As Easter nears, I think about two men – one who died, and one who didn’t. Jesus died; Barabbas didn’t. Or maybe it’s the other way around, in the long term.
If 1st century Israel had telephone books, Jesus could not have been listed. He didn’t qualify for a last name. Although he is commonly called Jesus Christ, Christ was not his family name. In fact, it’s not a name at all. It’s a title, an honorific, like “Reverend” or “President.” Christ – Christos in Greek – is the term used for the Messiah, the anointed one, the chosen one.
In his culture, sons were identified by their father’s name. The prefix “Bar” meant “son of,” just like “Mac” or “Mc” for the Scots, and “O” for the Irish.
The earliest biblical texts describe Jesus only as the son of Mary – making him a no-count illegitimate. Later versions legitimize him by providing a human father – Joseph, son of Jacob, a descendant of the legendary King David. But Jesus is never, never, described as Jesus Bar-Joseph.
And Jesus himself never refers to Joseph as his father.
He reserves the term “Father” – in Aramaic, “abba,” better translated by our familiar “Daddy” – for his relationship with God. John’s gospel regularly pairs Jesus with a divine father. Jesus spends almost two chapters of that gospel exploring the intimacy of his relationship with his Father, meaning God.
Too much of a coincidence to ignore
By a cruel irony, when governor Pontius Pilate offers to free Jesus as a goodwill gesture for the Jewish Passover, an angry crowd demands that he release, instead, a thief and murderer named “Barabbas.” Barabbas -- “the son of the father”.
And so the man who said “The Father and I are one” was executed on a trumped-up charge of claiming to be King of the Jews, while the man named “Son of the Father” was set free.
The coincidence is so keen, it almost demands further exploration.
Did the freed Barabbas go to Golgotha, to the hill of many skulls, to watch his stand-in die?
What did it do to him, to know that he was alive only because an innocent person took his place? Was he haunted by guilt? Did it change his life? Or did he grab his unexpected freedom with both hands and scamper out of Jerusalem, away from the unholy liaison between Temple and Rome, to resume his career of crime?
At least one writer has felt inspired to look at life through the eyes of the man who didn’t get executed. Par Lagerkvist wrote a 1950 novel called Barabbas.
A commentary describes the novel as founded on thesis and antithesis – similarities and contrasts. Jesus dies first; Barabbas dies later. Jesus is crucified in Jerusalem; Barabbas, in Rome. Jesus talks to God; Barabbas, to darkness.
Barabbas is, in many ways, a modern person. He says he wants to believe, but can’t accept the exalted beliefs of early Christians about Resurrection and the Second Coming. What he really believes in is the “opaque and remorseless void that surrounds his life.”
He is a fatalist. Where others find meaning, Barabbas finds only meaninglessness.
Perhaps the novel’s central antithesis is that because Barabbas had never known love, he could never understand someone who embodied love.
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Copyright © 2017 by Jim Taylor. Non-profit use in congregations and study groups, and links from other blogs, welcomed; all other rights reserved.
To comment on this column, write jimt@quixotic.ca
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YOUR TURN
After two letters last week, a flood of them this week. All good, all thoughtful. But in no particular order.
Jack Driedger: “I do not believe that all participants in religion participate just to get to heaven. That would be selfishness to the extreme. We participate because we find fulfilment in life by practicing such things as the golden rule. We live to help others. It makes us feel good.
“We are [also] convinced that there must be a supreme being. If there is a supreme being that has created everything, then it makes sense that that supreme being can communicate directly with us. Has it not been shown scientifically that praying to a supreme being makes a difference?
“Why do we assume that people want to live forever? My wife wanted to die. She said so. When she decided to die, she lived a matter of hours.”
Peter Scott: “If it's true that in the next century ‘people will die only in wars, accidents and suicides. Or because they don't have access to the latest technologies,’ then that will be 99% of the people anyway. Already the other 1% controls the wealth of the planet and shows no sign of a willingness to allow their wealth to be redistributed in any meaningful or effective way, so only they will have access to Harari's version of immortality. That's not a world that I would want to live in anyway.
“We are already well on our way to establishing a new feudal system with the wealthy 1% owning and controlling everything and the rest of us living to do their bidding. It may take another century for that to become totally apparent but it is coming, and talk of scientifically created immortality is just another distraction from the reality of what is happening around us.”
Tom Watson: “Of the four options you present, I would hope my church would choose the first, with the fourth being a distant second choice. Options two and three don't interest me in the least.
“I am not so certain of Harari's argument that in another century people will only die from wars, accidents, suicide and the lack of the availability of technologies. Warring against the positive advancements of medical science is the continuing spread of both current and new diseases.
“Douglas Preston's book ‘The Lost City of the Monkey God’ cites the spread of disease from one area of the world to another -- through exploration in earlier centuries, and in our day from travel. People travelling either contract or carry with them viruses against which they and others have not yet developed immunity. Leishmaniasis is a dreadful flesh-eating disease … Climate change extends the range of the carriers, allowing them to creep ever further north from their original habitat.
“What new and as yet unknown pathogens medical science will have to combat is certainly unclear, but in their search is for immortality it seems to me they still have their work cut out for them. One of their challenges is not a scientific one; rather, it's human short-sightedness. At the same time as Leishmaniasis is slowly encroaching into his back yard, President Trump threatens, through his budget, to close down the Centre for Disease Control and Prevention in Texas.”
James Russell: “The question you pose is really: ‘Will churches insist that THEY, as institutions, must be immortal?’ And that points clearly to the further question ‘Are churches, as institutions, primarily instruments of power…?’
“If churches accept reality and focus on the here and now, they may continue or not, depending on whether they are useful in the here and now. The other choices you suggest for churches are simply bids for privileging institutions over people for earthly immortality.”
Bruce Fraser: “My immediate reaction upon reading about medicine achieving immortality was ‘Hogwash!’ Then I googled ‘medicine immortality’ … Wow! It's very impressive, what scientists are working on, and have already achieved. Nevertheless, I remain skeptical. There seems to be something in all living things that they are destined to break down, one way or the other. Fix one problem, and shortly afterwards another problem rears its head. Then another.
“The history of science trying to ‘fix’ problems with nature has countless examples of misadventures, many of them tragic. Even if ‘success’ (technologically speaking) comes, what about over-population, or the ethics of the wealthy and powerful having first dibs on enhanced life?
“Perhaps the real problem is the attitude which sees aging as a problem.”
Laurna Tallman: “Is it ironic that you are writing about eternal life on this planet when the capacity for annihilation is staring us in the face? The insanity and evil of Donald Trump, Steve Bannon, Vladimir Putin, and others can obliterate every technology about which you write within a week's time. The technologies do not stand between us and their inhumane willingness to destroy the earth. What, if anything, does?”
Laurna went on to discuss the kind of power and energy that Jesus connected to, and concluded, “We do not know how many people have learned to connect to that energy, to the forces for good. They are scattered across the face of the earth and go by many names or without names or labels. The technologists are minuscule and their influences paltry by comparison.”
Robert Caughell: “In Star Trek, an episode entitled ‘Requiem for Methuselah’ explores living a long time. Mr. Flint (James Daly) is 6000 years old and has created an android female companion who will live as long as he does. Another episode, ‘The Mark of Gideon,’ deals with living too long, over-population. Everything has a natural end to it. In ST: The Next Generation, Captain Picard says we can prolong life but not prevent death. Do we have the right to cheat death? If so, why?”
Isabel Gibson: “Not having a church, I can't answer your question directly, but I can relate a ‘thought experiment’ one of my friends did, about 40 years ago. At a party, he asked the question: ‘Here's a pill that will make you live forever. Do you want it, or not?’
“I think about a quarter of us said no.
“Of course, it's easy to say ‘no’ when the question is hypothetical. If the question were, ‘Do you want to be alive tomorrow?’, I suspect some of those answers would change.
“Alan E. Nourse wrote a set of novellas called Psi High, with the stories linked as three challenges for humanity… One was our willingness to turn down the temptation of eternal life through medical advances.”
Steve Roney: “There is no theological issue involved in increased lifespan. It makes no difference how long we live, since we will all die eventually; life is temporary, while eternity is eternal. Any difference in lifespan is trivial in comparison to eternity. If we do not die from old age, we will die from disease. If we conquer all diseases, we will just die from accidents.
“And your surgeon gets religion quite wrong, just as you say. Religion does not promise eternity. You are eternal whether you like it or not.
“Now what kind of eternity would it be, if we were talking of an indefinite extension of life on earth? The answer, as they say, is in Genesis. When Adam and Eve ate the apple, God’s reaction was, ‘Get them out of the garden! [Before] they eat of the fruit of the tree of life, and live forever!’ Was God being mean? No -- living forever in the world as it is, given the Fall, would be pretty much the same as going to Hell.”
Kerry Brewer: “Thank you for a very provocative column. My first response was ‘Who would choose to stay on earth, as awesome and amazing as it is, when we have the promise of heaven where there will be no more weeping or wailing or gnashing of teeth? And where we will be with the Holy Trinity for infinity?’ I guess the short answer is, those who don't see heaven as an option.
“My second comment would be that, unless governments make much more progress on climate change, the whole idea will be moot, as the earth will not be inhabitable in 100 years….”
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PSALM PARAPHRASES
This is one of those times when my commitment to provide a psalm paraphrase, for an event that the psalmist could not have anticipated, bugs me. Psalm 118:14-24 was not written about Jesus’ resurrection. Nevertheless, that’s what the lectionary calls for.
God, you give to life its goodness;
our cup overflows.
You renew our confidence in you.
When you are with us, we can face anything.
We have no fears when we can feel your presence among us.
A whisper of doubt scampers through
the back corners of sceptics’ minds:
"Did this, could this, really happen?
What then of our reasoned rebuttals?”
But I am not obsessed with beating anyone;
Winning or losing, living or dying,
I want to be with God;
I want to celebrate God's goodness to me.
God has tested me. God has put me through hell.
But God has never abandoned me.
Now I have the confidence to go anywhere, to try anything.
Whatever it takes, I know I'm worth it.
Once, I had no confidence in myself;
I had no confidence in God.
I quivered with insecurities;
I was a raw wound, flinching from every pain.
Now the ugly duckling has become the golden egg.
You hold me in your hands, God, and I shine.
Only you could do this.
A new day has dawned for me, a new life has begun.
Is it any wonder that I overflow with joy?
For paraphrases of most of the psalms used by the Revised Common Lectionary, you can order my book Everyday Psalms from Wood Lake Publishing, info@woodlake.com.
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YOU SCRATCH MY BACK…
• Ralph Milton most recent project, Sing Hallelujah -- the world’s first video hymnal -- consists of 100 popular hymns, both new and old, on five DVDs that can be played using a standard DVD player and TV screen, for use in congregations who lack skilled musicians to play piano or organ. More details at www.singhallelujah.ca
• Isabel Gibson's thoughtful and well-written blog, www.traditionaliconoclast.com
• Wayne Irwin's "Churchweb Canada," an inexpensive service for any congregation wanting to develop a web presence, with free consultation. <http://www.churchwebcanada.ca>
• Alva Wood's satiric stories about incompetent bureaucrats and prejudiced attitudes in a small town are not particularly religious, but they are fun; write alvawood@gmail.com to get onto her mailing list.
• Tom Watson writes a weekly blog called “The View from Grandpa Tom’s Balcony” -- ruminations on various subjects, and feedback from Tom’s readers. Write him at twatson@sentex.net
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TECHNICAL STUFF
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