John 18:33-38; Revelation 1:4-8; November 24, 2024; Christ the King Sunday
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“What is truth?”
For most of my life my favorite literary genre has been Historical Fiction. It’s always been fun to imagine what real people, in real times, could have said differently, could have done differently.
Recently though, I have found that Historical Fiction hits too close to home and is no longer the fun romp that it used to be. Especially as everything today seems to be questioned as fiction, even when our own eyes and ears have evidence to the contrary.
What is truth?
Hard to say anymore.
Truth-bending should be the work of dystopian novels, movies, and art. Not our real interactions.
“What is truth?” then is sadly not only Pilate’s question from 2000 years ago, but also the question of our day here in the 21st century.
Where it’s been freely admitted that 40% of our young people get their “truths” from influencers on social media apps. Lord, have mercy. And where the rest of us seemingly abide by the law of subjectivism. Such that every opinion is asked to be considered as being possibly true, even when there is no rational standing or basis in reality.
Recently I’ve seen some friends on Facebook share some amazing photographs taken from “around the world” only for them to find out in the comment section that this world was actually created by an algorithm. What is truth when we can’t even tell a real sunset from a fake one, or a real building from a computer generation?
And with Artificial Intelligence now capable of producing paragraphs of text that can pass off as the legitimate thoughts of the human brain, who’s to say that things like this very sermon are not just the product of ChatGPT? …I assure you that it’s not and that it is my own. But the question still stands.
What is truth, my friends, when there are so many competitors for it and deviations therein?
And that’s terrible, really, and not how it should be. Especially when our King, and Lord and Savior literally tells us that he came to this world to testify to the Truth. And to own the Truth because he is the Truth.
How can we follow him and praise him as his true disciples, if we ourselves are participating in this deception of half-truths, or worse, peddling outright lies like so much of the rest of the world?
Maybe this is why Jesus tells Pilate that he is not from this world; this world where the truth is sold out to the highest bidder and the lowest denominator.
But that he’s from another world where the truth actually matters. Where the truth is supported and defended. And where what is true is all that there is, was, and will ever be.
Wouldn’t that be great? A world of truths…
Or would it?
George Costanza, one of the greatest characters ever conceived for television, gets into hot water when he tells his significant other the truth. The truth about her hair, her poetry, her accent and phrasing. …You don’t need to have seen this episode of Seinfeld to have guessed how poorly truth-telling went for him.
And yet, my friends, the truth, as inconvenient as it sometimes is, is precisely what we as Christ’s followers should be all about.
For unlike earthly kings, who will say whatever they need to say, true or not, to get elected and stay in power, Jesus, our King of Kings, who came from another world, told it like it truly was even if it’s what ultimately would lead him to the cross. Which ironically became the truest symbol of power; of life triumphing over death.
We are told elsewhere in 1 John that those who tell the truth, who practice it and have fellowship with it, are children of light and not of darkness.
And in Jesus own’ scripture, the Hebrew Bible, we are reminded of such things like:
- Do not bear false witness. – Exodus 20
- He who pours out lies will perish — Proverbs 19
- The Lord detests lying lips, but the Lord delights in those who are truthful. — Proverbs 12
My friends, if we are to do as we’ve been told by Jesus, and by scripture, and to do on Earth as it is in Heaven, then we better darn well start telling the truth. Testifying to the truth. Owning the truth.
Otherwise, we are really no better than Pilate who shrugged his shoulders when asking, “well, what is truth anyway?” Or like Peter who would rather not own up to the truth — that he knew Jesus — choosing instead to stay warm by the fire. Or worse, like the Pharisees who sought to crucify the truth because it was simply too uncomfortable to hear.
In his pinnacle work Mere Christianity, C.S. Lewis writes this: “If you look for truth, you may find comfort in the end: but if you look for comfort, you will get neither comfort nor truth – only soft soap and wishful thinking… and in the end, despair.”
We must look for the truth, my friends. To testify to the truth. To live and breathe the truth.
Otherwise, we risk bathing ourselves, especially here at Church, in despair. With a wishful soft-soap. In Dove and Old Spice. Which perhaps feels nice. And that maybe even smells nice. But that which in the end won’t effectively clean off the grime of this world. That won’t make us ready nor prepared to greet Christ in the world to come.
I have a friend who left the church because every time he asked a probing question of scripture or doctrine looking for the truth, he was told to put those ideas out of his head and “just have faith.” Well, he’s never come back to church. Nor the faith.
And so, we do a great disservice to so many if we just do as our culture does, and merely offer tik-tokian soundbites and pass them off as truths when really these are just mere platitudes.
And while I get why platitudes work, and feel good, especially when the rest of the world feels so complicated and hard to understand… this sort of fast-food spirituality simply won’t hold up in the end. Nor will it lead a multitude to comfort in the truth.
Jesus doesn’t meet us just to leave us where are but asks us to follow him so to grow in new ways and understanding even if that means sacrificing the comforts of our previous builds whose foundations lie on easy answers and half-truths.
We are to be enlightened then! Enlightened imitations of Christ. Who asks us to be in this world but not from this world. But of a world where only the truth resides. And glorious truths at that!
Such as: That peacekeeping is virtuous. That humility is righteous. And that kindness and compassion are Godly and Kingly, while cruelty and selfishness are manly and weak.
And more, that unity is always deeper than division. That love is always wiser than hate. And that light is always stronger than darkness!
And in just a month, my friends, that Light will come to us again. The Alpha and the Omega. And his candle, which we will ignite together, will never burn out.
For ultimately, he is the final truth. Just as he was and will forever be.
And what is truth except that which is neither passing, contextual, nor subjective.
But that which is always and eternal.
Thanks be to God.
Amen.
