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says, “Now at the festival the governor was accustomed to release
a prisoner for the crowd, anyone whom they wanted”. There
were three festivals in a year for the Jews to celebrate namely
Pentecost (feast of harvest or feast of weeks), Tabernacle and
Passover. Here, the festival means ‘the Passover’. John 18:39-40
says, “you have a custom that I release someone for you at the
Passover. Do you want me to release for you the King of the Jews?
“They shouted in reply, “Not this man, but Barabbas!” Now
Barabbas was a bandit”. In fact, it was neither a law supported
by the Torah of Mosses nor a Jewish custom, but it was a custom
promoted by the Roman Government to appease the Jewish
People in their provinces. It was just an act of appeasement, not
the act of humanization or liberation, but solely the ‘crumbs
of power’ to soothe the people. Furthermore, it was an act of
‘throwing dust in someone’s eyes’ in order to safeguard their
power hegemony. Roman-Jewish power mongers had used all
possible ways to ensure their craving for the power and wealth.
A victimization was needed to attain their vested interest. The
selection of Barabbas and the elimination of Jesus Christ was
part of their political gimmicks in which the high priests of the
Jewish religion played crucial role to stir up the mob.

Who was Barabbas?

According to the Biblical narration, as written in Mark
15:7, “Now a man called Barabbas was in prison with the rebels
who had committed murder during the insurrection.”. The word
insurrection (Luke 23:19) comes from a Greek Word ‘stasiastes’
that means “to make a stand,” “one who stirs up sedition,” or
“a rebel.” Barabbas had been tried by the Roman government
and found guilty of treason and murder and had been sentenced
to death. We have no information on when or where Barabbas
led this rebellion against Rome. But there was a rebellion at
that time and many zealots through Palestine that would rise
up against the Romans because of their suppression, oppression
and exploitation. Furthermore, Barabbas was a “freedom

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Lenten Meditations Re - Imaging People