Good Friday
Isaiah 52:13-53:12
Psalm 22
Hebrews 10:16-25
John 18:1-19:42
“What is truth?” Pilate’s final, unanswered question before rendering his judgment upon Jesus is one of the most enigmatic questions in Scripture, and one that throughout our existence humanity has sought to answer. In Jesus’ time on earth, Plutarch sought the answer to this question from the temple of Apollo in Delphi, Greece. Seneca sought his answers in debate with his Stoic philosopher peers in Rome. Wang Chong sought them by observing the heavens from the emperor’s palace in Han China. This is the ultimate human question pondered by serious men from age to age, and here it is again. The questioner? The highest political authority in this province of the most powerful empire on Earth, a man speaking with the voice of Emperor Tiberias Caesar. The respondent? A ragged prisoner, a strange man who does not give a straight answer to any questions asked of him, an inexplicably popular man among some, a hated man among others, and perhaps a threat to the order of Pilate’s realm.
What is truth? Maybe we’ve whispered this in exasperation. Maybe it seems just out of reach. Maybe we utter the question with contempt or pessimism. Living in a world of AI-generated deepfakes and endless conspiracy theories, it can be exhausting sifting through the elaborate cons seeking to part us from our possessions or avoiding the bad actors seeking to sway us to an unscrupulous cause. “Truth is relative,” we often hear, and in this world, it’s hard to disagree.
What is truth? As I sat behind a computer screen on a base in the mountains of Afghanistan, embedded in the Information Warfare detachment of a Special Forces unit, it was my job to find out, to track those seeking to destabilize and destroy a fragile new democracy. It was also my job to help craft and steer the truth, to tell the people of Afghanistan that their government had their best interests at heart, that their police forces were trustworthy and their army could effectively combat the terrorists who, we knew, would outlast our presence. We believed that by inspiring confidence in the people, we could bolster the confidence of those who were there to protect them. We believed that if the people had faith in their armed forces, their armed forces would have faith in themselves. It was the truth I almost believed until we rushed to the exits and the Taliban blanketed the nation in a new darkness. The government fled. The army crumbled. Many in the police already had a secret allegiance to the Taliban. An Afghan girl today will see the hand she outstretches to truth cut off by those who do not wish for her to ever know it. And still, etched in stone above the entrance to the headquarters of the CIA are Jesus’ words from John 8: “The truth shall set you free.”
What is truth? Jesus never replies to Pilate in words. Perhaps Pilate asked the question in the same spirit of sarcasm and cynicism that we often do in our moments of despair, and Jesus was unwilling to dignify his mocking with an answer. Perhaps Pilate had a fearful moment of genuine, open curiosity like Nicodemus approaching under cover of night and asking Jesus, “How can these things be?” And perhaps like Nicodemus, Pilate was afraid to know, afraid of what knowing would cost him. Perhaps Pilate saw from the situation before him that the answer to his question was greater than he could imagine, and the cost of knowing just as great. When the awesome love and power and sacrifice of God makes itself apparent in our lives, we do not have to ask what is already evident. In Luke’s Passion account, as Jesus suffers on the cross beside two criminals, in what is perhaps the sudden clarity of imminent death, one of them says these words: “We indeed have been condemned justly, for we are getting what we deserve for our deeds, but this man has done nothing wrong. Then he says, ‘Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.” Jesus replies, “Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in paradise.” When Christ appears to Thomas after the resurrection, Thomas does not have to ask him anything, for the truth greets him face to face with love, and Thomas cannot help but exclaim, “My Lord and my God!”
What is truth? Mark Twain wrote, “Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; truth isn’t.” Today, the truth is that Christ has died. His eyes have closed, his heart has stilled, his limbs have slackened. He breathes his last. Today, the truth is that beyond our seeing, Christ is entering the realm of death, and is destroying it utterly. After these final three days, the truth is that Jesus is returning to us so that we may know of his victory for all of us. The truth is that Jesus is the way and the truth and the life, stranger than fiction, and loving us beyond what we can imagine is possible. Amen."