We refer to most everyone in the New Testament with a single name. It was common, however, to have descriptors attached to names for clarity. This would not have been like a surname is to us today, but rather distinctions that separated one similarly named individual from another. A common descriptor is the hometown descriptor. We call Paul, Paul of Tarsus, or Jesus, Jesus of Nazareth. Another option would be a descriptor that defined societal or cultural associations. We have Simon the leper and Simon the Zealot. A very Jewish descriptor, though, was to associate the person with their father by the use of “son of.” In Hebrew this is done by attaching “Bar” to the beginning of the name. So we have Bartimaeus (son of Timaeus), Bartholomew (son of Tolmai), Barsabas (son of the Sabbath), and Barnabas (son of encouragement) listed in the Bible. But there is a more notorious son.

When Jesus is on trial before Pilate, we read about a cultural situation that happened during the feast of Passover. Apparently it was customary during the Passover feast to release a prisoner to the people. All four Gospels mention the crowd being offered a choice between Jesus and a man named Barabbas and the crowd chooses the notorious criminal, Barabbas. We must understand more about what Barabbas crimes were and why the crowd would want a criminal released to them.

Mark 6:7 — And among the rebels in prison, who had committed murder in the insurrection, there was a man called Barabbas.

John 19:40 — They cried out again, “Not this man, but Barabbas!” Now Barabbas was a robber.

Luke 18:19 — a man who had been thrown into prison for an insurrection started in the city and for murder.

So we see that Barabbas was at least guilty of murder, of leading — or at least participating in — a political insurrection and robbery. In our society, Barabbas would be considered a pretty nasty dude. So why would the people want someone like that released to them? Mark tells us that the chief priests stirred up the crowd to have Barabbas released. Remember that the Jews were oppressed by the Romans and were very interested in any sort of relief from that oppression. The Jews were looking for political salvation. The reason the chief priests and the crowd were so eager to have Barabbas released was because he was seen as a possible savior for them. Barabbas was not a serial killer… he was a fearless freedom fighter in the vein of Judas during the Maccabean Revolt.

The fascinating piece of this story deals with Barabbas name. Bar-Abbas means “son of the father.” We know Jesus prayed to God using the term Abba which was an affectionate term for father, similar to “daddy.” Our Bibles simply call Barabbas, Barabbas. Some early manuscripts, though, have Barabbas called Jesus Barabbas. (Jesus was a common name at the time.) So Pilate, in an unwitting display of irony, announces to the people: Do you want Jesus Barabbas–the son of the father, a political savior of Israel–to be released or do you want Jesus of Nazareth–the Son of the Father, the true Savior of the world?

We know nothing else about Barabbas — did he resume his insurrection? Did he get a nice condo on the Mediterranean? We do not know. What we do know is what happened to Jesus. The true Son of the Father, our Savior, died on the cross. Let us, like the Roman centurion — the commander in charge of the death squad — cry out confidently, “Truly this man was the Son of God!”

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This entry was posted by zac on Thursday, October 18th, 2007 at 7:02 am and is filed under Weekly Jib Jab. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.