Barabbas

...Will you have me release to you the King of the Jews? Then they all cried out again, saying, Not this man, but Barabbas. Now Barabbas was a robber. Gospel of John 18, 39-40.

Prison walls, damp and dripping vaults of stone. The day of execution draws its breath. He'll never walk alive into the sun, And iron chains will bind him unto death.

A rebel and a murderer—Barabbas, Who shattered countless human destinies, And played with lives and torment like a task, For sport, but now he faces justice' decree.

The prison doors clang shut with dreadful sound. Soldiers. Blows. The stairs. The gathered throng. That last and pitiful hope to be found Has vanished at the sight of crosses wrong.

In frenzied agony his thoughts ran wild, With shifting faces, deeds, and twisted years… But something mad the crowd's voices compiled: "Free Barabbas! Crucify—Jesu appears!"

Crucify Jesus! Crucify the Nazarene! A name he'd heard in tales before that day: Wait, was He not the one in Galilee Who worked great wonders, healed the sick's dismay?

Then what, I ask, is His transgression here? For what do you demand that He should die? But like a hive the crowd buzzed wild in cheer: "Free Barabbas! Let the Nazarene die!"

And there Barabbas met Jesus' gaze, In those eyes lay the deep and boundless sky, He looked at him with love through endless days: "Live, man, and know I'll die here in your stead and sigh."

Humble and meek, in purple robe arrayed (The thorny crown cut deep into His skin), Jesus looked at those faces dark and frayed And prayed aloud: "Father, forgive them in their sin."

With clanging sound the iron shackles fell. But why do you delay, Barabbas, go! While Roman soldiers scourge, and how they tell Of spittle and of crosses yet to know.

He should have fled, but feet refused to move, And still his mind kept drilling at his soul: "I've sinned so much, so gravely to reprove, And yet Christ dies to make my spirit whole?"…

I think Barabbas followed through the crowd, Counting each stroke of the relentless whip. He should have hung there, beaten and unbowed, Bearing the cross upon his tortured hip.

The life of Barabbas—perhaps you know His story burns within your heart as well— In sin's own chains, in slavery below, Your soul belongs to darkness and to hell.

Christ is the Savior… all your crimes of old Are washed away upon that Calvary tree. He offers faith and love and mercy's gold, A life renewed and everlasting free.