Читать книгу Bible Characters - Joseph Parker - Страница 9

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I have often thought what a night Barabbas must have spent just before the day when Christ was crucified.

As the sun goes down, he says to himself: “Tomorrow—only tomorrow—and I must die upon the cross! They will hang me up before a crowd of people; they will drive nails through my hands and feet; they will break my legs with bars of iron; and in that awful torture I shall die before this time tomorrow, and go up to the Judgment with all my crimes upon me.”

Maybe, they let his mother come to see him once more before dark. Perhaps he had a wife and children, and they came to see him for the last time. He could not sleep at all that night. He could hear somebody hammering in the prison yard, and knew they must be making the cross. He would start up every now and then, thinking that he heard the footsteps of the officers coming for him.

At last the light of the morning looks in through the bars of his prison.

“Today—this very day—they will open that door and lead me away to be crucified!”

Pretty soon he hears them coming. No mistake this time. They are unbarring the iron door. He hears them turning the key in the rusty lock. Then the door swings open. There are the soldiers.

Good-by to life and hope! Death—horrible death—now! And after death—what will there be then?

The officer of the guard speaks to him: “Barabbas, you are free!”

He hears the strange words, but they make very little impression on him. He is so near dead with fear and horror that the good news does not reach him. His ears catch the sound, but he thinks it is a foolish fancy. He is asleep and dreaming. He stands gazing a moment at the soldiers, and then he comes to himself.

“Do not laugh at me! Do not make sport of me! Take me away and crucify me, but do not tear my soul to pieces!” Again the officer speaks: “You are free! Here—the door is open! Go out—go home!”

Now he begins to take in the truth. But it is so wonderful a thing to get out of the clutches of the Roman law that he is afraid to believe the good news. And so he begins to doubt, and to ask how it can be.

They tell him that Pilate has promised the Jews the release of one prisoner that day, and that the Jews have chosen him instead of one Jesus of Nazareth, who was condemned to be crucified.

Now the poor man begins to weep. This breaks his heart. He knows this Jesus. He has seen Him perform some of His miracles. He was in the crowd, picking pockets, when Jesus fed the five thousand hungry people.

“What! That just man to die! And I—a thief, a highwayman, a murderer—to go free!”

And in the midst of his joy at his own release his heart breaks at the thought that his life is saved at such a cost.