Barabbas & Jesus

In today's reading of the final moments of Jesus' life on earth, I was fascinated to know of another very intricate detail of how God ordered every event and circumstance in our lives. The person who was released in place of Jesus was Barabbas. Pilate could not find anything wrong with Jesus, except that He violated some Jewish laws. He wanted to pass the case back to the Jews but they manipulated him by questioning his loyalty to Caesar. He thought it would be a safe bet to offer Barabbas as an alternative since he is a rebel and a murderer. Surely they would choose Jesus over Barabbas. He was wrong. He has to symbolically absolve himself from the guilt of innocent blood by washing his hands.

Now coming to my main point. Barabbas in Aramaic (the common Jewish language then) means "son of Abba," i.e. "son of the father.". In place of this man, the "Son of the Father (Abba)" died. Is this an amazing insight?

Isn't it amazing too that our Lord thought of His mum even at the point of death? He assured Mary that John will take care of her from now onwards. John took the responsibility instead of the brothers of Jesus, Mary's own children. It may be that Jesus' brothers still did not believe in him, like the situation back in John 7:5. Joseph, his earthly "father" had died earlier. Our Lord sufferings included rejections from His own family members. Four brothers were mentioned in Matthew 13:55 - James, Joseph, Simon and Judas. James later became a leader of the church in Jerusalem (Acts 12:17, 15:13, Galatians 1:18-19)