My bible reading this morning was about Jesus’ trial recorded in the gospel of Matthew. And it struck me – one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter!

To the Jewish power structure Jesus was a terrorist. He was a threat to everything they held dear. His revolutionary theology drawing from the pure water of the prophets instead of the polluted stream of rabbic interpretation highlighted the corruption that kept them in power. He had to go!

Barabbas on the other hand was just a common insurrectionist. They knew how to deal with men like him. A few shekels here, a few skekels there. A seat on a board, a place at the table and a man like Barabbas could be managed.

So on that fateful morning the powerful sealed the fate of the Jewish nation and guaranteed its destruction by the Romans by stirring up the gullible to demand Pilate rid the nation of that pesky preacher and healer once and for all. Crucify him! Crucify him! Give us Barabbas!

It may sound crazy, almost sacreligious, but this telling made my mind jump to the federal charges and trials of the folk who broke into the Capitol on January 6. These people get no sympathy from me. I wasn’t any happier with the outcome of the November election than they, but I believe/believed that Trump threw the election through his tweets rather than Biden stealing it from him. And sensible citizens start planning for the next election rather than rioting over the last one. And riot it was, no doubt about it. (It only take a few to manipulate a crowd into rioting. I don’t think most of those people even thought they were in a riot – they were on a lark.)

These January 6 folk are not the major insurrectionists in this country. That title goes to the Black Uprising. But the Black Uprising is a known quantity. Politicians have been tossing shekels at its leaders for generations. Men like Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton from uprisings past have become wealthy off the crumbs dropped from the tables of the powers-that-be as are the current mob of historical revisionists and BLM leaders. Give ’em a few cities to govern (but give them terrible schools and abortion mills to keep their population down) and a few grants to their non-profits, pander to their demands, play the Black National Anthem at football contests, remove a statue or two, but promote the most outrageous of them in the media. Let the majority of the citizenry see them as charactures. Portray them as thieves, murderers and whores. Give ’em crumbs but keep them on a short leash. They may be insurrectionists but they are manageable.

The discontent behind January 6 is not so easy to placate. It is revolutionary. The governmental principles behind the riot, divorcing it from Trump, doesn’t want a seat on the board. It wants the board to dissolve. It wants less government, not more. And no politician who has gone to DC poor and finds his purse filling wants to see the board dissolved. He just wants the seats rearranged around the table. Hence these people must be taught a lesson! Small government with clearly defined parameters is in no politician’s interest.