Away with This Man!

Pilate summons the chief Jews, the religious hierarchs, zealous keepers of the Law. The occasion is solemn. It seems to Pilate that the man is innocent -so Herod has also suggested- so he proposes to the Jews to let him go free.

However, the Jews exclaim at once: "Away with him, and release Barabbas to us!". Pilate, suspecting that the matter was rather one of jealousy and envy, insists with the proposal twice more, but the Jews' response remains firm. So Pilate hands them over to them to do with him as they wish.

Almost two thousand years have passed since those unfortunate events, and today we begin to hear again here and there -first as a murmur, then as a deafening roar- the same lapidary sentence: "Away with this man, and release Barabbas to us!".

It is not the Jews who cry out to Pilate this time. They are people closer to him; in a certain way, they are people committed to Christ, who pronounce his name in their devotions, and who claim to love him.

The voices come from different places, not only from public places exposed to the vagaries of the mob; they also come from the great cathedrals, from the most connoted seminaries and the most beautiful temples. Voices are also heard as if by stealth in the apparently purest mouths, in the ecclesiastical councils behind closed doors, in the great centers, in the pinnacles of the Christian religion.

Meanwhile, the Executioner waits, hands and feet tied, dressed in purple. He has no right to a voice. As the prophet said: "Everyone avoids looking at him" (Is. 53:3).

As yesterday, God watches from the heavens what they do with his Anointed One. And, like yesterday, his Christ will be rejected, and Barabbas will be released. Yes, the antichrist -even worse than the old Barabbas- is ready to do his thing.

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