Truth (Christ the King Sunday)

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Last year, on Reformation Sunday, we confirmed the class of 2023!  Well, almost the whole class.  One of the kids wasn’t here, so she got confirmed two weeks later.

But of course, that meant that she wasn’t in the group photo of the class. And back in the Youth Center, we’ve hung all of the Confirmation Class photos since 1997.  And while we have had past classes where one of the kids had to be confirmed later and wasn’t in the picture, it just seemed to me like we should have the technology to fix this!

So, on the Sunday we confirmed Kieran, I took a picture of her and two of her classmates (for size comparison), with Kieran standing roughly where I thought we could Photoshop her into the picture.

Then, finally a few weeks ago, I sent that picture and the original group photo to Nancy Wolejsza – who’s good with Photoshop – and asked her if she could Photoshop Kieran into the group picture.  She did, and it’s amazing!  Especially as the photo has been cropped to fit in the frame, people like me can’t tell there’s been any editing of the picture at all!

But of course, we didn’t do this to fool anybody – we just wanted to make sure we had a photo of the whole class with all the members of the class preserved for posterity.  But as Nancy gave me the photo, she said, “you know, it’s scary what you can do if you really wanted to fool somebody.”

And it’s true.  More and more, it’s easy to fake photos, videos and recordings, so that what’s true and what’s fake is often difficult to discern, even for experts. And with advances in AI, it’s even harder to discern what’s fake and what’s true than it was just a few years ago.

Yet even before digital manipulation, truth could be hard to discern.  And in today’s Gospel reading, Pilate’s question to Jesus makes this clear: “What is truth?” he sneers!  After all, even in the first century, truth got manipulated, and “fake news” got promoted as real news.

In the first century, as well as today, “truth” was a subject of much debate.  And indeed, when we wonder about “truth” we, too, are often asking:

• Is this objectively true, or just the prevailing opinion that you get in trouble for questioning.  In Pilate’s day, everyone was supposed to believe that it was “true” that the Emperor was a living god. I don’t know how many people actually believed that, but questioning that “truth” could get you in trouble. And I know people today who have been “unfriended” from Facebook merely for questioning an established “truth” of another friend…

• Is there really anything that’s “objectively true”?  Or is it all just perspective and opinion?  In today’s post-modern world, people sometimes talk about “my truth” or “your truth.”  But is that really “truth”, or are we really just talking about perspective, opinion and experience?  All of those things are “true”, but do they constitute “the truth”…?

• Does the “truth” – even if it objectively exists – really matter?  After all, the truth for Pilate was that if crucifying Jesus was going to keep the peace in Jerusalem, then Jesus was gonna get crucified.  And it didn’t matter if he was a “king” in any sense of the word.  And even today, if people “feel” things are good or bad, it sometimes doesn’t matter what the charts on the economy or crime or anything else say…

These are the questions we still ask about “truth”.  What is “the truth”? And while Jesus didn’t answer this question when Pilate asked it, Jesus did in fact, answer the question for us.

Back a couple of chapters in John’s Gospel, Jesus identifies himself as the truth.  “I am the way and the truth and the life,” he says (John 14:6).  And this would simply be pious drivel (and even insane drivel), except for what comes after today’s discussion of truth with Pilate.

Regardless of whether Pilate knows the truth, or if he thinks there is such a thing as truth, or even if he cares, he has Jesus crucified.  And Jesus dies.  And Jesus is buried.  And that should be the end of this “truth” discussion.

But then Jesus rises from the dead.  And his disciples experience his living, resurrected presence.  And through the experience of the Resurrection, the disciples find out that “truth” is:

• An objective reality – yet “truth” isn’t an idea or a concept, but life itself.  And that means that all of Jesus’ talk about life, and God’s love and God’s forgiveness weren’t just ideas or concepts, but are actual living realities in their lives through the Risen Jesus; and they’re living realities we’re called to live into each day and to share with others who need the truth of realities like life, forgiveness and love…

• Therefore, not an argument to be won, but an experience to be lived.  In John’s Gospel, there is no attempt to “prove” the Resurrection – that is, to win the reasonable argument that this just seems impossible.  Instead, there’s simply a witness to what the disciples have lived and experienced and seen and felt in their lives.  They know it’s true because they have a living relationship with the living Jesus.  And that’s how we live into “truth” as well; we live into the truth by living differently and showing others the difference instead of arguing about who’s “truth” is correct …

• Something that matters – because even when death stomps it out, God’s life doesn’t die.  And that means our lives have value and meaning, even if the world doesn’t think we – or indeed – anything, really matters; and if we live into the truth of Resurrection right now, in some ways, we’re already living in the fullness of the Kingdom of God…

Well, there are many ideas about “truth” in our world today.  But from a Christian perspective, “truth” is fundamentally not an idea, or a concept, or even an objective fact.  Instead, “truth” is found in a living relationship with the living God.  And that’s why Jesus calls us not to simply “know” the truth, but to “belong” to the truth.

And when we belong to the “truth” that is the life of God, we live into the objective reality of God’s love and forgiveness.  When we belong to the truth, we get to share the experience of that love and forgiveness without the need or expectation to “prove” it to anybody.  And when we belong to the truth, it finally means that we don’t own the truth – the truth owns us.  And that “truth” is what promises us life everlasting.

Amen.