He Took My Place

I want to tell my story.  I am a wretched man that people hate.  They are afraid of me and they have a right to be.  I am well known as a thief and a treasonous murderer.  My name is Barabbas.

The Roman soldiers had finally caught me and my sentence was death on a cross…. crucifixion.  It is the worst sentence I could get.  It is a horrible way to die.  I know I deserve it, but the hard part right now is to wait…. Wait in a damp, dark, and rat-infested prison cell for that wretched day to come.

The date is set for the Passover.  What a day to die…it is supposed to be a day of rejoicing and feasts!  It is a reminder of the event that finally set the children of Israel free from Pharaoh’s terrible bondage so many years ago.  That was when God gave the Israelites a way to escape the plague of death that struck the firstborn of each household in Egypt by applying blood to their doorposts.  Oh, why couldn’t it have been any other day but that day?  Oh, how I really wish death would pass me by like it did the children of Israel.

The day is finally here.  I pace my cell waiting for the hour to come, to get this over with.  I wonder what is taking them so long?  It is bad enough that I have to face this death, but then having the dread of waiting…not knowing what is going on, on top of that.  Why can’t we just get this over with?

Wait, what’s that noise?  Oh, no, why is there an angry crowd shouting my name?  Am I hated worse than I thought?  Oh, dear God, please have mercy on me!  They’re getting louder…those words send chills up my spine - “Crucify him!  Barabbas…crucify him!”  What are they going to do when they finally bring me out?  Am I going to be stoned half to death before I even get on death’s hill?  My dear Lord, please help me!  Don’t…don’t let them beat me…I don’t know how much I can bear!

What’s that noise?  Footsteps…the time has come…that’s…that’s the jailer coming.  As I hear the keys clattering I slowly back up…I’m usually a brave man but there is such a cold chill that has come over my body…I try to restrain the tears from coming to my eyes. The seconds seem like minutes…hours…like time has stood still.  The door slowly creaks open…how I wish I could disappear into the wall!  The jailer just stands at the door…I wonder if I could bolt past him and get free?  I really wish I could take back what I did so I wouldn’t be in this situation!

The jailer stretches his arm and says it is time to go.  Panic floods my heart, I can’t breathe. I’m searching for a way out…any way…I can still hear the angry crowd outside…I can’t hear the jailer saying my name…I can’t hear over my heart pounding…

He pushes open the door so there is more than enough room to get by… I just stare at him blankly…what is he doing?  He doesn’t even have his hand on his sword in case I try to bolt…he has the same blank stare on his face as I imagine I do, like he is surprised he is doing this.

I look at the open door, then slowly turn to the jailer…he said something… I shake my head and try to make myself listen to what he is saying…”free”…I shake my head again and I can barely say, “What?”  He says it again.  “Barabbas, you’re free.  The crowd chose to let you go instead of Jesus.”

I can’t believe my ears…I can’t move…I just stand there as the jailer walks away, shaking his head.  He can’t believe it either…I force myself to take one step after another.  As I get to my cell door I can see the other prisoners just standing there at their cells…staring at me in unbelief.  I should be the last person on earth to be set free…I wonder what this Jesus had done for the crowd to choose him to be killed over me?

I walk down the hall expecting that this is some cruel trick…I was half expecting the jailers at any second to grab me and take me out to that cross… but they only stood there with blank looks on their faces and not believing what was happening.  This really is true…I am really free!

I wasn’t sure what to expect when I got outside.  But what I saw shocked me a hundred times worse than the fact that I had just been set free.  The crowd was surrounding a man, mocking, beating, spitting on him…. As I got closer to see who it was, what I saw made me so sick I had to turn away.  This man’s back was literally torn to shreds from being whipped with the cat-of-nine tails…a terrible whip with pieces of metal on the end of it.

What are they doing to this poor man?  Who is he?  I force myself to look again. As I do I see them put a scarlet robe on him, and place a crown of what appeared to be four-inch long thorns on his head, pushing it down into his scalp.  They put a reed in his right hand and bowed down to him, saying, “King of the Jews!” and then took the reed from his hand and began smiting him with it.

Tears flooded my eyes.  I couldn’t understand why they were doing this.  Is this Jesus?  What has he done?  More and more questions flood my mind as I watch them rip the robe, which is now saturated with blood; from his back taking what little skin he had left with it.  They then put his own clothes on him and made him carry his own cross and led him away to Golgotha, “the place of the skull”.

I want to run…to get away from this cruel crowd.  But I can’t take my eyes off of him…there is something about him. He doesn’t curse at the crowd or the soldiers as they do those terrible things to him.  I know I would be.  In fact, he says nothing.  Like a lamb being led away to the slaughter.  I begin to wonder if he can talk, or had they cut out his tongue in this horrible…game.

We get to Golgotha.  As they get ready to put him on the cross, they give him vinegar to drink mingled with gall, (a bitter substance, usually given, according to a merciful custom, to render them insensible to pain.), but when he tastes it he won’t drink it.  Then they nail him to the cross.  I can almost feel the pain that I see in his eyes with every strike of the hammer hitting the nails.  Yet he says nothing.  I sink to my knees and close my eyes. The sound of the nails being hammered into his flesh echo in my ears and I hear him groan in pain.

I hear him speak for the first time, but what he says shocks me…He said, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.”  He forgives them?!?  How can he forgive with all they do to him!  I don’t understand.

They take his clothes and are laughing while they’re casting lots for them. Anger starts to fill my heart.  Is this some sick joke to them?  Look at him!  He is half beaten to death - how can they mock him, spit on him, do all this to him and yet he does NOTHING to try and stop them, to protect himself…he doesn’t even say a word to them!  How can they do this?!?

As I am trying to force myself to breathe, I look up and see a sign over him written in Greek, Latin, and Hebrew, saying, “THIS IS THE KING OF THE JEWS.”  Even as he dies they still mock him.

The crowd started shouting, “You that destroy the temple and build it in three days, save yourself.  If you be the Son of God, come down from the cross.”  The Chief Priests with the Scribes and Elders started mocking him by saying, “He saved others, himself he cannot save.  If he be the King of Israel, let him now come down from the cross, and we will believe him.  He trusted in God, let God deliver him now, if He will have him, for he said, ‘I am the Son of God.’ ”  Even one of the thieves that was being crucified with him said the same thing…but one said, “Remember me” and I heard him speak to him in love, saying, “Today you will be with Me in Paradise.”

I look around to see if there is anyone that isn’t mocking him.  I see many women far off watching with tears in their eyes.  I think I recognize one of them. Could it be?  Yes, yes it is Mary Magdalene.  But she looks different.  She looks like a new person…does she know this Jesus?  I must find out.

I force my way through the crowd to get to them.  Something makes me look back to Jesus.  I hear him cry out, “Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani?”  Is he crying for Elias to save Him?  No, wait…doesn’t that mean My God, My God, why hast thou forsaken me?  Oh, no - even God is turning His back on this man!  Why?!?

I can’t take the crowd’s mockery anymore.  I have to get to those women to find out more about this man.  Who is he?  What has he done that has caused so many people to hate him?  But as I push though the crowd I hear Jesus cry out again.  He says, “It is finished, Father, into Your hands I commend My spirit.”  Then the earth quakes greatly. I am forced to the ground.  I can’t keep my balance.  People are screaming.  Then all at once it’s quiet.  Jesus is dead.  When the people see this they are afraid and say, “Truly, this was the Son of God.”

I look at Jesus limp on the cross for a minute and deep down I know I have to find out more about this man who took my place.  I have to get to Mary Magdalene.  Something deep down tells me she will have the answers I am looking for.

I push though the crowd of frantic people toward the direction where I last saw Mary.  I get to where she was and frantically look around for her, or even one of those I saw with her.  Have I missed her?  Have I lost my chance to find out who Jesus really is?  To find out about him?

I finally spot her going down the hill with the other women.  I call out to her as I quickly run down the hill to catch her.  She turns in puzzlement to find out who is calling her. I’m not sure what her reaction should be when she sees me. Is she even going to acknowledge who I am?  Or will she, at the very least, just be polite and shun the fact of ever knowing me?  But what she does to me makes me wonder who Jesus was even more.  For not only does she acknowledge me, but she treats me like I am a human being instead of the wretched animal I have been for so many years.

All I can get out of my mouth after that is, “What ... what changed you? What made the difference?”  For I know that so many people had tried to reach her, but she just brushed them off.

When I said that, her eyes fill up with tears, she hangs her head and says, “The Master, Jesus Christ.”  I, too, hang my head, trying to hide the tears in my eyes that are threatening to burst out.  In a quiet, shaky voice I ask, “What did he do?”  All Mary can say is, “He loved too much.”  I must have looked at her with a strange expression, because she asks me how much I know about Jesus.  I shake my head and say, “Only that he took my place.”

I went with Mary and the others and I found out so many things about Jesus. How that He was born from a virgin and all the wonderful miracles He had done. All He ever did was help people in a love that no one fully understood.

I also learned today of the illegal trial that Christ had and that the veil of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom.  Everyone was amazed because of how thick and strong it was.  It would have taken eight pair of oxen pulling in two different directions to tear it.  Yet no one was really sure what the torn veil meant.

The women and Jesus’ disciples were greatly distraught when they found out that Judas, who had earlier betrayed Jesus for the price of a slave, had hung himself because he couldn’t bear to live with the fact that he killed Christ. But something deep down tells me that if Jesus had really wanted to, He could have spared Himself from it all.  He went through it not only for me, but everyone else that day.

I learned with everyone else three days later, that the cross wasn’t the end for the Son of God.  Jesus rose from the dead and made Himself known to the disciples and many other people in the forty days that followed.  Then millions of people saw Him ascend up in the sky to be with the Father.

Jesus said that He was coming back one day and I will be waiting and watching for the One who took my place.