As I was thinking about what I might say in church today, I was reading through the passion story in the Bible. I got to the point where Pilate sees no reason to have Jesus executed and wants to release him. As it was Passover time, a prisoner was allowed to go free. He thought he'd release Jesus, but the crowd shouted for Barabbas who was in prison for plotting against the Romans and for murder. So that's what happened.
It struck me that the guilty party (Barabbas) went free, and the innocent party (Jesus) was put to death. Yet that's exactly what Jesus' death is all about. Christians believe Jesus to be the Son of God who never did anything wrong, yet he willingly went to the cross, not for his misdemeanours but for ours, so that we can be reconciled back to God, our heavenly Father.
The idea that Barabbas was an 'illustration' of what Christ's death means is not, needless to say, an original thought. I was talking to someone in our church who had just come from doing a school assembly on this very topic. Details for the assembly can be found on http://www.hope08.com/ website. So, guess what? We had a "school assembly" in our Good Friday service! No point in re-inventing the wheel!
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