B, Last Sunday of Church Year Proper 29 - John 18:37-38 What is Truth?
What is truth? Pilate askes Jesus this question,
after Jesus not only speaks about, what is truth, but speaks the truth
of his kingdom. God’s kingdom is, God’s
kingdom was, and God’s kingdom will be as we proclaim at the end of every
Psalm, “Glory to the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, as it was
in the beginning, is now, and will be forever more”. And the great resurrection proclamation of
the church, “Christ has died, Christ is risen, Christ will
come again!”
Yet ringing in the
hearts and minds of all people from the first in God’s creation is the
question, “Did God actually say?” (Gen 3:1) Tripping us up to place his
Word second to ourselves and everything else.
God’s kingdom, despite
its existence is not seen by humanity.
If it were so, God would not have had to speak through Moses, Aaron, and
others, his priests and prophets of the old covenant. God would not have had to send Jesus Christ
to be the new Israel through which all people can be blessed! And he wouldn’t have had to send the Holy
Spirit after the Ascension, to call, gather, enlighten, and make us holy
through pastors faithfully preaching God‘s Word and administering his
sacraments. Without the action of the
Triune God, no human would see or seek God and his kingdom. The only kingdom we see without God, is of
this world!
However, Jesus says, “My
kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom were of this world, my servants
would have been fighting, that I might not be delivered over to the Jews. But
my kingdom is not from the world.” (John 18:36 ESV)
The only way God’s
kingdom is seen is through Jesus Christ’s atonement in God’s law. The Son had to step into the void and fulfil
what vain humanity couldn’t do! Jesus
Christ became Israel! Out of “Galilee of
the nations”, came the only one who could truly bless the nations of all time!
Yet even in Jesus’ time
on earth, the disciples struggled to see his kingdom coming. Therefore, the Holy Spirit was sent for the
sole purpose to continue turning us away from our motives to Jesus’ motive, so
God’s kingdom could be built, within us, with us, and for us.
God’s kingdom is hidden,
but not to those whom Jesus allows the Holy Spirit to make it unhidden through
his Word.
Jesus said to Pilate,
“Everyone who is of the truth listens to my voice.” (John 18:37d)
In the English text
there’s a hidden irony. It’s partially
revealed in Pilate’s response, “What is truth?”
But there’s much going on in this exchange between Jesus and Pilate, that’s
missed in English translations of God’s Word!
We know the riddle of
God’s kingdom, that it’s hidden and only seen by faith, generated within by the
Holy Spirit when we receive God’s Word into our hearts with our eyes and
ears. However, hearing how the Greek word
for “truth or true” is constructed, deepens our understanding of Pilate’s and
Jesus’ discussion, and exposes the farce of Pilate’s hand washing and allowance
of the Jews to crucify Jesus.
The Greek word for truth
is made up of two words, “not and hidden”.
Jesus is the one who makes heaven truly known, or unhides the reality of
heaven to us! Therefore, those who are
unhidden hear and heed his voice and receive the hidden kingdom not of this
world. So, when Jesus unhides us with
his Word we see his kingdom unhidden in his world.
The craziness of
Pilate’s action comes about, despite Pilate finding no guilt in Jesus. He found
nothing hidden in Christ! Yet contrary to his conclusion, he turns Jesus Christ
over to the Jews for crucifixion.
Listen to the discourse
with Greek meaning of the word for truth inserted in its place.
Then Pilate said to him,
“So you are a king?” Jesus answered, “You say that I am a king. For this
purpose I was born and for this purpose I have come into the world—to bear
witness to what is not hidden. Everyone who is not-hidden listens to my voice.”
Pilate said to him, “What is not hidden?” After he had said this, he went back
outside to the Jews and told them, “I find no guilt in him.”
Pilate responds to Jesus
with classic political double-speak, “What is not hidden? There’s hiddenness in
everything!” Or in today’s language, “everyone has a truth!” But after this he
asks the Jews if they want him to release, “the king of the Jews”.
Regardless of Pilate
being sarcastic or not, he has been allowed to see two things, Jesus’
innocence, and his kingship. He has
answered his own question, “What is truth? What is ‘not hidden’?” This innocent
king is the unhidden truth! But the revelation of truth continues, not just of
Jesus, but of Pilate too, who knowing the truth unhidden before him, hands
Jesus over to death.
What is not hidden?
Pilate’s hidden political motives for pleasure and popularity become unhidden,
in the path of least resistance in his leadership over the Jews and having to
answer to Caesar.
Because Jesus is not
hidden, he is like no other! His un-hiddenness reveals the truth, not just of
God’s kingdom and his Word, but of those who think they’re hiding their reality
from him!
God is a God of love!
But he is also a God of justice! As you move towards your last breath on this
earth, God lovingly has placed before you his Son Jesus Christ and the Holy
Spirit. Why? To unhide your hiddenness! All things we’ve sought to hide since Adam
and Eve hid themselves in the Garden of Eden. He seeks to call you out of your
knowledge of good and evil into the light of perfection found only in the
knowledge of Jesus Christ. He does this
“in you” by the Holy Spirit, when you hear his Word.
If any of us, having
been unhidden, return to hide from what Jesus has unhidden, that is ourselves,
we endanger ourselves, by stepping out from under Jesus’ protective Word of
truth. Jesus unhides the motive of all human
thoughts, words, and deeds. The Holy
Spirit wills you to be repentant! Those
who resist repentance, resist the justice that fell on Jesus at the cross. If
God’s justice doesn’t fall on Jesus Christ, then God’s justice has to fall on
those who do not listen to his Word!
Being unhidden without Jesus, before God on judgement day is a bad place
to be!
The feelings you feel
when God’s Word of Law convicts you, makes you want to hide what’s been
unhidden! We all understand this, for
sure, as it’s in our nature to run and hide.
However, the Holy Spirit comes to gather and enlighten you in God’s Word
of Gospel. So, rather than running and
hiding from the light, you can run unhidden into the light and loving
forgiveness of God. Listen to Jesus’
voice saying, “Come! The Holy Spirit
wills you to come and confess your sin to the Lord Jesus Christ!
At the start of God’s
Revelation to John, we hear that having been unhidden by his just love, he “has freed us from our
sins by his blood and made us a kingdom, priests to his God and Father, to him
be glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen.” (Revelation 1:5b-6)
The unhidden reality is
that you are priests of God in his kingdom.
This now is seen only by faith, revealed by the Holy Spirit in God’s
Word. We call this the priesthood of all
believers. You were unhidden and given
the right to be “children of God” priests in your baptism. Now the Holy Spirit seeks to lead you out of
this place, prepared to practise your faith amongst those to whom God leads you
in everyday life.
When he comes, he
promises all will see him, the kings, the politicians, those who have excluded
him from their lives, those who have pierced him at the cross and pushed him
aside and hidden themselves from their call into his baptismal priesthood.
God is the Alpha and the
Omega! The beginning and the end. Will God find you uncovered in Christ, or
will he uncover your reality hidden with this world?
Behold, he
is coming with the clouds, and every eye will see him, even those who pierced
him, and all tribes of the earth will wail on account of him. Even so. Amen. (Revelation 1:7 ESV)
With Pilate, all those
who have pierced Jesus, literally, “kicked him out”, will wail on account of
him. Their wailing will occur because
they will be chopped, cut down in their kingdom, because his kingdom will come
and discontinue all other kingdoms! In
his justice and love, God has the first and last say.
Before this finally
occurs, you and I have access to the unhidden truth, to be unhidden, so that
what we seek to hide can be bound to the cross.
We now have the freedom through Christ’s blood, and by the power of the
Holy Spirit, to be unhidden before others, so they too can have sins bound and
be sinners set free by what Jesus unhides at the cross and in the unhidden
truth of his Word.
What is the truth? Jesus says, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one
comes to the Father except through me.”(John 14:6 ESV)
Even so, your kingdom come! Amen.
