I love Thanksgiving leftovers. I like enough leftovers so that I can eat turkey for a week. And the process of consolidating the leftovers as the days progress brings a sense of accomplishment. And then there is soup day, when all the bones get placed in the pot after the final picking. They are slowly cooked until every speck of flavor has been extracted. The bones get extracted and the broth gets divided and the first batch of soup gets made by adding extra ingredients into some of the broth.
As I kid I received lots of leftover things. I had three older brothers and so everything was passed down to me as they grew out of them, or got bored with them. I was thankful for what I received, but I remember my first present that was mine first. It was a Spirograph. I spent hundreds of hours drawing every possible combination of wheels and disks.
Now I have to be honest, I did get socks and underwear that wasn’t passed down through my brothers, but those don’t count in my mind.
Jesus becomes the leftover. The crowd, stirred up by the religious leaders, has chosen Barabbas as their prize. I’m not sure Barabbas is such a prize. I can bet Pilate chose Barabbas as the alternative because he thought, “There is no way they will pick him.” But Pilate was wrong. The alternative to Jesus never fed 5000 with a sack lunch. He never removed the grief of a family by raising their loved one from the dead. He never cured the cripple or outcast.
But the crowd has only learned one chant, “Crucify him!,” and so they chant on. I can bet there are many in the crowd who just get caught up in the moment and don’t really know what’s at stake. They might not even know they are calling for Jesus to be crucified. Remember, there is no PA system. No speakers blast Pilate’s words to the crowd.
And crowds of that day often enjoyed people getting hurt as recreation. They would go, just like us, to stadiums and watch fights and competitions, some to the death. We are not so different than they were. Our professional sports are very much the same. “Did you see that tackle yesterday? They took him off the field on a stretcher. It was awesome on slow motion instant reply. I can’t believe he survived.”
There is little doubt that people in crowds often do things they wouldn’t do if they were by themselves. They would never break a shop window on their own. But with a crowd cheering them on, or with a frenzy in the background, the worst impulses in human beings get released.
So they pick Barabbas, and Jesus becomes the leftover. That’s right. Jesus becomes the cast-aside One. He is rejected by men. He is the One nobody wants.
The Arnold Journey 