“Give Us Barabbas”
Freeing the guilty. Crucifying the innocent. Washing their hands.
Note: I hope that the most interesting thing about this post will be the comments.
You know the story, but please take a moment to read Matthew’s account of the trial, the mob, and the choice that was made.
15 Now at the feast the governor was accustomed to releasing to the multitude one prisoner whom they wished.
16 And at that time they had a notorious prisoner called Barabbas.
17 Therefore, when they had gathered together, Pilate said to them, “Whom do you want me to release to you? Barabbas, or Jesus who is called Christ?”
18 For he knew that they had handed Him over because of envy.
19 While he was sitting on the judgment seat, his wife sent to him, saying, “Have nothing to do with that just Man, for I have suffered many things today in a dream because of Him.”
20 But the chief priests and elders persuaded the multitudes that they should ask for Barabbas and destroy Jesus.
21 The governor answered and said to them, “Which of the two do you want me to release to you?”
They said, “Barabbas!”
22 Pilate said to them, “What then shall I do with Jesus who is called Christ?”
They all said to him, “Let Him be crucified!”
23 Then the governor said, “Why, what evil has He done?”
But they cried out all the more, saying, “Let Him be crucified!”
24 When Pilate saw that he could not prevail at all, but rather that a tumult was rising, he took water and washed his hands before the multitude, saying, “I am innocent of the blood of this just Person. You see to it.”
Question of the day: Why do I suspect that many of those who today wrap themselves in Christian identity — the kind of person who puts “Christ follower” in their twitter bios — would actually have chosen Barabbas?
How many would have reveled in the cruelty? Sided with the seditionist rather than an innocent man? And how many of us would have washed our hands of the whole thing afterward?
It’s Good Friday, 2025. Please leave your comments below.
“An Incipient Crisis”
Seriously, you have to read this.
On Thursday, a federal appeals court unanimously rejected an appeal by the Trump Administration in the ongoing litigation over the illegal rendition of Kilmar Abrego-Garcia to a prison in El Salvador
The administration is “asserting a right to stash away residents of this country in foreign prisons without the semblance of due process that is the foundation of our constitutional order,” wrote Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson in an opinion for a panel of the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals.
“Further, it claims in essence that because it has rid itself of custody that there is nothing that can be done,” he wrote. “This should be shocking not only to judges, but to the intuitive sense of liberty that Americans far removed from courthouses still hold dear.”
The judge who wrote those words is an 80-year-old conservative jurist who was appointed by President Ronald Reagan. At one point, Wilkinson was on President George W. Bush’s shortlist of potential Supreme Court nominees. Politico describes him as “one of the nation’s most prominent conservative appellate judges.” Over at Mediaite, Sarah Rumpf calls him a “hardline conservative”.
But, as the NYT notes, Wilkinson’s opinion “contained far more than simple legal instructions to the White House.” It also “rebuked Trump officials for their apparent disregard of the bedrock principles of due process and for allowing a man whom they have acknowledged they wrongfully deported to continue to languish in a foreign prison.”
At the same time, Judge Wilkinson, in an almost elegiac tone, gave an emphatic reminder that American democracy rests in part on mutual respect between the executive and judicial branches and lamented recent attacks by President Trump and his allies on the federal courts.
BONUS: The NYT has posted an annotated version of the opinion. [Gift link.]
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Nota Bene
Jonathan Chait: A Loophole That Would Swallow the Constitution - The Atlantic [Gift Link]
[Trump] has opened up a trapdoor beneath the American legal system. This trapdoor is wide enough to swallow the entire Constitution. So long as he can find at least one foreign strongman to cooperate, Trump can, if he wishes, imprison any dissident, judge, journalist, member of Congress, or candidate for office.
If this sounds hyperbolic, bear in mind that Trump has expressed his desire to do these things. He has built an administration dedicated to turning his whims into commands, however fantastical or dangerous they may be, and he has systematically disabled every possible check on his power by training his party’s voters and elected officials to treat dissent as betrayal.
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Ron Fournier: “Yes, Senator: In Trump's America, We Are All Afraid”
We feel for you, Senator Murkowski.
It must be scary to serve under a party leader capable of turning the full power of the presidency against you and unleashing waves of angry, potentially violent, supporters upon you.
“We are all afraid,” you told a conference in Anchorage. “It’s quite a statement. But we are in a time and a place where I certainly have not been here before. I’ll tell you, I’m oftentimes very anxious myself about using my voice, because retaliation is real. And that’s not right.”
You’re right, senator. It’s not right. If you are scared — a member of President Trump’s own party with a family legacy in Alaska politics — can you imagine what it’s like to be a Democrat?
Or a reporter?
Or an immigrant?
Or a child of an immigrant?
Or a non-white person?
Or a woman?
Or a married gay couple?
Or a transgender man or woman?
Or a person on the autism spectrum?
Or a small business person dependent on imports?
Or a starving child dependent on U.S. assistance?
Or a Ukrainian?
Or a federal employee?
Or a college president?
Or a judge?
Or a lawyer?
Or anybody else whose lives and livelihoods our president threatens at a whim?
Yes, Senator. We should all be afraid.
Finally
From my wife’s Substack, “North of the Tension Line” — a brief essay on good Friday.
I found myself in the position, recently, of explaining Holy Week to someone who does not believe. Perhaps a bit too earnestly, I tried to describe what happens: the triumph of Palm Sunday with its awful portent, the congregation taking the part of Christ's accusers, facing -- whether we want to or not -- our own sins; the washing of the feet, and the ritual vigil, kept with Christ throughout the night on Maundy Thursday; on Friday, the awful full-eyed clarity of the torture and agony of the crucifixion and then, at last, the breath of life gone, the Pascal candle extinguished, the altar stripped, and the deep internal stillness of grief hanging over the congregants.
We are all diminished by every death. But this one death is ours and His. The fear of it lingers in our hearts as we wait in hope.
It is Good Friday. And the earth stands still.
Friday dogs
I. Love. This. From reader David Yell: “Dear Mr. Sykes; Here is my pencil drawing of Auggie. I was inspired by the photo: Will you take me for a walk, soon?”
Here is the original…
They have already chosen idolatry, to worship the Golden Calf, or the Orange One. It is religious Bizarro-world where everything is upside-down and backwards. Not love and compassion, but cruelty and hatred are at the center of their worship. Not charity, but greed. It’s a travesty.
"Question of the day: Why do I suspect that many of those who today wrap themselves in Christian identity — the kind of person who puts “Christ follower” in their twitter bios — would actually have chosen Barabbas? How many would have reveled in the cruelty? Sided with the seditionist rather than an innocent man? And how many of us would have washed our hands of the whole thing afterward? It’s Good Friday, 2025. Please leave your comments below."
Ask for a comment, get an essay. Some call it verbose. I call it bonus coverage for free.
First, happy Good Friday and Easter to one and all.
How many would choose Barabbas and revel in cruelty? Sided with the seditionist rather than an innocent man? And how many of us would have washed our hands of the whole thing afterward?
As we are learning more and more in real time, far more than we knew and are comfortable with. Most of the blame goes to them for being so inherently unfeeling and uncaring and unwilling to see those who oppose their ideas as human beings, rather as subhuman life forms whose existence does not matter. As they connect the dots, a) they are in the way, so b) they should be disappeared. If enough people agree, and those in power are indifferent enough to their fate, it will happen, perhaps on a massive basis. There are no excuses to make that justify and legitimize that approach. But a certain amount of blame also must be cast upon those on the left and in the middle who did not take the threat seriously enough to do even the bare minimum to prevent the outcome -- vote, once every four years, or put aside their momentary reservations about high grocery costs to focus instead upon that which carries no price tag because it is too precious to assign one to it. That opened the door. The opposition barreled in, and they have no intention of vacating the property. Did we really not see that coming, especially after the chaos and upheaval of the first four years?
As for the hand-washing, let's be honest about the bigger picture. So many among us thought we were so much better than we are when we elected a Black president and selected a woman, or two, from a major party as the nominee for the office. We settled for optics more than substance when in fact the forces of hatred and repression mostly just retreated to a warm, comfortable place for a while, until it was safe to come back out and resume their quest. They didn't change. They never will change. We severely underestimated the threat that they posed when a charismatic leader emerged first and offered them cover in exchange for their support. He has gotten pretty much everything he wants since then. So much for change. Instead it's about the scope of what they can do when they are united in both thought and action. The clues were out there. They were easy enough to see. Most people missed them -- or at least didn't want to see them or didn't believe what their eyes and ears were telling them. And now it is all this. Where and how it ends remains but a guess. God help us all, since we've just about passed the point where we any longer can help ourselves.