  He didn’t commit murder, he was faithful in laying down his life, and so he took it up again as prophet, priest and king over all creation not just Israel for a few years.  Barabbas had literally done everything they accused Jesus of, he had stirred up the people, he had blasphemed God by disobeying his commands and he had not paid tribute to Caesar(Luke tells us he was a thief).

Pilate liberates Barabbas and orders Jesus is crucified. Codex of Predis (1476). Italy.

They had all missed the Messiah. But certainly we would never do such a thing.  We never choose our own path or do things our own way when God has laid out his plan for us.  You might say God has never told me anything.  Well he has given us far more commands than we can follow in his word.  Maybe after you follow all of these you can worry about receiving special prophecy.  But that is the reality of our sin, we let fear drive us to rely on our own experience rather than the rules laid out in scripture. “But I love her.” “But it’s really hard.” “But I don’t feel like it.” “But but but.”  We usually want good things.  A free Israel was a good thing, but it was not as good as a humanity saved from sin. If we allow our circumstances to take precedent over the commands in scripture we are just like those who crucified Jesus.  We are followers of Barabbas the Insurrectionist instead of Jesus the King.