Lent 4 (NL4) John B. Valentine
John 18:28-40 March 27, 2022

“WHAT IS TRUTH?”

Do any of you perchance recall the name Karl Barth??

• Formally a professor of theology at the University of Basel in Switzerland ...

• Informally one of the two or three most famous theologians of the 20th century.

It was Karl Barth who is purported to have first said what is now taken by many to be the first rule of preaching ... that we should “preach with the Bible in one hand and the newspaper in the other.”

Now ... to tell you the truth ... there ARE weeks when it seems awfully difficult to do that as a preacher ...

To find points of connection between a given week’s text of Holy Scripture and whatever it is that has been going on out and about in this world in which we live ...

But not this week!

No ... THIS week ... it almost feels like the connection is actually TOO obvious.

You see ... this morning’s lesson ... that piece we read from the eighteenth chapter of the Gospel According to Saint John ... was the latest step in our long slow walk through John’s account of the last 24 hours of the life of Jesus.

• That story of Jesus’ interrogation by Pontius Pilate ....

• That story of Jesus being questioned by the Roman governor of Palestine ....

• That story of Jesus facing down the political authorities of the world in which he lived.

Then again ... what’s been the headline news in our news all this week ... besides that horrific war in Ukraine ... that is.

Wasn’t it all about the Senate confirmation hearing of Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson to one of the nine seats on our nation’s Supreme Court?

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Now I’ll confess that I didn’t take the time to watch any of that confirmation hearing live ... as I had far better things to do ... being on a couple of days of vacation and all...

But reading the reports of those hearings certainly left me empathizing with Judge Jackson’s plight.

I mean ...

• In this morning’s text ... Jesus is being ‘put on trial’ by the political authorities of his day ...

• In this week’s news ... Judge Jackson was ‘put on trial’ by the political authorities of our day.

• In this morning’s text ... it would appear that those doing the questioning have really already got their minds made up ... do they not?

• In this week’s news ... it would appear that those senators doing the questioning pretty much already had their minds made up as well ... did they not???

• In this morning’s text ... it kind of felt like the questions being asked revealed far more about the questioners than about the one being questioned.

• In this week’s news ... it definitely felt like the questions being asked revealed far more about the questioners than about the one being questioned.

Now I’m not going to go so far as too identify Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson as the Christ-figure in the news this week ...

Nor am I going to cast Senators Josh Hawley and Marsha Blackburn in the role of Pontius Pilate ...

Because ... after all ... it’s the same thing that the Democrats did to Amy Coney Barrett last go-round ...

But I will say that I’m deeply saddened by the ways in which our nation’s leading elected officials ... left, right and center ... prove themselves to be more interested in their own agendas than the agenda of our nation as a whole ... and that they are totally willing to abuse what authority they've been given.

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Anyhow ... this morning’s text is the story of just such a politically-motivated hearing ....

We’ve got Jesus ... the accused ... standing before Pilate ... the chief interrogator ...

And it’s filled with a whole litany of leading legal questions:

• “What accusation do you bring against this man?”
• “Are you the King of the Jews?”
• “What have you done?”
• “So you are a king?”

And then ... finally ... that hauntingly memorable one:

• “What is truth?”

Now ... to the first of those questions ... Jesus has a ready answer:

• “Do you ask this on your own, or did others tell you about me?”

• “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.”

• “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.”

But to the last of those questions ... Jesus has no answer.

To the question “What is truth?” ... Jesus has no answer at all.

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BUT WHY NOT?? Why doesn’t Jesus answer Pilate’s question as to “What is truth?”???

Actually ... it may well be that the reason that Jesus didn’t answer that question is that it isn’t really a question you can answer.

Some scholars have suggested that the reason Jesus doesn’t answer Pilate’s question “What is truth?” is because that question is conditional ...

Kind of like the question “When does it stop being partly cloudy and start being partly sunny?” ...

“Because” ... they would say ... “it depends on the conditions under which the question is being asked.”

Others have suggested that the reason Jesus doesn’t answer Pilate’s question “What is truth?” is because that question is subjective ...

Kind of like the question “Which grandbaby is the cutest grandbaby ever?”

Because all of us know that “My grandbabies are the cutest grandbabies ever.”

And still others have suggested that the reason Jesus doesn’t answer Pilate’s question “What is truth?” is because that question is oxymoronic ...

Kind of like the question “How can something be ‘new and ‘improved’ at one and the same time?”

Because ... if something is really ‘new’ ... what was it improving on??

Heck ... it may well be that Pilate’s question ... and Jesus’ non-answer ... is trickier than any of those tricky questions!

You see ... it seems to me ... in a certain way ... that Pilate’s question is actually more along the lines of a question like “When did you stop taking drugs?”

You see ... a question like “When did you stop taking drugs?” is a self-indicting one.

• If you say “I never did” ... you’re at one and the same time confessing that you still are ...

While ...

• If you put a time or a date on it at all ... you’re tacitly confessing that you used to at some time in the past.

Answering such a question either way is self-incriminating.

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You see ... what is it that Jesus says about ‘the truth’ that leads into Pilate’s question?

He says “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” ... does he not???

Jesus seems to be saying ... seems to be telling the powers of the world and telling us ... that “The Truth” isn’t some objective philosophical reality.

Rather ... “The Truth” IS a relationship.

“The Truth” isn’t something we talk about as being ‘out there’.

Rather ... “The Truth” IS something that begins ‘in here’.

“The Truth” isn’t ‘conditional’ or ‘subjective’ or ‘oxy-moronic’.

Rather ... “The Truth” IS something we experience in our lives when we encounter this One who is standing before Pilate!

“The Truth” ... to steal the thunder of a famous theologian from back in the 19th century named Soren Kierkegaard ... isn’t something Jesus teaches.

“The Truth” IS who and what Jesus is!

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You know how ... here in the context of this morning’s worship service ... we shared in some “Words of Confession and Forgiveness”??

Those words were ... in part ... as whenever we speak words of Confession and Forgiveness like that in the context of worship ... an admission that we have messed up ... that we have fallen short of God’s perfect standards.

But ... more than just own up to the fact that we have done something wrong ... those words are a confession that we have denied the Truth Himself.

Those words are an admission that we have broken trust with Jesus.

Those words are an acknowledgment that we don’t hear his voice ... that we don’t know him ... that we certainly don’t follow him.

Oh sure ... in the context of worship sometimes those words roll pretty easily and mindlessly off our lips ... so much yadda yadda yadda ...

But the closer we look in the mirror that is those Words ... the clearer it becomes that we don’t belong to the Truth himself.

That our lives and our living are constant confessions that we don’t follow Him.

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One of the most memorable movie scenes of all time was ... and still is ... the closing scene of that Rob Reiner — Tom Cruise — Jack Nicholson movie from back in like 1992 entitled “A Few Good Men.”

Remember what it was that Nicholson’s character ... Colonel Jessup ... said in context of that courtroom scene at the end of the trial that was at the heart of that movie ... when he was under interrogation in that courtroom?

You want the truth? “You can’t handle the truth!”

Now I somehow doubt that Jesus would have shouted at Pilate with the same volume and vitriol with which Colonel Jessup addressed his courtroom ...

But he might well have said the same thing ... that Pilate couldn’t handle the truth!

• Pilate wasn’t interested in the truth ... he was interested in keeping the peace.

• Pilate wasn’t interested in justice being done ... he was interested in keeping his job.

• Pilate wasn’t interested in doing the right thing ... he was interested in keeping his resume clean.

Because the truth that Pilate couldn’t handle ... the truth that the world can’t handle ... the truth that we ourselves can’t handle ...

Is that Jesus himself is the Truth ...

And that Jesus’ answer to Pilate’s question “What is truth?” is really just something that he has been saying throughout John’s gospel ....

“I AM.”