Word to the Wise
Wednesday, May 7, 2008 - Wednesday in the Seventh Week of Easter
[Acts 20:28-38 and John 17:11B-19]Consecrate them in the truth. Your word is truth. As you sent me into the world, so I sent them into the world. And I consecrate myself for them, so that they also may be consecrated in truth.
Although Pilate was a cynical Roman politician, he asked one of the most important questions in the entire Gospel of John. "What is truth?" The question was ironic as well, since the truth stood right in front of him, Jesus Christ. The use of the word in the Gospel of John forces us to re-examine our notion of truth. Popularly conceived, it refers to the relation between statements and facts. Does a particular statement coincide with the facts that it purports to represent. If it states "facts" that are not "facts" then it is untrue. If the false statement is deliberate, then we call it a lie. Thus we buy into the analytical school of philosophy which asserts that only statements that can be empirically verified can be said to be "true." The notion that truth could be personified is foreign to such a mind set. Yet, this is what faith is about. Faith is about truth which is a person, Jesus Christ. To believe in Jesus Christ is to have the truth in oneself. That is the meaning of Jesus' statement quoted above. Contrary to the analytical school of philosophy, we know that certain things are "true" even if unverifiable in some scientific manner. How can love be measured? How can loyalty or other values we hold dear be measured? Yet we experience them in every day life. We can be hurt by their absence or betrayal. The statement, "Jesus Christ is Lord," is true and, indeed, personifies all that is true, but it is not the sort of thing you can verify by going outside and checking the weather. If we are "consecrated in truth," it means that we have Christ abiding in us through faith and the Holy Spirit. We don't have to ask what truth is. If we do, then we should know as Pilate did not, that it stares us in the face every day. Faith really makes the question unnecessary for us other than to grow in our knowledge and understanding of the truth that is already inside us. AMEN