3. Barabbas or Christ: The World Chooses the Counterfeit

"But they all cried again, saying: Not this man, but Barabbas." - John 18:40

Introduction

Few moments expose the fallen world more clearly than the choice of Barabbas over Christ. The crowd is not asked whether it wants religion in the abstract. It is asked to choose between the innocent King and a criminal. It chooses the counterfeit. That is why the scene is so enduring. It shows that fallen man does not merely drift from truth. He often prefers a substitute more suited to his passions.

This belongs to the Passion of the Church because the same choice continues through history. When truth stands before the world unadorned, demanding repentance, worship, order, and obedience, the world reaches for another figure: one more violent, flatteringly earthly, less demanding, or more useful to appetite. Barabbas is one of the earliest public icons of the counterfeit preference.

Teaching of Scripture

The Gospel contrast is stark. Christ is the innocent and true King. Barabbas is associated with rebellion, violence, and criminality.1 Yet the crowd chooses Barabbas. This means the problem is not lack of alternatives. It is a corrupted will. Men often reject truth not because it is absent, but because it condemns them and refuses to serve their passions.

Scripture therefore teaches a principle deeper than politics. The world will often choose what resembles liberation while actually deepening bondage. It will prefer the counterfeit savior who promises freedom without conversion, power without holiness, and solidarity without truth. This is why the Barabbas scene has such long reach into ecclesial history and civilizational collapse.

Witness of Tradition

Catholic tradition reads the Passion not as an isolated historical drama, but as a revelation of permanent spiritual patterns. The choice of Barabbas is one of them. It exposes the psychology of apostasy. The fallen multitude prefers what mirrors its disorder. Christ requires sacrifice, humility, and submission to divine truth. Barabbas leaves men closer to themselves.

This is also why the scene matters for discernment. Counterfeits do not always appear obviously profane. Sometimes they appear energetic, popular, practical, or culturally useful. But if they spare man the Cross and dethrone the true King, the Barabbas pattern is present.

Historical Example

Again and again in history, societies have chosen substitutes for Christ that promised peace, dignity, reason, progress, liberation, reform, or national renewal while actually intensifying rebellion. Counterfeit churches, revolutions, modern ideologies, and counterfeit religious settlements all repeat the same structure. Christ stands before them, but they ask for a more manageable alternative.

That repetition matters because it keeps Catholics from reading the Passion as past only. The choice between Christ and Barabbas is renewed every time a people prefers the useful counterfeit to the true Lord.

Application to the Present Crisis

The pattern is painfully familiar today:

• true worship is exchanged for liturgical substitutes
• true authority is exchanged for visible power without continuity
• true unity is exchanged for broad coalitions without doctrine
• true mercy is exchanged for indulgence without conversion

This is why the remnant must learn to ask the Barabbas question clearly: are we being offered Christ, or only something more acceptable to the fallen world? The answer is not always popular, and it is never emotionally neutral. But the Church cannot survive by choosing the counterfeit merely because the crowd prefers it.

Conclusion

Barabbas or Christ is not only a scene from Holy Week. It is a question placed before every age. The world still prefers substitutes to the true King. The faithful must not join the cry. However reduced the remnant becomes, it must choose Christ over the counterfeit, truth over popularity, and the Cross over the illusion of easier masters.