"I Am Barabbas"

Could he have heard the cries of the crowd? In the deepest of dungeons he sat waiting his time. It wouldn't be long before the Roman soldiers would come for him. His family surely couldn't figure out what went so wrong in his life to deviate so far from the right path. It was one of the most horrible deaths ever devised. It was lingering pain, sometimes lasting a full day. There was no mercy and little by little the life's blood would drip from the body. The Roman Crucifixion was reserved for the worst of criminals. It was death by suffering!

The noise of soldiers walking down a hallway preparing to open the cell door. His chains stopped rattling for a moment as he paused and waited. His life had made a journey to which he was about to face the consequences. The door opens and the men approached. The commander reaches out and says, "We have come to set you free!" It stunned him for a moment. Maybe they were toying with him? Just another dig in him to advance what was about to take place. "The governor has signed the authorization to set you free. Your sentence has been commuted!" Was this a dream? What was going on? The confusion set in. Here he was an insurrectionist, having tried to over-throw the government and he had committed murder in the process. How he must have hated the established authority yet they were setting him free.

In the background, the raising of voices, "Crucify him! Crucify him!" His thoughts were trying to figure all this out. We know nothing about what happened to his man or where he went but he was set free and someone had taken on his death sentence. I don't know if he ever met Jesus or heard anything about Him but one thing I know, Jesus was substituted in his place to die his death and the multitude of people witnessed this horrible death. This crowd crying out had just let an insurrectionist and murderer go free. They loved a murderer more than Jesus! Maybe the next time we bow in prayer, or sing a song of praise or worship with the others, we need to introduce ourselves to the Father and Savior of us all, "I AM BARABBAS!" The just for the unjust. And we can't see the Father's love?