The story behind "I Wonder How Barabbas Felt"
One Wednesday night at our church prayer meeting, my friend Bro. Michael Butler was preaching on the subject of the crucifixion of Christ. During his sermon, he began talking about Barabbas, the man who was in prison during the so-called trial (which was really a sham) of Jesus.
Pilate reminded the crowd that day that it was customary to set one prisoner free at the time of the feast. The crowd was so rabid and bent on seeing Jesus put to death that they cried "Release unto us Barabbas" so that Christ would be crucified.
Barabbas was in prison for the crimes of sedition (rebellion against the government) and murder. Christ was in custody of the government for no reason at all. As the crowd continued to cry "Crucify him!", Pilate finally released Barabbas.
Bro. Butler asked the question during his sermon, "I wonder how Barabbas felt when those chains fell off him?" I wrote that idea down on a piece of paper in my Bible to explore later as a song idea. I do this a lot at church. I keep paper in my Bible because I get most of my ideas for songs from sermons and Sunday school lessons!
One night a couple of weeks later, I sat down on the couch in the living room and began to formulate some thoughts about how to approach the song. The kids were sitting around me working on homework for school, and my wife, Kathy, was helping them. It was just a regular night at home with the family. A lot of chatter was going on. I wrote a couple of lines and sang them for Kathy, "How do you like these lines?" I asked. I sang them as a ballad, a slow song. She said, "Why don't you write something faster?" I tend to write slow songs often, as I've found that many songwriters do.
The crucifixion is a serious subject...I couldn't foresee writing the song at a faster clip. So I began writing it in a bluegrass style in my head. The bluegrass gospel style is unique in that you can take a very serious topic and deal with it in a faster rhythm than you can in a Southern Gospel song most of the time. Somehow the serious subject matter is validated in an up-tempo beat within the bluegrass instrumentations and styling. So I began to envision the song being played and sung in a format that someone like a Paul Williams, Bill Monroe, or J. D. Crowe would sing or play.
I thought about Barabbas' situation. The Bible indicates that he was a well-known criminal. He was a solid candidate for the death sentence. He was likely going to walk up Golgotha's hill and get nailed to a cross because of the crimes he had committed. Then all of a sudden the guards come into his cell, loose the chains from him, and he walks away. What did he do when he walked away, I wondered?
I thought about Barabbas hanging around the area after he was released. Perhaps he watched Christ walk up that same hill that he would have walked, had he gotten justice. Maybe the crowd was so large that he couldn't see Christ walking up the hill. But then he heard the hammer ring and he knew that someone was dying in his place...then he saw Jesus being raised up into the air on that cross that should have been his own destiny. How did that make Barabbas feel?
I wrote most of this song in about 30 minutes, at times writing as fast as I could. This is very unusual for me, as it often takes me weeks or months to finish a song. Looking back on it now, I can see that God was much more involved in the song I Wonder How Barabbas Felt than I realized at the time.