THE TRUTH

We’re near Holy week, the time in the church calendar when we remember the passion of Christ.  So, I’ve been thinking about a scene from that week.  It’s when Jesus stands before Pilate, the official representative of the Roman government in Judea, his life hanging in the balance.  Here’s the encounter from the gospel of John.

Then Pilate entered the headquarters again, summoned Jesus, and asked him, “Are you the King of the Jews?” Jesus answered, “Do you ask this on your own, or did others tell you about me?” Pilate replied, “I am not a Jew, am I? Your own nation and the chief priests have handed you over to me. What have you done?” Jesus answered, “My kingdom is not from this world. If my kingdom were from this world, my followers would be fighting to keep me from being handed over to the Jews. But as it is, my kingdom is not from here.” Pilate asked him, “So you are a king?” Jesus answered, “You say that I am a king. For this I was born, and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice.” Pilate asked him, “What is truth?” (John 18:33-38)

Every time I come to this point in the story I really want Jesus to answer Pilate’s question, but he never does.  Maybe Jesus knew that (in the words of Jack Nicholson) Pilate couldn’t handle to truth.  But apparently, he believed that Thomas could.

A few days before Jesus appears before Pilate, he is with his disciples.  In response to a question from Thomas Jesus says,  “I am the way, the truth and the life.” (John 14:6)  So, what is the truth?  According to Jesus, he is.

Frederick Beuchner once wrote, “Jesus did not say that religion was the truth, or that his own teachings were the truth, or that what people taught about him was the truth, or that the Bible was the truth, or the church, or any system of ethics or theological doctrine.”  Beuchner’s right.  While all the things he listed share truth, none of them are the truth, at least not according to Jesus.  According to Jesus the truth is, in a word, Jesus.

So if I really want the truth, I have to let the Spirit of God take me beyond a religious system, beyond doctrine or dogma, even beyond the words on the pages of the Bible.  I have to be willing to be exposed to Jesus himself, perhaps through religion or doctrine or the Bible; but it has to be Jesus himself, the heart of Jesus, the raw, radical, undefinable Jesus.  When, and if, I know him, I know the truth.

For example, there is a story in John 8 about the time when Jesus looked at a sexually promiscuous woman and said, “I don’t condemn you.  Go and leave your sin behind.”  Somewhere deep in that story the truth is exposed, if I can handle him.

How about the story of a leper who came to Jesus and said, “If you’re willing, you can make me clean.  Jesus had compassion for the man and touched him and said, I am willing; be clean.  And the man was healed.”  (Mark 1:40-42)  Somehow that story connects us with the truth, if we’re ready for that electrifying connection.

Stories about Jesus eating and drinking at parties where known sinners were in attendance, stories about Jesus castigating the most devout religious people and going home to eat with the most infamously sinful people, reveal the truth, if you want to know him.

The hard teachings of Jesus that include instructions to strip naked so others can have something to wear and to pray for those who beat us up so we can be like our Father in heaven.  The truth is contained in these teachings; not so much in the words themselves (as powerful as they are) but in the person who is audacious enough to say them. 

The truth is ultimately exposed, hanging naked on a cross outside the city gates of Jerusalem.  There he is, asking the Father to forgive his persecutors, instructing a disciple to take care of his mother, speaking words of comfort and forgiveness to one more sinner, crying out to his Father in abandoned agony and giving up his Spirit in the belief that he had accomplished what the Father sent him to do.  There on that cross is the truth, if you can handle the truth.

No wonder Jesus let Pilate’s question hang in the air unanswered.  Some of us, and sometimes none of us, can embrace the answer.  But sometimes, when we can handle the truth, the truth transforms us.  This Lenten season, as we enter into Holy week, may we be transformed by the truth.