Vicar Darren Harbaugh
Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.
Then Pilate said to him, “So you are a king?” Jesus answered, “You say that I am a king. For this purpose I was born and for this purpose I have come into the world—to bear witness to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth listens to my voice.” Pilate said to him, “What is truth?”
“What is Truth?” That’s a good question. It was asked 2,000 years ago by Pontius Pilate the Governor of Judea, who was in charge of Jesus’ Trial, and the question is still asked today.
'We live in a time when truth is seen as something relative, impossible to know for sure.' You may have heard people say things like: "I have my truth. You have your truth. As long as we respect our differences, that is all that matters." It seems that today the most important "truth" for many people is their extreme doubt that truth can be known. And there is another “truth” that is equally important, which is: those who claim to know the truth are wrong.*
It seems nice to believe that everyone can have their own truth, however, let’s look at this practically. Let’s say that you were pulled over by a police officer and he told you that you were driving 20 miles an hour over the speed limit. How do you think the officer would react if you said, “Well, you have your truth and I have mine. And I happen to believe that I wasn’t speeding.” Do you think the officer would say, “You know, I respect our differences? Have a nice day?” Yeah…I doubt it.
Have you ever heard of the word “Truthiness”? It was a word made up by comedian Steven Colbert. This word actually made it’s way into the dictionary. Truthiness is defined as "the quality of preferring facts that one simply wishes to be true, rather than facts that are known to be true." Or in other words, Truthiness is when you believe something is true in spite of the facts.
There are a lot of things that we may wish to be true, but that’s truthiness. Truth deals with facts and reality. Either you ate cereal for breakfast, or you didn’t. The truth can make a big difference. Either you paid your taxes this year or you didn’t. It is not possible for multiple, conflicting truths to exist along side one another.
Christians are under no illusions about truth. Christianity is a religion based on facts and reality. It is a historical religion. The accounts of Jesus are eyewitness testimony to the events that they report. For example, the Apostle John wrote: That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we looked upon and have touched with our hands, concerning the word of life….we proclaim also to you.
Christians do not just believe that Jesus existed and was a good teacher, but rather that he is God, just as He claimed to be.
Some people say Jesus is God. Others say he is not God. It’s either one or the other. It’s not helping anybody to imagine that both opinions are equally true. Jesus made some bold claims. He said things about himself that could only be true of God, so as author C.S. Lewis says, if Jesus is not God, he’s either a lunatic or a liar.
But, we believe that Jesus substantiated his divine claims by rising from the dead. We actually believe that a man rose from the dead. That is basis of the entire Christian faith. This is not truthiness. It’s not something nice that we wish to be true, in spite of the facts. Who would dream up something like the resurrection and choose to make it the pillar of their religion? People just don’t go around rising from the dead. At least, I haven’t run into any. We don’t believe that Jesus rose from the dead because we just “know it from the gut,” we believe it because of multiple eyewitness accounts that are recorded in this book. We believe the resurrection because it is true; it is the most well attested event in ancient history.
The Apostle Paul writes that if Christ has not been raised from the dead, then preaching is in vain and the faith of Christians in in vain. It’s futile. And Christians are of all people to be most pitied.
This is honest. Christians would deserve to be pitied, except for the fact that Jesus did raise from the dead. If that actually happened, which it did, then that’s big. That proves that Jesus is God.
And if Jesus rose from the dead, if He is God, then truth takes on added meaning. Jesus came not just to give us some good teachings, but he came to actually reveal truth to us. Truth is reality, God’s reality. We believe that through Jesus, the Truth, God’s reality, is something that can be known.
For example, look at John 14:6, Speaking about himself, Jesus says, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except though me.” Jesus was not just claiming to teach people some truths. He was claiming to be THE truth, in the flesh.
In this sense, Truth is not teaching about God that was communicated by Jesus, but it is God’s very reality revealing itself – actually occurring! - in Jesus.
The Greek word that Jesus used when he said “I am the truth” is Aletheia. And it means “something that is disclosed or revealed. Jesus is indeed the alethia, the truth, God’s reality revealed to man.
And we need the Truth. We need the revelation of God’s reality, because all too often God appears hidden. If God is all-powerful, if God is all-loving, If God is not evil, then how could He allow the earthquake and tsunami in Japan?
Honestly, I don’t know. This is a terrible and tragic event. We mourn with all the families of Japan.
But, one thing I do know, while God may be hidden in this tragic event, God has revealed himself specifically in the person of Jesus Christ. When things in life may confuse us, when we are uncertain about what is true and what is real, we see in Jesus, God’s reality revealed, God’s truth for us.
This is truth that is not just correct knowledge of facts but an encounter with CHRIST, truth in the flesh.
Truth is not just an abstract concept. It is a reality. Our God is not just an abstract concept. He is reality. We believe that Jesus still comes to us in a real, tangible way. He comes to us when we hear the voice of Jesus speaking through the words of the bible. He comes when one person tells another the good things God has done.
But as I said in the beginning, when Jesus stood trial, the governor Pontius Pilate asked him the question: "What is truth?"
But Pilate doesn’t care to find out the answer. He just dismisses the subject of the truth altogether, as if Truth is something relative, impossible to know for sure. Yet, all the while, Pilate had THE truth right in front of him. Seems like not much has changed.
Jesus doesn’t give an answer to Pilate, at least not in words. Jesus’ conversation with Pilate was followed by his suffering and death and resurrection. On the cross and at the empty tomb, we learn what truth is.
We would prefer to have our own truth and live life our own way, but the reality is that Christ is the only way. We have the Truth right in front of us. And it is only through Christ - his life, death and resurrection - that we can ever find true hope, true joy and true peace.
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*As Pastor Paul McCain points out: http://cyberbrethren.com/2010/06/25/does-being-and-remaining-lutheran-still-matter/
