Then the Jewish leaders took Jesus from Caiaphas to the palace of the Roman governor. By now it was early morning, and to avoid ceremonial uncleanness they did not enter the palace, because 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,” they objected. This took place to fulfill what Jesus had said about the kind of death he was going to die.
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. “Your own people and chief priests 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 Jewish leaders. But now my kingdom is from another place.”
“You are a king, then!” said Pilate.
Jesus answered, “You say that I am a king. In fact, the reason I was born and came into the world is to testify to the truth. Everyone on the side of truth listens to me.”
What is truth?” retorted Pilate. With this he went out again to the Jews gathered there and said, “I find no basis for a charge against him….”
“Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy”: An alien being named Slartibartfast explains to Arthur Dent a human being that unbeknownst to the human race, mice are the most intelligent species on the planet Earth. Mice have spent a lot of their time in laboratories running complex experiments on humans, contrary to the humans thinking that it was them running experiments using mice. Slartibartfast explains to Arthur that “the business with the cheese and squeaking” was just a front for their true intelligence, and that they allowed humans to perform some “primitively staged” experiments on them in order to check how much humans had learned, and to give them “the odd prod in the right direction”. Mice were behind the ten-million-year research program to find the Ultimate Question; the research program being the Earth itself. They designed and created the Earth to be a successor to the supercomputer Deep Thought, which had found the Ultimate Answer. Slartibartfast called the research program an “epic experiment in behavioural psychology”.
Of course, it’s satirical but not much kookier than some of the conspiracy theories floating around today, sometimes among our friends, family and acquaintances. These days we live in a post-truth world. Honest debate is being stifled for fear of giving offence. Establishing truth based on carefully weighed-up evidence is being replaced by the celebration of “my truth”. Fake news and conspiracy theories abound and are multiplied exponentially through social media. The covid pandemic and lockdowns hyper-charged this trend. It leaves us asking, “Who or what should I believe?” Politicians, doctors, journalists, academics, celebrities, influencers, the ABC, Channel Nine – and what are their agendas and what are their sources? There’s nothing wrong with conspiracy theories per se if they can be proven. During our eight years in Indonesia, we saw and heard things that went beyond the bounds of our Australian imagination. Like the behaviour of the police. Like how to succeed in business.
This issue of truth and falsehood or truth and unreality was at the centre of today’s Gospel reading:
AD 33. Jesus standing before the seated Pilate: the accused before the judge. He is dishevelled from his mistreatment at the hands of the High Priest’s retinue. He is also weary from sleep deprivation. His long hair and beard customary for Jews is in contrast to the Roman’s short hair and clean-shaven style of the Roman army in which he had served.
Pilate is vexed by the demands of the High Priest to constantly get involved with Jewish religious issues that were petty and incomprehensible. Just as incomprehensible was the calmness and collectedness of the accused. When he looked into his eyes, he did not see a lunatic, a megalomaniac or a cornered criminal. Pilate asks him to verify the accusation of the High Priest “Are you the king of the Jews?”
Instead of answering he shoots back at him, “Is that your own idea, or did others talk to you about me?” The frustrated governor shrugs, “Am I a Jew? Your own people and chief priests handed you over to me. What is it you have done?” Jesus concedes he is a king but in some weird, Jewish religious sense, “My kingdom is not of this world. If it were, my servants would fight to prevent my arrest by the Jewish leaders. But now my kingdom is from another place.” Pilate probes, “You are a king, then.”
Jesus answers enigmatically, “You say that I am a king. In fact, the reason I was born and came into the world is to testify to the truth. Everyone on the side of truth listens to me.” Pilate frowns “What is truth?”
Perhaps the most ironic moment in the drama of human history…first, because the answer to Pilate’s question is literally staring him in the face. Unbeknown to Pilate but obvious to those who have been reading John’s account of Jesus’ ministry and teaching, is that this Jewish prisoner under interrogation is Truth incarnate. Only twelve hours before, at his Last Supper with his disciples, he had told them, “I am the way, the truth and the life.” Hidden in the guise of a Galilean carpenter turned prophet is the human manifestation of the Creator of the Universe, the Ground of All Being, the Lord of History, the Eternal King over all Emperors and Kings. The Colossians passage makes this clear.
The source of the irony is the clash of cultures in Jerusalem between the Roman rulers and the Jewish populace. Being a Roman, Pilate’s concept of truth was about verifiable facts, the sort of thing that could be examined in a court of law by a magistrate or a natural phenomenon that could be observed by a scientist. Being a Jew, Jesus’s concept of truth was about God and his working in the word as revealed by his prophets.
The second irony is that those who are sitting in judgement on Jesus are actually those on trial in the court of history and God’ court of ultimate justice. With the High Priest and his cronies, it is the conspiracy to convict an innocent albeit very annoying person, and the false witnesses they employ. With Pilate it is his moral failure in his subsequent concession to the powerful and dangerous High Priest’s faction by allowing an innocent man to be crucified.
The third irony is unknown to the people of the time. Here you have the monumental clash of two views of reality that define the world. In this meeting we see the dramatic contrast between representatives of the two kingdoms: Jesus whose “kingdom is not of this world” and the Roman governor who was the local head of the very worldly empire the world had known the successor of the Empires of the Greeks, the Persians, the Babylonians, the Assyrians and the Egyptians. Jesus’s kingdom as opposed to the Roman kingdom was not territorial, was eternal, did not rely on force and coercion but on love and mercy, eschewed pomp and glory and favoured the weak and humble.
God has given us a brain to distinguish between truth and untruth, reality and unreality. This is the basis of science, our justice system and historical research. Luke in his introduction to his Gospel writes: “Many have undertaken to draw up an account of the things that have been fulfilled among us, just as they were handed down to us by those who from the first were eyewitnesses and servants of the word. With this in mind, since I myself have carefully investigated everything from the beginning, I too decided to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus, so that you may know the certainty of the things you have been taught.” The Gospels are historically true and the apparent contradictions that occur have a reasonable explanation.
But what is distinctive about our Christian faith is God’s gift of the Scriptures to reveal the spiritual truth of Jesus. In the introduction of the Letter to the Hebrews: “In the past God spoke to our ancestors through the prophets at many times and in various ways, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, and through whom also he made the universe. The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being…”
When we proclaim “Christ has died, Christ is risen, Christ will come again”, we’re not just affirming the truth of these events we are also professing the truth of who Jesus is:
“Christ has died- he is our Saviour from sin and death
Christ is risen – he is our living Lord, our Shepherd who guides and protects us
Christ will come again – to be Judge of all people and Restorer of God’s creation.”
Amen.