John 18:37-38a
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?”
Jesus continues to call into question everything Pilate thought he knew.
Given this talk of kingdoms, perhaps it’s natural that Pilate will ask Jesus again whether he is a king. Pilate seems to be pressing his attack. Now that he has gotten Jesus to admit that he has a kingdom, he can come back to the question of whether he is the king of the Jews.
Or maybe it’s just that Pilate can’t think in any other way. Perhaps he is so dominated by his sense of power and military might as the only way by which to exercise authority that he can’t really engage Jesus along any other lines.
But just as Jesus redefined the nature of kingdom – not simply a place, but wherever the will of God is exercised; and not achieved by violence but by sacrificial love – Jesus now redefines what it means to exercise authority: it is to tell the truth, to be bear faithful witness to the One who sent you. Authority, keep in mind, has at its root the word “author.” We exercise authority when we are faithful to, and bear witness to, the intentions of the author, the one who sent us on behalf of the world.
Jesus comes to bear witness to the truth, the singular truth that the God loves this world and wants all of God’s beloved children to flourish. That’s it. Jesus comes as the Revealer, the one who makes God most fully known to us, so that we might know God’s love and in turn love another.
Love, vulnerability, sacrifice? These are not words with which Pilate is familiar. And this talk of truth makes him perhaps most uncomfortable of us. So rather than ask Jesus more, either pressing his attack once again or seeking to learn something new, he instead back pedals, straying into the territory of convenient ambiguity, and employs one of the great dodges of all time, asking “what is truth?”
You know the truth, Pilate. And so do we. The question is not what is truth, but whether we will hear and follow.
Prayer: Dear God, let us hear your word of truth and follow it by receiving your love and sharing it with all those around us. In Jesus’ name, Amen.
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