Call me Barabbas

Before we enter this story, it’s worth pausing to remember just how confronting the cross really is.

We can become familiar with it—accustomed to the language, the symbols, the rhythm of the story. But Good Friday is not meant to sit comfortably with us. It asks something deeper. It asks us to remember that the cross was not abstract, not symbolic, not distant. It was personal. Substitutional. Costly.

At the heart of it is this unsettling truth: Jesus did not simply die for humanity in a general sense—he took the place of real people. Of individuals. Of the guilty.

And perhaps no one embodies that more starkly than Barabbas.

Barabbas was not misunderstood. Not morally grey. He was known for violence, for rebellion, for bloodshed. He had earned his sentence. He stood where he deserved to stand—condemned, exposed, without excuse. And yet, in a moment that defies logic and justice, his name is called for release… and Jesus takes his place.

If we let it, that moment can move from being a detail in the story to something far more confronting.

Because the invitation of Good Friday is not simply to observe Barabbas—but to stand where he stood.

To feel the weight of chains that rightly belong to us.
To hear our name in the place of the guilty.
To watch, with a mixture of relief and disorientation, as another is led away in our place.

What would that feel like?

This reflection invites you not just to understand that exchange, but to step into it—to see through Barabbas’ eyes, to feel the confusion, the resistance, the unsettling mercy of it all.

And perhaps, as you do, to recognise something of yourself in him…

____

The guards looked down at me as if I was worthless. The grit, sweat and bile clung to me and I could feel the scraps of the soiled linen I was wearing etched into my skin. The heavy chains around my hands were digging deeper into my flesh as I was dragged up.

Up and up and up from the pits of where they’d held me. 

I went from jagged stone, to hard-packed earth, to marble, smooth as glass. My eyes were straining to adjust to the light after so long in the dark. I bared my teeth like the animal they always said I was. 

In the shifting shadows of my vision, the sounds of jeering seemed even louder. It was a tempest of colliding voices and thunderous banging from the guards’ shields. I was fighting against things I couldn’t see, straining against bindings I couldn’t break, and being pulled against my will into the centre of it all. 

When suddenly, I was wrenched to a stop. A guard hit me on the side of the head and spat at me to stand still. It was only then that the image of where I was truly settled before me. There were so many people just beyond the steps of the Praetorium. Such a vast hoard… and they were angry. You could feel it surging and pulsating.

I thrived on that violence. Barabbas: Barbaric. Monstrous. Murderer. I had earned my place here. But I would not go quietly. So, I spat back at the crowd, vindicated in my righteousness. 

When the governor approached me, his gaze passed over me with derision. I remained unyielding as I stared him down, turning my fear and pain into brutality that had served me well. He sneered and I followed his gaze to another man who was also facing the crowd. 

The governor raised his voice and asked, “Are you the king of the Jews?”

This man raised his head to meet the governor’s. “You have said so.”

The tension rose as the governor spoke to some finely dressed woman, and religious leaders spoke out to the mass before us. Death warrants no doubt being prepared. I was at the mercy of this darkness. I knew that. But it seemed that everyone was caught in its tidal pull.  Except that man. He was so still, so silent. Like a rock that water was crashing around. He looked at me and there was no disdain in his eyes. He almost looked… heartbroken. 

But then the governor called for silence and stretched his arms out over the crowd.  With barely restrained fear, he asked, “Which of these do you want released?”

No one spoke and in the quiet, I could feel our fate being weighed and measured. 

Who would live and who would die? I already knew the answer. I’d been carrying that burden like salt in an open wound my entire life. 

And then one voice, hard and certain, broke the stalemate: “Barabbas!” 

Another, shrill yet clear: “Barabbas!”

Then feet started pounding the ground. Arms struck the air. The earth was shaking with the booming reverberation of my name.  “Barabbas! Barabbas! Barabbas!”

Me?

Didn’t they know who I was? What I’d done? What horrors I’d revelled in?

The governor called for calm and asked again, “And Jesus, who is called Messiah, what of him?”

Jesus, the Messiah? I’d heard them talk about this Jesus. There was no hesitation from the swelling mass: “Crucify Him! Crucify Him! Crucify Him!”

Oh, they tasted blood; they were thirsty for it. You could drink the hatred in like thickened wine. It was visceral. I’d never incited anything close to that. 

But wait… Was I actually going to go free?
I took a stumbling step towards this Jesus and… He was still looking at me.
Straight to the core of me. To the places so dark and twisted that even I kept them hidden. I was captive. To them and to his gaze.

A gaze that held me.  My entire life was held in those eyes.

And with a certainty I didn’t understand, I knew it wasn’t the crowd that had rescued me. They may have chanted my name, but this man, this Jesus…

I saw the governor wash his hands and declare this man’s innocence. The heavy chains were cast off me and hands propelled me down the steps.  My feet moved before I realised I’d made the decision. I pushed through those around me drunk on violence and found my way to the courtyard where they kept those condemned.

And then I heard a cry. 

I crouched so I could see through the gap in the wall and saw him as they enacted their hideous punishment on him. They started to flog him, ripping at flesh with a frenzied delight. My body arched with every blow. They were meant to be mine. But there was no blood on my back. 

What kind of coward was I? I was scarred enough to know what pain he’d be in, but I’d earned what I’d gotten. This man, this Messiah…

He was contorted in agony; the dirt around him soaked red with blood. I could hear the guards’ laughter. The kind that comes when men forget someone else is human. I risked another glance; just enough to see them dress him up for their amusement. And was that a crown?  As I leaned closer, blood trailed down his face in crimson threads as the thorns pressed into his head and they hauled him to his feet.

I told myself to run. That’s what I do. Survive. Disappear. There are ways to stay hidden if you know how - places  guards don’t look twice. I’ve lived my whole life in the dark. I’d fought for everything. Scratched, clawed, taken what I could. 

But him? He just stood there. He didn’t fight. It was as if he had known what was coming all along. 

Then very slowly his head lifted and he met my gaze as if he knew I was there. And I couldn’t look away. I wanted to but… I couldn’t. Because no one had ever looked at me like that. 

I should be gone, vanishing back into the kind of life that put me there in the first place but instead, I found myself following. Not close. Just enough to see him stumble under the weight of the wood. Just enough to hear the hammer smash through bone.

Why him?
Why not me?
I didn’t have words for it. I didn’t have a way to make sense of it.
And yet I stood there because I couldn’t look away.

(written by Rowena McNicol, Sarah Newtown-Jones and Jodi Crain)