• Art and Prayer

    Barabbas

    Today is Good Friday, a dark day in history when Jesus was condemned and crucified. So why is it called “Good”? If we look at that day from the perspective of Barabbas, it was indeed a good day, an unexpectedly good day. Barabbas was a criminal condemned to die, a terrorist or some other sort of violent criminal. Roman prisons were harsh places, and death sentences were carried out cruelly. Barabbas could have been dragged from his prison cell at any time to be flogged to the point of being horribly flayed, after which he would be crucified—an especially slow and torturous form of execution. He probably wasn’t having any…