Music for Holy Week 5 | Bar-Abba

Barabbas or Bar-Abba? The choice that the crowd had to make, a choice between Bar-Abba (son of the Father - Jesus) or Barabbas (son of Abbas). The similarity between these two names could be understood in a few ways, is it a linguistic trick to highlight something about the character of Christ? Does it represent two forms of revolution - one violent, one peaceful? Is it that the crowd were essentially in this moment being offered two forms of revolution - the way of peace or the way of violence and they chose the way of violence. Little has changed in 2000 years. It takes courage to choose peace, and when people do choose peace it exposes the atrocity of violence. It exposes that in every human being there is the image of God and violence against a person is a violation of that image. Yet we - we are the crowd - still choose violence.

I think that for the crowd it is a moment of choice and it calls us to reflect on the choices that we make each day. If we were to choose which one would we go for? It takes courage to stand against the crowd and I think that I am being slightly idealistic when I say that I would stand against the crowd. I doubt that I have that kind of courage. I like to believe that I would, believe that I would have the courage to do so, but I know that I probably wouldn't. It's a betrayal, a betrayal that we still do when we chose to follow the negative way that may be chosen by the crowd. I think that's the challenge for Christians today, the crowd says one thing - we maybe called to say another. That crowd is manifest both inside and outside of the church and the call is to listen to the heart of God and to respond with integrity.

So to the song, I'm trying to resist moving into Good Friday mode...but I'm going to go for the late-great Johnny Cash singing Hurt - The cover of the NIN track. I'm picking this for a few reasons, I think that Cash sang the song after the death of his wife, it was a time where he felt lonely and was in reflective mood. Looking back on his life and the choices that he had made. It's somber but strangely spiritual as well, it draws you into the brokenness of the moment, the memories of a man looking back but there is somewhere within it the tinge of a better future...