It features the trial during which Pilate shrewdly tries to release Jesus by confronting the people with an outrageous alternative. You can have Barabbas instead.
Murderer or Lifegiver, it should be an obvious choice.
But the people demand, ‘Give us Barabbas…Crucify him (Jesus)…His blood be on us and our children.’ (Matthew 27 v 21-25)
So basically it’s a choice between life with some moral responsibility or death with some short-term, limited choice.
And witless, sinful human beings rush to embrace the romantic, bloodstained notion of choice. Give us Barabbas. We welcome murder. We invite disaster.
No choice really.
I say we welcome life.
Today and every day.