Email
Bookmark
Print
Barabbas
When Pilate offered to let Jesus go, wanting to observe the custom of freeing one person at the feast of Passover and believing Jesus to be innocent, the crowd prompted by their religious leaders, called instead for the release of another prisoner, Barabbas. Barabbas was a notorious criminal. John simply calls him a robber, but Mark identifies him as a political rebel who committed murder in a recent uprising (Mark 15:7). This suggests that Barabbas belonged to a group known as the Zealots, who were Jewish resistance fighters against the Roman occupation.
Barabbas disappears off the pages of the New Testament and nothing more is known of him. Barabbas was chosen over Christ. Christ was condemned innocent and a guilty Barabbas was set free. Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ has Barabbas mocking Christ and gloating over being chosen over Christ to be set free. Whether this was the case or not is impossible to know, but one thing is similar of some people today, often choosing anyone or anything instead of Christ.