If you know me, I’ve always kept quite a distance from Main Street sports and politics. Much of my discernment has come from hard facts and spiritual intuition. Although not all inherently evil, both organizations have always come with an underlying ulterior motive. Someone is getting rich while someone else is getting taken advantage of at the expense of personal gain.
Levitical law written in the Old Testament is often today communicated solely as a means to teach humanity about our own inherit wickedness, and our inability to walk in God’s great design for humanity.
I personally do not subscribe to this viewpoint. Although there are New Testament scriptures mainly found in Galatians 3 that communicate the purpose of the Law in a similar way, those passages are taken out of context to support false doctrines today.
Those statements are simply partial to Paul’s exhortations in that letter. Jesus himself said that he did not come to abolish the law and the profits, but to fulfill them. Matthew 5:17. https://biblehub.com/matthew/5-17.htm
I often say that God never made a mistake with his original blueprint. He also did not create a set of laws or a way oliving that was so unachievable for humanity as some weird, emotionally manipulative way to show us how much we stink and that we better choose his son or die in our filth.
In the same way, Jesus Barabbas, the murderer who the people chose to set free and instead chose to crucify Jesus, was not a fable character who was created as a mirror of ourselves deserving the crucifixion as Jesus takes our place. This is again is simply a weird, manipulative viewpoint. Not to deny that Jesus didn’t take what we’ve deserved, but it was much more political then and it still is today.
The people had waited for centuries to be set free from political oppression, from higherarchical ruling that took advantage and oppressed a people while others were sunbathing in personal gain, wealth, stature, and pleasure.
Moses’s echo of “let my people go” was still ringing loud in the spirit realm at the time of Jesus.
Both Jesus and Barabbas were politically subvert to the kingdom of Rome. Politics killed one of them and politics set the other one free. Interestingly, they were both against Rome.
Barabbas was part of an insurgence that was standing up against the political oppression of Rome. He was the one fighting against what he knew was a dishonest and unfair system. He was raging against the machine. I like these kind of people.
The ones who are not concerned about their own personal image, the ones who are willing to say the hard thing, and to do the hard thing. There is part of me that believes that Barabbas had good intentions. He seemed to get way off track with his means of pursuing freedom, though.
The people didn’t necessarily want Jesus dead, but they wanted the messiah who would stand up against Rome. Barabbas was the lion, and Jesus’s servant leadership as a lamb wasn’t going to cut it for them. Rome knew that both of these men were against them, but Jesus was the one who claimed to be a King with another kingdom that was superior to Romes. Cesar wasn’t having it. They saw the impact he was having and to weight it out on a scale, Jesus was creating more of a following than Barabas.
I’m not a Catholic, but I do believe the Catholic faith holds tight to a lot of sacred practices that we have let go of. I think the Catholic faith has gotten off track with the way they elevate the spiritual stature of their leaders over other followers of Jesus still being filtered in from the combination of church and state implemented by Rome centuries ago. There’s a lot of levin in that loaf.
However, I was pleasantly elated with a recent statement from the pope to America and specifically President Trump and Vice President Vance.
Today, we still want the insurgent to dominate the evil spiritual forces within our world, and we are still willing to ignore the bloodshed that comes along with it.
President Trump in a recent interview with Joe Rogan put on display the polar opposite representation of the way of Jesus by a world leader. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hBMoPUAeLnY
I have to admit, I was quite entertained, but the way he spoke of other human beings, clearly displayed the throne that he places himself on. He is his own King and those of us who benefit from his tax cuts and gun laws, can easily turn a blind eye to our neighbors in our country and around the world who are under his imperialistic and oppressive leadership.
Please, don’t mistake me. The other side of the political coin was giving license to create a new species of humanity. Both sides have extremely distorted ways of thinking. We, as a country, are a burning train wreck flying down the tracks to Disney World oblivious to the upside down ways of Jesus.
Barabbas was the physical messiah. Jesus was the spiritual and physical messiah who was the king and still is today. In our hearts, we cannot claim allegiance to both of these kingdoms at the same time. They oppose each other.
Honor and reverence for our fellow neighbors is a choice and Jesus‘s political system never makes us choose protocol or people. The political choice in Jesus‘s kingdom will always be people first.
I love our country, I love our president. I will always uphold to the laws of the land until they make me choose between Jesus and Barabas, but my heart aches for the aftermath of our pride, of choosing country over the true King, of choosing oppression over liberation. We still want the God who willingly hung physically crush our enemies and we use abusive definitions of wrath to scare people into salvation. The message of power over by means of sacrificial living still has not proceed our hardened hearts.
Today, my prayer is that we slow down enough to see those around us who desperately need to see the love of the creator of the cosmos who willingly hung on a tree as the ultimate display of leadership. That we have the courage to live in a way that allows people to want to know more about our king and that we consider in which way we still believe the way of Barabas is existing in our hearts.
“If it’s not good news to the poor, the imprisoned, and the oppressed, then it’s not what Jesus is anointed to do, and thus not truly Christian—no matter how hard some may try to convince us that it’s “biblical.” Brian Zahnd
