Give us Barabbas

 I have a theory in my mind based on my observations of human nature, especially human nature when under the influence of a mob and this is what I call the Give us Barabbas Syndrome. The condition in which a mob, when given a choice, will choose bad before good, wrong before right and the sinner before  the saint.

This is one summary of the story as provided by Bard Ai:

At the Passover feast, the Roman governor Pontius Pilate gave the crowd the choice of releasing either Jesus or Barabbas, a notorious prisoner. The crowd chose Barabbas, and Jesus was crucified. This event is a reminder of the human tendency to choose violence and hatred over peace and love.

Like many stories in the Bible, is this to be taken literally or metaphorically or both? The issue is the when given the choice between good or evil, we, the crowd, the mob, often choose evil. Because of the context of the story, the Jews chose Barabbas who was set free over Jesus, who was crucified. Hence antisemitism is given justification to call the Jews the Christ Killer. Isn’t that convenient. The Jewish Massiah, The Prince of Peace, the Son of Man, is somehow condemned by his own people and yet adopted as the Savior by the gentiles, the Romans, who were in fact responsible for the persecution of the Jews and the very reason they were seeking a Messiah in the first place. Like layers in an onion the metaphorical irony is inescapable. The crowd chose evil over good and we, people do it over and over again in our misanthropic history. The mob is currently choosing Trump, an arrogant, misogynistic, narcissist over Biden a reasonable, rational responsible human being. We seem to be choosing dominance over democracy, ideology over idealism and sadly hate over love. Why?