Truth

So, I was planning on doing something different tonight, but this passage totally jumped out at me so I'm doing it instead.


"Then the Jews led Jesus from Caiaphas to the palace of the Roman governor. By now it was early morning, and to avoid ceremonial uncleanness the Jews did not enter the palace; they wanted to be able to eat the Passover. So Pilate came out to them and asked, "What charges are you bringing against this man?"

"If he were not a criminal," they replied, "we would not have handed him over to you."

Pilate said, "Take him yourselves and judge him by your own law."

"But we have no right to execute anyone," the Jews objected. This happened so that the words Jesus had spoken indicating the kind of death he was going to die would be fulfilled. Pilate then went back inside the palace, summoned Jesus and asked him, "Are you the king of the Jews?"

"Is that your own idea," Jesus asked, "or did others talk to you about me?"

"Am I a Jew?" Pilate replied. "It was your people and your chief priests who handed you over to me. What is it you have done?"

Jesus said, "My kingdom is not of this world. If it were, my servants would fight to prevent my arrest by the Jews. But now my kingdom is from another place."

"You are a king, then!" said Pilate.

Jesus answered, "You are right in saying I am a king. In fact, for this reason I was born, and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone on the side of truth listens to me."

"What is truth?" Pilate asked. With this he went out again to the Jews and said, "I find no basis for a charge against him. But it is your custom for me to release to you one prisoner at the time of the Passover. Do you want me to release 'the king of the Jews'?"

They shouted back, "No, not him! Give us Barabbas!" Now Barabbas had taken part in a rebellion."
--John 18:28-40

There is some heavy stuff going on in this passage.

Item number one: Prophecy fulfilled. One of the main arguments against Christianity is the argument that there have been dozens of other prophets who claim to be the Messiah. I will not deny that statement. It is fully the truth. There have been hundreds of men through the ages who have claimed to be the Savior, the Messiah. But this is what places Jesus apart from all of them: He fulfilled the prophecies. Not one of them, not two of them of even most of them. He fulfilled ALL of them. You can only take coincidence so far. And this passage states, straight up, how important that fact is. "This happened so that the words Jesus had spoken indicating the kind of death he was going to die would be fulfilled." And to those who would argue that Jesus manipulated the situation so that His words would become true, I would ask them to indicate his involvement in making the Sanhedrin take Him to Pilate. The whole point of the presence in front of Pilate is that the Jews were no longer allowed to execute under their own law since Cesar was running things. At least, they weren't going to take that chance with Jesus, a high profile celebrity figure. Jesus was famous. They wanted all their bases covered, so, instead of stoning him in the street and risking Cesar retribution (which wouldn't have been lovely by any stretch of the imagination), they take him to Pilate, and innocently claim that they were handing over a hardened criminal for execution.

I'm going to give you a little history lesson now. Not really sure why, except I love surrounding history that helps me explain passages and I think it's important to know. I'll try to make it quick and save you from being too bored.

One thing about the Jewish population is that they are fierce. You can only push them so far before they snap and somehow rise up and destroy your civilization. This pattern is repeated over and over in history. So by the time Cesar brought Israel under his control, one thing was clear: You DO NOT want to piss off the Jews. So he gave them the right to their king (Herod at this time), and he told them that as long as they didn't rebel and paid their taxes to Rome they could pretty much continue as they had been doing. As far as Roman standards go, that was pretty lenient. And Cesar placed Pilate down in Israel to watch over everything. That's where this passage finds us.

End of history lesson. See, it wasn't that bad, was it?

Item number two: When Pilate asks Jesus what he has done exactly to tick off the Sanhedrin, Jesus replies with this: "My kingdom is not of this world. If it were, my servants would fight to prevent my arrest by the Jews. But now my kingdom is from another place." I think if the Sanhedrin has just listened to Jesus a little more, everything could have been prevented. But that would have left us in a very sad place now. My kingdom is not of this world. Wow. Those are powerful words. We are no longer of this world. The instant we bind ourselves to Christ, we are not enslaved to a world that only follows the pleasures of the here and now. The Sanhedrin couldn't accept the truth. They were expecting the Messiah to be a warrior king, someone who would rescue them from Rome's oppression and reclaim Israel's glory. They had their hearts and minds focused on a truth of this world, and so they missed out on an incredible truth of the next. How often do I, captured by the grind of day to day living become so focused on the small minded things that I miss out on a major truth that is available to me? How often do I miss hearing from God because I am "too busy?" My kingdom is not of this world. I am free to live without being chained to a world, to a self that only cares about the pleasures in life. Don't get me wrong, there's nothing wrong with being comfortable, with being well fed, clothed and sheltered, but when we focus on that more than we focus on God, we miss crucial lessons and truths available to us. You would never ignore your best friend if they repeatedly called to talk to you, to care for you, so why do we insist on shoving God back to times that we find more convenient for us? I am no longer of this world. So why do I continue to live that way?

Item number three: "What is truth?" Pilate asked.

Oh hey Pilate, thanks for coming up here, posing a deep three word question and then bailing. Was that even a serious question? Were you entangled in some heavy philosophical debate when you said that, or was in passing? What is truth? Yeah, let me just spend the rest of my life trying to adequately answer that question.

Right now my parents are doing: The Truth Project for their Bible study. And they came home and asked me, "What is truth?" And I thought about it, and (somewhat proud of myself, I admit) I answered, "Truth is the absolute basis for all of creation." I think that ties into a lot of things. I think that ultimately it ties into the the truth that GOD IS TRUTH, which is how everything is created. Man, I can't do this here. I need decades to answer this. But what is truth? God is truth. There is nothing false about God, nothing he cannot answer, nothing He cannot do that isn't within His nature (by the way, the whole, "If God is all powerful than can He create a rock bigger than He can lift? The answer is no, because there is something God cannot do, and that is something that is not in His nature. God cannot sin. He cannot lie. He cannot be unjust. Just some examples. So no, He cannot make a rock bigger than He can life because He is all powerful, and to do that would be against the essence of His nature.) God is truth. Ah, I have to spend more time on this later. I can't do it tonight. My brain needs more awake cells to contemplate this question. I wonder what Pilate was thinking as he asked that. What was he feeling as he questioned Jesus and knew in his heart that the man before him was innocent?


Item four: Even though Pilate found nothing wrong with Jesus, except that he probably thought Jesus was a bit loony, he offered to let Him go, but was told to release a true prisoner instead. That is hardcore. What hatred, that you demand a common prisoner to be free to walk among you just to have someone killed who doesn't agree with your views. How alone must Jesus have been feeling? I think we discount his feelings sometimes. Just because he was God didn't mean he didn't also have the feelings of a man as well. That's what made him who he was. Part God, part man. And the man part of him probably was at the peak of a very rapid downhill slide into the worst he would ever feel in his life. Betrayed by his best friend. Brought before the Sanhedrin and questioned all night. Denied by his other best friend. Beaten and abused, ridiculed, mocked. How would you feel? How would you feel if you were essentially abandoned by all who supposedly love and follow you, then put on trial for a made up crime? How would you feel? Are you pressed with sorrow and sympathy for this poor man, this wonderful Savior we have? I am. I am two thousand years away from it and my heart hurts for Jesus, and for the despair that must have been weighing down on him. Even though he knew that this is how it would end, that didn't make it any less painful. It probably didn't keep him from hoping there was another way. You can do both. I knew I was late for work today, but I was desperately hoping that it had been a mistake. Nope. I knew I was late, I knew there was no going back, but that doesn't stop us from hoping, or entertaining alternatives to situations in our heads. And I don't doubt that as Jesus was going through everything, even as he was steeling himself for what was to come, he was going in his head, "Please, let there be another way. It can't end like this. There has to be something else." Oh, he knew it was happening, but it probably didn't stop him from hoping. Can you begin to connect to how he was feeling? Can you begin to empathize a fraction of what he went through? If my heart is breaking for him, his must have been shattered.

So tonight, I fall asleep with three thoughts:

What is truth?

How often am I "too busy" for God that I miss truths he sends my way every day?

Instead of WWJD? (What would Jesus do) tonight I focus on WDJF?. What did Jesus feel?

I feel much closer to the Easter story now than I ever have before.

Good Friday draws to a close. And now I sleep.