Listen to the sermon with the player below, or, download the audio.
+ + + In Nomine Jesu + + +
Please join me in prayer: May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be pleasing in your sight, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.
Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ.
After hearing tonight’s Reading about Jesus at the Praetorium, or “headquarters”, or “Judgment Hall” of Pontius Pilate (Lutheran Service Book 436), including the Reading’s unique mention of rebels in prison for murder in an insurrection, to not think at least a little about what happened at the U-S Capitol complex on January 6th of this year is difficult. The deaths of five people are linked to that recent action in Washington, D-C, and officials have made federal charges of one kind or another against more than 300 people from more than 40 different states (Wikipedia). We do not know how many people either were murdered or imprisoned after the insurrection in Jerusalem (confer Luke 23:19), or whether the man called “Barabbas” was wrongly or rightly being held for the murder and insurrection (Brown, Death, 797, 819). Tonight, as we continue considering the Divinely‑inspired St. Mark’s unique contributions to the whole of the narrative of our Lord’s Passion for us, we consider the unique contribution that is the “Detailed background of Barabbas”.
Barabbas is introduced into the narrative as the crowd came up and began to ask Pilate to release for them one prisoner, as Pilate apparently had the custom of doing at Passover. Though there were analogous customs elsewhere at other times (see, for example, Taylor, ad loc Mark 15:6-7, p.580), this Passover custom, which may have pre-dated Roman rule (see, for example, Lenski ad loc Mark 15:6, p.684), was apparently a local custom that served both to reduce tension among the crowds at the Passover and to limit anti-Roman sentiment. In the case of Jesus and Barabbas, the custom may have been a means by which both the Jewish leaders hoped to convince Pilate to convict Jesus (Brown, A Crucified Christ, 28; Marcus, ad loc Mark 15:6-15, p.1036) and Pilate hoped to get the crowd to free Jesus (Lenski, ad loc Mark 15:6, p.684; Marcus, ad loc Mark 15:6-15, p.1035). A sort of family name, “Bar-abbas” is often understood as meaning “son of the father”, and his personal name in some manuscripts is given as “Jesus” (Matthew 27:16-17), but, nothing is made of his name in St. Mark’s Gospel account, where the unique detail of his background comes as a sort of parenthesis to the main narrative (Taylor, ad loc Mark 15:7, p.581).
The Divinely‑inspired St. Mark does uniquely report that Barabbas was among the rebels in prison who had committed murder in the insurrection. St. Mark’s account is not the only Gospel account to mention an insurrection and murder (compare TLSB, ad loc Mark 15:7, p.1695, and Luke 23:19, 25), but St. Mark’s account is the only Gospel account to refer to more than one “rebel”, to use the particular Greek term for the “rebels” (or, “insurrectionists”, or “seditionists”), and to specifically connect the murder with the insurrection. The Bible mentions a number of such “insurrections” either against the ruling authorities or between different factions of the Jews (Delling, TDNT 7:570; for examples, Luke 13:1; Acts 5:36-37; 21:38), and, although no other source outside of the Bible is usually thought to mention this particular insurrection, there are possible matches outside of the Bible (Marcus, ad loc Mark 15:7, pp.1029‑1030). Regardless, St. Mark’s account is usually taken as referring to this particular insurrection as well‑known, at least to his hearers or readers. Barabbas may have been one of the Jewish zealots, extreme Pharisees for whom patriotism and religion are said to have been “inseparable” (Holman, 537), and so who opposed Roman rule (John 18:40; confer CSSB, ad loc Mark 15:7, p.1536; Rengstorf, TDNT 4:258). Apparently one of Jesus’s disciples was also such a zealot (Matthew 10:4; Mark 3:18; Luke 6:15; Acts 1:13), and their fellow partisans even may have been in the crowd crying out for Barabbas’s release (Taylor, ad loc Mark 15:8-10, p.581, reports Meyer’s theory and those who argue against it).
As those participating in our Midweek Bible Study may recall, after Peter and John in Jesus’s Name miraculously healed a man lame from birth, Peter addressed the people and, among other things, recalling the event of tonight’s Reading, said that they had denied the Holy and Righteous One and asked for a murderer to be granted to them (Acts 3:14). They were not sheep who heeded the voice of the Good Shepherd but those who instead listened to the thieves and robbers (John 10:8; confer Brown, Death, 797). We ourselves may not be among those in our time who want criminals released, but we may actively choose evil in other ways, and we all certainly do not always heed the Good Shepherd’s voice and are guilty of God’s Commandment against murder. Even if we might not hurt or harm our neighbors in their bodies, we fail to help and support them in every physical need (Small Catechism, I:10). In our hearts we may harbor anger or hatred against our neighbors, or we may fail to treat them with kindness and compassion; we may be prejudiced or racist, we may speak or act violently or abusively toward a spouse or a child, or we may engage in reckless or self‑destructive behavior (confer Luther’s Small Catechism with Explanation, 85-92). Barabbas may have been a “notorious” prisoner and presumed guilty of the crimes for which he was arrested (Matthew 27:16; confer Lenski, ad loc Mark 15:7, p.685), but we certainly are guilty by virtue of both our sinful nature and our countless actual sins against the Fifth and the other Commandments, for which we would suffer not only temporal death but also eternal torment, if we did not, as called and so enabled by God, repent and trust that Jesus exchanged Himself for us, as He in a sense was exchanged for Barabbas.
Seemingly most-important for St. Mark are the comparison and contrast between Jesus and Barabbas (Marcus, ad loc Mark 15:6-15, p.1035). Barabbas was at least alleged to be an insurrectionist, but Jesus was not an insurrectionist, although Jesus was arrested as if He was an insurrectionist (Matthew 26:55; Mark 14:48; Luke 22:52; Rengstorf, TDNT 4:261), falsely accused of “insurrection” (Luke 23:2), and crucified with two insurrectionists (Mark 15:27; Matthew 27:38, 44; confer Rengstorf, TDNT 4:262), perhaps even two of those arrested with and for the same crimes as Barabbas (Brown, Death, 796). The soldiers’ mocking hailing and homage of Jesus that St. Mark also uniquely reports, as if Jesus were a mock Caesar undergoing a mock coronation (Marcus, ad loc Mark 15:16-20a, p.1047), Jesus actually in some sense deserved as genuine and sincere. As we heard in tonight’s Reading, Pilate rightly recognized that Jesus had done no evil (confer Matthew 27:23), but Jesus bore our evil and the evil of the whole world. Out of His great love, on the cross, Jesus died for us, in our place, the death that we deserved. Tonight’s Office Hymn not only said well “A murderer they save, / The Prince of Life they slay”, but the Hymn also well identified in some sense the tomb in which He lay as ours (LSB 430:5, 6; confer Marcus, ad loc Mark 15:6-15, p.1036). For, if He did not bear our sins and in a sense lay in our tomb, then He did not die and rise for us, and so we are still in our sins, and still deserving of not only temporal death but also eternal torment (confer 1 Corinthians 15:17). But, while the Jews ultimately may have decided in favor of the Zealots and chosen war with Rome and their own crucifixion rather than the peace with God that His Messiah brings (Luke 2:14; confer Isaiah 9:6-7; Rengstorf, TDNT 4:262), we repent of our sin and trust God to forgive us our sin for Jesus’s sake, and so God does forgive us our sin. God forgives us our sin through His Word and Sacraments.
The Greek words referring to Barabbas that are translated as “prisoner” and “prison” are related to the Greek verb that tells of the Jews’ “binding” Jesus, and together those words contribute to a context in which “release” is very important, and so where, not surprisingly, “release” is mentioned four times (Brown, Death, 796). Such “binding” and “releasing” is the language of retaining and forgiving sins (Matthew 16:16; 18:18; confer and compare John 20:23). While sins can be and are retained and forgiven both to groups such as this through the reading and preaching of God’s Word and to individuals when the Word is combined with water in Holy Baptism and with the bread and wine of the Sacrament of the Altar that are the Body of Christ given for us and the Blood of Christ shed for us, the “binding” and “releasing” language seems to most‑properly refer to the exercise of the Office of the Keys in individual excommunication and absolution—excommunication: a terror to the unrepentant, but absolution: a great comfort to those who repent and trust that the pastor’s forgiveness is God’s forgiveness (LSB 293).
Repentant, trusting, and forgiven by God through His Word and Sacraments, we begin to at least want to keep if not also actually to keep God’s Commandments, including the Fifth Commandment. And, when we fail to keep the Commandments, as we will fail, with daily repentance and trust, we live in His forgiveness of sins for those failures to keep His Commmandments, and so we also live in peace and joy.
There is one more of St. Mark’s unique contributions to the whole narrative of our Lord’s Passion for us that is left for us to consider next week, having tonight considered the unique contribution that is the “Detailed background of Barabbas”. Holy Scripture does not record whatever happened to Barabbas, who had been among the rebels who had committed murder in an insurrection in Jerusalem, and time will tell what will become of those charged in the so‑called “insurrection” in Washington, D-C. In time also will be revealed God’s verdict in each individual’s case: whether his or her sins, such as those against God’s Commandment against murder, were either retained for impenitence and unbelief, or forgiven for repentance and faith. May God’s verdict in our cases be forgiven by grace through faith in Jesus Christ.
Amen.
The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
+ + + Soli Deo Gloria + + +