Barrabas

I wrote this little monologue back a couple of years ago for a school Easter presentation. I don't know what made me think of Barrabas in the jail, its been a few years ago since I wrote it.

I was a good kid. I really was. Everyone thought I'd grow up to work in the temple. I was a really
good student too. Smart. That's the word everyone used. Teachers, parents, other kids. Smart.
Its good to be smart, but its hard too…

I remember when it changed though. I was in Grade 5 and Jonas moved to town. He was different. He always said stuff like, "I don't know why we have to keep doing this stuff. It hasn't worked for 600 years…"

I liked Jonas. He had a way with words that made people listen to him and I listened. I was getting tired of doing the right thing all the time. I wanted something exciting in my life. Jonas brought excitement. Sometimes we'd tip over market stalls just to hear the owners yell. Sometimes we'd scare people into thinking we had leprosy. Sometimes we'd just sit around and make up things to do, crazy things, things we'd never follow through on…

When we were all done school, Jonas and I decided we wanted out of our little town. We headed
north, far from the Roman headquarters. And we did what we wanted. Jonas had started to come up with his own ideas about the way people should be governed and it had nothing to do with Rome, priests, God…

We started out small in our law breaking, but then Jonas came up with his plan. The government was wasting money he said. He was going to take back what was stolen from him… I didn’t think that people would end up dead, though. I didn’t think this was where I was headed way back in Grade 5.

So far I’ve done a lot of blaming other people and my circumstances for why I’m here. I don’t want you to get me wrong. I’m guilty. I took a bunch of guys and got the job done. I knew it was illegal. I knew it was against everything I’d been taught and I did it anyway. That’s how I ended up in jail and how my story started to get out.

One day when I was sitting there, sitting there, like every other day in that damp wet filthy stone cell, I heard a noise like I’d never heard in my whole time in prison. There’d been crowds outside before, there was always something going on. This was different though. This was something huge. There was a lot of shouting. I wondered to myself if they’d finally taken Jonas, though he’d always sworn that they’d never take him alive. Suddenly I heard something that made my blood run cold. It was my name.

BARABBAS BARABBAS BARABBAS

Well now, what do they want with me? Then it happened again, louder than before and this time it brought a chill to me because immediately after the chant I heard the words I’d dreaded since my trial…

CRUCIFY HIM, CRUCIFY HIM

So it had come to this. My life which was so full of potential was now going to end like this. At the hands of the people I’d come to hate, for doing something that every civilized nation everywhere declared was wrong. I was going to die and I deserved it…

The next few minutes were the longest ones of my life. Shouting from the end of the long dark hallway, keys rattling, soldiers laughing, all added up to one sad funeral song to me. I didn’t know what to do. I stood to my feet knowing that I could do nothing now. Mercy had passed me by. As I had let it pass by for those now dead in my past…

Dragged from the cell, shoved to the ground, prodded with the blunt end of spears by soldiers too eager to use the sharp end. Led to the end of that long hallway, out into the cool night air, only to hear the last words I’d ever expected… “GET OUT OF HERE.”

Get out of here? I staggered, nearly falling. I turned to look at my tormenters. There had to be some cruel joke coming next. I slowly backed away. The soldiers didn’t even watch me go, they hurried away, back to the party or whatever was going on in the meeting place where the crowd was.

I was stunned, more stunned than the day I’d been arrested, more stunned than the day the Roman governor Pilate had pronounced me guilty.
“Get out of here”… the words echoed around me. How could this be?

Who is being crucified then? How could it be? Why was my name called out?
I had to find out.
I hurried up to the crowd, I didn’t care that I didn’t smell very good. I didn’t care that I was covered in dirt and cobwebs. I asked the first person I saw what was going on.

“Where have you been?” he asked. I didn’t answer, just waited for a response.
“It’s Jesus,” he said. He’s going to be killed. I guess the priests have had enough of his teachings.
“Why were they yelling, ‘Barabbas’, then?” I asked.
“We wanted Pilate to let Barabbas go free,” he replied. Pilate said, ‘Jesus or Barabbas goes free,’ and we chose Barabbas.”
“What? You let Barabbas go free? Why? What has this Jesus done wrong?”
“Um… I don’t really know…I think he’s really bad though… I really don’t know, I know the priests want him dead.”

I wandered away in shock. Someone else was dying when it should have been me.
Why? Why not me.
This man’s death was giving me life. I was determined to use it for something good.

The Ten Commandments

We watched The Ten Commandments over Easter. Apparently its the Easter movie, according to tv... and since culture takes their direction from tv... that's the law! Anyway.

If this is what Easter is about, then we miss the message. Easter is not about the law, about freedom from slavery, about Moses. It blows past that and goes so much deeper.

The movie itself is a loose adaptation of the Biblical account. It takes some necessary licence with the story, filling in dialogue and plot points for instance. But it also takes unnecessary turns as well. Its one thing to assume things and skip over things for the sake of time, another to say that something happens that didn't.

Now you can say, its a movie, who really cares what they did. Go ahead, I'll give you a second to actually say that... time's up. But. If movies are modern literature, then we must be very careful that we don't let our movies that tell Bible stories become our Bible. (See VeggieTales!) We must turn to the Word itself, see what it says, see how the movie varies from the written account and not the other way around.

And, since we're talking interpretation here. This movie presents as its central theme that the story of Moses is about people bowing to God's laws and not man's. That no one has the right to take away our freedom. Is this a modern reading? An American reading? A satanic influence? We have to be careful that we don't take minor life lessons that can be learned and make them the story. We have to read the Moses account and see what God is doing, not a humanity thing. God rescued his people from slavery. He presents the law to them so that they can have freedom from death. He offers freedom and life to all who trust and obey. Blood sacrifice was the only way to avoid death in Egypt, and a blood sacrifice is the only hope for me today. Praise God for Easter and the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ our Lord.

Leadership and Integrity

I've been thinking about how hard it is for some of us to live up to the standard we place on others.

As a teacher its so hard to hold up your students to a standard that we wouldn't want to be held up against.

As a parent it hurts so badly when you are disciplining your child for something you know they've done in imitation of you.

As a citizen, I struggle with the loathing I have toward politicians when I am doing the same or worse at home.

I make fun of gluttony and gossiping in others and do it myself without a second thought.

I say one thing in one situation but in another I am either more honest or more polite.

I aim to please and try to do it with as little effort as possible.

I was struck by a line in a novel I was reading today, struck me between the eyes"Its refreshing to see someone who still takes pride in their work". (David Baldacci, Hour Game)

Where is the integrity of my generation? Cash deals. A wink and a nod. Familia. Instant millionaires. Insider trading. Hidden microphones. Keeping private property of our friends, in case we need it in court some day. Breaking contracts. Being surprised when others won't break theirs. I wonder at Mr Spitzer and his ilk, and then wonder at the darkness in my own heart. I wonder where I get to break out from this.

Is this why Christ died? That I can continue in sin? God forbid. How can I, who am dead to my sin, live any longer in it? That's supposed to be a rhetorical question, but sadly, I can answer it by saying.

"Just watch me."

Where Have all the Good People Gone?
Sam Roberts

Oh the Milky Way has gone a little sour
The leaves dried and the flower fell away
I’ve been sitting, I’ve been waiting for a sign
Inhuman beings taking up all of my time

Want to leave but I’ve got to stay
And I’m wondering more everyday
Montreal to Hong Kong
Where have all the good people gone?
Traffic jam but I’m on the shoulder
Took ten cops to pull me over
Bangkok to Babylon
Where have all the good people gone?

I haven’t met a friend in a long long while
They don’t shake my head but they check my style
The modern world is a cold cold world
And all I meet are cold cold girls

Wanna leave but I got to stay
And I’m wondering more every day
Montreal to Hong Kong
Where have all the good people gone?
Traffic jam but I’m on the shoulder
Took ten cops to pull me over
Bangkok to Babylon
Where have all the good people gone?

And it’s always the same
We all just turn away
We are stealing from ourselves
We are feeding off ourselves
But we were born in the flames
We need a cool breeze and a summer rain
We are stealing from ourselves
We are feeding off ourselves


In the middle of Easter, I want to break free and live free in light of what Christ has won for me. Can I? Dare I say it... "just watch me?"

What's hidden deep in Pan's Labyrinth?

Pan’s Labyrinth tells the story of Ofelia, a young girl who's mother marries an unlovable (meaning: evil) man after the death of her father. She and her mother move to the front line, where her stepfather serves as an army leader, sorry, I forget the rank! But there is more to the story, it seems that Ofelia is not of this world!

She comes from:
-Land where there is no pain or lying.
-Comes to another world, where she does not fit in.
-She does not live with her real father.
-She communicates with the other world.
-She performs miracles (though not through her own power).

There is one use of Jesus’ name that normally we’d consider blasphemous, but I wonder if it wasn’t intentionally referring to Ofelia as Jesus...


Now Pan's Labyrinth is not a child's tale. This is not a nice easy fairy tale. You have to cringe at times as death is meted out to innocent victims. This is also not a straight allegory. Ofelia's father is the king of the underworld, a little backward from tradition! Pan, from Greek or was that Roman, mythology, was where we get our modern idea of Satan with horns and hooves, I believe.

A story is told within the movie of a rose on the mountain top which holds eternal life but the poison in the thorns were too dangerous for people to risk pursuing the flower. The movie puts it this way the people "always talked of their fear of pain and death but never of the promise of eternal life”

You may have heard this one before too..."Don’t eat the food"… she eats the fruit and an evil creature wakes up.

In the end, Ofelia dies because she won’t sacrifice an innocent baby, she dies for a helpless creature in other words. And, in the end, she is accepted as the king’s daughter, back in the underworld where she came from.

Some might say that the whole thing is just modern fairy tale... modern meaning set in 1940's Spain, but I think there is more to this thing. Perhaps there is a twisted version of the gospel here, Pan at times is portrayed as a very frightening creature, "not a tame lion" and certainly not Mr Tumnus! The Spanish title in the movie was The Labyrinth of the Faun, perhaps signifying that the original intent was more fairy tale then Greek Mythology or even Satanic sub-plot!

However, intentional or not, the good news is everywhere, an innocent died so we don't have to and today, He's accepted for us, Easter is coming, see if you don't hear the story of Pan's Labyrinth in the next couple of weeks.