I have often thought what a night Barabbas must have spent just before
the day when Christ was crucified.
As the sun goes down, he says to himself: “Tomorrow--only tomorrow--and I
must die upon the cross! They will hang me up before a crowd of people;
they will drive nails through my hands and feet; they will break my legs
with bars of iron; and in that awful torture I shall die before this time
tomorrow, and go up to the Judgment with all my crimes upon me.”
Maybe, they let his mother come to see him once more before dark. Perhaps
he had a wife and children, and they came to see him for the last time.
He could not sleep at all that night. He could hear somebody hammering
in the prison yard, and knew they must be making the cross. He would
start up every now and then, thinking that he heard the footsteps of the
officers coming for him.
At last the light of the morning looks in through the bars of his prison.
“Today--this very day--they will open that door and lead me away to be
crucified!”
Pretty soon he hears them coming. No mistake this time. They are
unbarring the iron door. He hears them turning the key in the rusty lock.
Then the door swings open. There are the soldiers.
Good-by to life and hope! Death--horrible death--now! And after
death--what will there be then?
The officer of the guard speaks to him: “Barabbas, you are free!”
He hears the strange words, but they make very little impression on him.
He is so near dead with fear and horror that the good news does not reach
him. His ears catch the sound, but he thinks it is a foolish fancy. He is
asleep and dreaming. He stands gazing a moment at the soldiers, and then
he comes to himself.
“Do not laugh at me! Do not make sport of me! Take me away and crucify
me, but do not tear my soul to pieces!” Again the officer speaks: “_You
are free!_ Here--the door is open! Go out--go home!”
Now he begins to take in the truth. But it is so wonderful a thing to get
out of the clutches of the Roman law that he is afraid to believe the
good news. And so he begins to doubt, and to ask how it can be.
They tell him that Pilate has promised the Jews the release of one
prisoner that day, and that the Jews have chosen him instead of one Jesus
of Nazareth, who was condemned to be crucified.
Now the poor man begins to weep. This breaks his heart. He knows this
Jesus. He has seen Him perform some of His miracles. He was in the crowd,
picking pockets, when Jesus fed the five thousand hungry people.
“What! That just man to die! And I--a thief, a highwayman, a murderer--to
go free!”
And in the midst of his joy at his own release his heart breaks at the
thought that his life is saved at such a cost.