In Luke 23: 18-25 we see the story of Barabbas, who was thrown into prison but the crowd demanded that he be released instead of Jesus. They don't tell us much about Barabbas, other than he was guilty of the same crime that Jesus was accused of in verse 14. The particularly interesting thing I learned came from my study notes in my Bible. So I'm just going to copy them over here for you to read:
"Who was Barabbas? Jewish men had names that identified them with their fathers. Simon Peter, for example, is called Simon son of Jonah (Matthew 16:17). Barabbas is never identified by his given name, and this name is not much help either - bar-abbas means "son of Abba" (or "son of daddy"). He could have been anybody's son - and that's just the point. Barabbas, son of an unnamed father, committed a crime. Because Jesus died in his place, this man was set free. We too are sinners and criminals who have broken God's holy law. Like Barabbas, we deserve to die. But Jesus has died in our place, for our sins, and we have been set free. We don't have to be "very important people" to accept our freedom in Christ. In fact, thanks to Jesus, God adopts us all as his own sons and daughters and gives us the right to call him Abba - "daddy" (see Galatians 4:4-6)"
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