We Chose Barabbas. We Got Barabbas

Coming out of Holy Week, Mark 15 has stuck with me.

Pilate puts a choice before the crowd. Jesus, a Messiah of sacrifice, of service, of a Kingdom that comes not through domination but through death. And Barabbas, a violent insurrectionist who was guilty of murder. In many ways, he very well might have been the type of strongman many expected the Messiah to be.

Of course, as the story goes, when presented with the choice of who to release back to them, the crowd chooses Barabbas.

We might read that story as a tragic historical event, but that story, that choice is so much more. It is a mirror being held up to us. We have been staring into that mirror for the last decade. We chose Barabbas, and we got Barabbas.

We don’t know much about Barabbas except that he was violent and was someone who had acted on the logic that power and pursuits of dominance are the way, and that the ends justify the means. The crowd wasn't simply choosing a murderer over an innocent man. They were choosing a vision of salvation. Though the religious leaders may have mobilized the crowd, the ease with which they were mobilized — and the choice they made — reveals something true about what many wanted. They are choosing a strongman who would fight for them, protect them, crush their enemies, and make them feel powerful again. They had grown impatient with the compassionate, merciful, other-oriented way of Jesus, and with the preaching of a Kingdom that didn't look like the great kingdom of Israel they envisioned. They wanted power, dominance, vengeance, and control. Jesus kept saying no. So now, they said no to Jesus.

The Church's Persistent Temptation

The tragedy is that this was not a one-time failure unique to first-century Jerusalem. It is the church's recurring temptation, and the church has given into it with persistent regularity.

When Constantine married Christianity to Roman rule, the church traded the experience of the persecuted exile for the experience of imperial power––the church chose Barabbas. When the Crusades sent men marching under the cross toward violence–violence that would have righteously enraged the one they claimed to follow––the church chose Barabbas. When the Inquisition decided truth could be protected through torture, the church chose Barabbas. When colonialism was blessed by the church, when American slavery was theologized rather than condemned, when large portions of the German church accommodated Hitler as a national savior, when white churches during the Civil Rights Movement protected their privilege and called it faithfulness—in each of these, the pattern was the same––the church chose Barabbas.

The church grows tired of the slow, costly, sacrificial way of Jesus. And when some movement takes hold, or someone comes along and said, I will fight for you. I will give you power. I will crush the opposition, the church too often says, “Give us Barabbas, crucify Jesus.”

Our Contemporary Barabbas 

Over the last decade, we have again cried out, “Enough with the patient, self-giving, sacrificial way of Jesus. Give us the strongman. Give us vengeance. Give us Barabbas.Famously, in his address at Dordt University, President Trump promised a room full of Christians the promise of every proverbial Barabbas across church history. He said,

"Christianity will have power. If I'm there, you're going to have plenty of power; you don't need anybody else."

That really is a remarkably honest offer. He’s not making a theological argument or even an appeal to any particular policy. Like every proposition he makes, it is a transaction: Give me your vote, and I will give you dominance. Your loyalty = power. It is fundamentally the Hobbesian offer — surrender your loyalty to the sovereign and he will protect you from everything you fear. It is a secular transaction dressed in sacred language, and the church, of all institutions, should see right through it. But that promise, and the willingness of many Christians to believe it, has ushered in a remarkable season of Barabbas-oriented leadership.

One should not miss what another author pointed out, that this promise is fundamentally the transaction that Satan presents Jesus in His temptation: Jesus, you can have “kingdoms of the world and their splendor. All this I will give you…if you will bow down and worship me.” (Matt. 4:8-9). Give me your loyalty, and I will give you the power you desire. 

We Got What We Chose

Bottom line, we––by “we” I mean in the covenantal, prayer of Daniel 9, all Christians are bound to one another, sense––Barabbas, and we got Barabbas. We chose a man who has a long history of dehumanizing others through sexual exploitation, racial bigotry, xenophobia, and mean-spiritedness. We chose a man who habitually lies to serve his interests or the interests of those who are loyal to him. We chose a man who literally supported an insurrection and, at every opportunity, has thwarted attempts at holding those insurrectionists accountable. We chose a man who brazenly uses government agencies for personal gain and personal vendettas. We chose a man who now, unsurprisingly, on the most sacred of days, Easter Sunday––a day we celebrate the culminating work of grace by our sacrificial Savior–– threatens to wipe out an entire civilization (Lord Jesus, be near and protect the innocent). And still, all the while, many defend, justify, or downplay such evil. Why? That was the offer: loyalty for power.

And even more, at some point, the argument shifted from "he is imperfect but will protect our interests" to something more troubling: active veneration. The conflation of Trump with Cyrus, with David, with figures God has raised up to accomplish His purposes, the co-opting of Scripture to justify military operations, the assertion that political opponents are enemies of God who must be destroyed to save the country, and so much more––more than anyone could possibly summarize––only proves how fundamentally deceived so many have been, especially over the last decade.

I have written about this before, but Trump-era Christianity has done generations-long damage to the credibility of the American church. It has created the greatest evangelistic crisis of our day. The name of Jesus is now too often associated, in the minds of millions, not with the radical, costly, sacrificial, cross-shaped life of the Kingdom, but with anger, cruelty, and the will to dominate.

We deceive ourselves further if we think the modern crisis of faith is because people wrestle with the trustworthiness of resurrection accounts, the problem of evil, or other common concerns. Those concerns will always exist, but today, the immediate crisis is that many watched Christians defend the indefensible and call it faithfulness. They have watched Christians reject Christ and choose Barabbas.

We Must Chose Otherwise

Ultimately, because God is holy, righteous, and just, he will not allow such wickedness and deception to persist indefinitely. As has been the case before, in His kindness, the Lord disciplines those whom he loves. A reckoning will come. I am not a prophet or the son of a prophet, so I do not know what that will look like. But God will not be mocked. He will not allow His name to be taken in vain. He will not allow Barabbas to triumph.

For now, what must the church do? We must name our failures. We must repent.

My wife and I often talk about the current train of thought among some: as has been the case with other historical horrors, one day––ten, twenty, thirty years from now––everyone will claim they were against the MAGA movement and this administration. Our children’s children will learn about this season we are in, shocked that anyone allowed this to happen. But for the sake of our witness, the honor of God, and the good of our neighbor, we––the collective, covenantal “we”––must recognize and acknowledge what we have done. We must name that we have, like the crowd in Jerusalem, cried out, “Give us Barabbas, crucify Jesus!” I pray we are able to do so.

It is never too late to choose differently. As long as we have breath, repentance is always an option. But it requires honesty about what we have chosen and what we will choose.

Father, give us the courage to see clearly and the humility to repent of having chosen the ways of Barabbas and not the ways of Jesus—until Zion.