Most of us hate that Barabbas was released.
Because Barabbas is released, it means Jesus is condemned, scourged and crucified.
Barabbas, by all accounts, is the bad guy. The notorious criminal that is set free in the place of Jesus.
Is there anything good about Barabbas? (Can anything good come out of Nazareth?)
In Exodus, there is one part where God hides Moses in the cleft a rock while he passes by, because seeing God face to face would be too much for him. God comes surrounded by the weight of his own glory.
In one of Elijah’s most desperate moments, he’s hiding out in a cave on a mountain and God appears to him too. But the “preview” of God is cataclysmic: earthquakes, windstorms, fire. God comes surrounded by the weight of his own glory.
The same holds true as Jesus is unjustly condemned. God incarnate comes surrounded by the weight of his own glory. It precedes him and surrounds him.
So should we be surprised if this immense glory surrounding God the Son pardons a criminal in advance of the actual death of Jesus on the cross? Perhaps Barabbas is a “firstfruits” of sorts, a recipient of the glory of the Innocent One who comes to pardon us all. A undeserved recipient of the glory of Jesus.
But Barabbas? That dude? He’s an awful criminal.
Yep. And where sin abounds, grace abounds even more.
The Bible never says what happens to Barabbas. Maybe he continued in his sinful ways. Maybe he repented. I like to imagine him getting as far away from Jerusalem as possible, caught up in the goodness of the gospel, and telling his own story of being the first one that Jesus released.
For he is Barabbas, whose name means, “Son of the Father.”