Jesus is Truth & Jesus knows Truth

by Sue Collins

(Based on John 18:33-38)

Phew! We are privy to a most amazing conversation!   What a message Jesus is bringing!
But, it is a message which is incomprehensible to Pilate.

Let’s see what we can take from this conversation between The Lord Jesus, who is Truth, and Pilate the sceptic who asks, “What is truth?”
Pontius Pilate is portrayed as a cynical vacillating politician. He recognises that Jesus has not committed any criminal act; but he seems to acknowledge, within himself, that there is something attractive and real about this Jesus – he doesn’t want to condemn him to death.

But as Governor of Judea, he stands at a crossroads: he is far more concerned about his own well-being and safety. He is aware of the dangerous power the Jewish religious leaders carry, and he is deeply concerned about their threat to accuse him of disloyalty to the Emperor. (To put it bluntly, Pilate’s own life is in danger unless he supports the Jewish leaders and hands Jesus over.)

Pilate’s deep and tragic dilemma is shown by the way he approaches the Jews at the end of this interrogation. He declares Jesus innocent, offers to set him free, and yet makes what can only have been a provocative reference to him as “The King of the Jews”.
There is a lot of detail we don’t know but the theological points come through precisely and clearly. The real King of Men confronts the rulers who would try him. This encounter cannot be read without realising how profoundly the roles of judge and prisoner have been reversed.

Jesus says, “My Kingdom is not of this world.” And here, in this statement, lies a deeper truth. The claim distinguishes his rule from those various forms of power that mark most earthly institutions: where, all through time, including this time we live in, domination, violence and economic exploitation are common, and are perhaps openly justified as necessary weapons of maintaining power.

But Jesus’s power comes from a different source. He wants to talk about TRUTH – an utterly strange topic to Pilate, and to most imperial figures.
Pilate operates in a carefully maintained world of illusion.  And the presence of Jesus, whose mission is to strip away those illusions, points to what is really true, and poses an enormous threat.

In contrast, our human knowledge of ‘truth’ is conditioned by the world we live in.  By habits of self-protection, by egotistical struggles for superiority and power, our circumstances often alter or colour our understanding of the truth we know and live by. As we look around this world today we are aware of the danger that is engendered by any claiming of possession of the truth. We put ourselves in a position of having to defend, to guard and protect that truth. We promote and impose that truth on others and lines are drawn and walls are built. Conversations become reduced to monologues of rhetoric, relationships break down into isolation or domination, then violence arises through words or actions which wound the human soul.

In our living, in our practising of life, in our faith and our relationships, we find that claiming to be the sole possessor of the truth is never as simple as we want it to be, or as we try to make it.

Pilate wanted a straight answer from Jesus.
Jesus knows that truth is never as absolute as we might assert it to be, and never as exclusive as we sometimes claim it to be. He knows that truth is more than a fact. It is more than an answer – or an experience – it cannot be possessed.

                                  Rather, it is a Life to be Lived!

The truth to which Jesus testifies is the Good News for all ages and all times. The wonderful truth, that the God who is beyond the circumstances of this world is ever present in the circumstances of this world.

This is the world Jesus came into, to tell us about that truth, to show us what it looks like in human life, and to teach us how to be part of, and how to belong to, that truth.

To evade this truth is the tragedy of Pilate! And, evading this truth is the tragedy which continues down through time.

All glory be to God who sent us ‘Christ the King’.

Acknowledgement to authors/works used in this piece:

  • John for Everyone, Tom Wright
  • Interrupting the silence: the truth does not belong to us, WordPress.com
  • The Gospel of John: Life through believing, Dr. Alfred Martin
  • St John, John Marsh.

Freedom is Conditional

What about these recent anti-vax, anti-mandate, placard waving, irresponsible gatherings of malcontents and illegal road blockages, decrying our loss of freedoms?

The only freedoms we’ve lost have been forced on us by a pandemic, not a government decree.  Free education and health endure.  Freedom to live where we choose, provided we can afford the cost of a house or rent. We can friend and marry anyone we choose, we are allowed to work at whatever occupation we choose, provided we have the appropriate qualifications and skills.  Most of us can still enjoy the beach and the (usually) blue sky.

To drive a car or fly an aircraft we need a licence which proves we are competent, for the safety of the public. To become a nurse or a doctor or a school teacher, we undergo significant training and pass examinations to prove we are capable and responsible. Most employers mandate special conditions of employment, even to the point, in many cases, of requiring regular staff drug testing.  An employee surrenders his/her rights and freedoms in these scenarios for the greater good, and, fail these tests … no job.  Pfizer certificates are no different.

It’s legal to play our stereos loud, and mow our lawns, but if it’s three in the morning (especially if I’m mowing my lawns at that hour), rules and restraint have to come into play.

And, what’s the big deal about “Stay home if you have symptoms”?    We should be doing that for ordinary viruses.  It’s right and proper and common sense if we want to protect work colleagues.

Even the very claim to freedom.  Where does it say freedom is an absolute right?  No rights are absolute; all are bounded to some degree, particularly in time of war or civil emergency, and we are in the midst of a serious civil emergency.

A friend says, “No government’s gonna tell me what to do!”  Well, wake up.  The government already tells you what to do, in so many ways.  That’s a bogus protest.  It’s the government’s job, and the judiciary’s, and the police’s, to ring-fence our lives all over the place – for our own and others’ protection.  Freedoms we enjoy in easy times go if times become more precarious.  For the greater good.

Some claim a legal right to refuse medical treatment – standing on the Bill of Rights.  But can’t the Bill of Rights be subjugated in times of emergency?  Don’t circumstance and context have some bearing on a normal right?  Even if not, claimers cannot reasonably expect others to forgo their right not to be associated with them, or employ them.

Used by permission of The Spinoff’s Toby Morris

The bottom line, protesters, is … no, wait … this is the bottom line for all of us: we are free to choose – do, even – whatever we wish – comply or not comply, curse the government or praise it (remembering that Covid is the enemy, not the government), trust the science or the Fakebook echo chamber, rail against the sky falling on our heads or just enjoy the sky … but there will be costs and consequences to every choice.

Count the cost and accept the consequences.  Don’t whinge, and put others’ needs before yours.

Ken F

But if the Son shall make you free, you shall be free indeed. (John 8:36)

Jesus’s last sermon

by Liz Young

(Based on Mark 13:1-8)

What would you do if you knew that Jesus was returning at midnight tonight? How would you spend the next fifteen hours? Praying, asking for forgiveness for all the things you’ve put off doing?
What if you knew he would return a week from today? How would you prioritise doing all those things you haven’t got around to doing? What matters most?

The disciples were occupied with when will Jesus return. Jesus doesn’t respond to their question ‘when?’, but warns them and encourages them with three instructions:

  1. Don’t be deceived! Follow Jesus’s teachings.
    The implication that the disciples may follow false leaders reminds me that the early Christians did split into so many different sects – that by the time Mohammed arrived he felt he had to create a new true interpretation – without the certainty we have of the help of our belief in Jesus, and the help of the Holy Spirit, to live as he advised us.
  2. Take heed to yourselves. Don’t worry about the things happening around you. It’s enough to love the Lord our God with all our heart and mind and strength; and to love our neighbour as ourself.
  3. Be alert! Don’t get distracted. Oh how easy it is to be distracted by material things, comfort food, escapist books or whatever else takes your fancy.
    I find that I get distracted more easily each year I get older: so my first action after I get up is to have my quiet time, and after my reflections I write my plan for the day. I usually follow the prayer plan I was taught in my youth: praise, thanksgiving, ask for forgiveness, intercessions and ask for help in planning and putting into practice my plans for the day. (Which always include two hours of gardening.) But some of that gets hurried by my need for breakfast!

I’ve always felt that the kingdom of God is all around us. Jesus is with us now in our daily lives. How often do we make ourselves aware of him? Ask for his help in our daily decision making and actions and difficulties.
I tend to think quickly, and speak and act without thinking. Pray that we can ask for his help, moment to moment of each day. To be alert to each other’s needs, listen and look for the unspoken words in body language.
Take this simple message home this week. I hope that its brevity will help the message stick. In the Name of God the Father, his Son, and the Holy Spirit.

Amen

God whom we serve is able …

by Ken Francis

(Based on Mark 12:38-44 and Psalm 146)

This Mark reading features two unconnected – or not obviously connected – incidents/teachings.  Actually, the whole chapter seems to be an assembly of some of the things Jesus did and taught in the week just before his execution.
Although, given that I’m touched first of all by the pompous ways of the scribes (or ‘teachers of the law’ in some versions), especially in contrast to the meekness and humility of the widow, Mark may well have placed these two segments beside each other intentionally.  So, we could unpack the attitudes of the scribes – part of the holy cabal of scribes, Pharisees and priests – and examine our own outward ways of being.  Are we ‘scribal’ in any way, sisters and brothers?
And we could then unpack the widow’s attitude to giving, or, indeed, God’s attitude to widows and orphans, and anyone in states of vulnerability.

But I feel rather to pick up on something from the Psalm reading.

Do not put your trust in princes, it says, … in human beings, who cannot save.  When their spirit departs, they return to the ground; on that very day their plans come to nothing.
Blessed are those whose help is the God of Jacob, whose hope is in the Lord their God.  He is the Maker of heaven and earth, the sea, and everything in them — he remains faithful forever.  He upholds the cause of the oppressed, and … [and various vulnerable folk are mentioned, including the widows, who, of course, in those days, had no official or often even social means of support].

God loves the vulnerable – and the righteous, the Psalm says – so, accepting that, don’t put your faith or your hopes in human beings! They’re not as good as they seem.

In coaching school rugby and soccer teams, we would often find ourselves on Saturday mornings, early, on foreign fields in miserable weather. As opposition teams began to turn up I could sometimes sense my players’ growing anxiety, seeing the size and perceived skills of the opposition, and I had to try to calm them down. I’d use various platitudes like “the bigger they are, the harder they fall” (which was little comfort to my players!), or … one that seemed to work better was, “they no different than you. They still get up each morning and put their trousers on one leg after the other”. The mental image and associated giggles did seem to lower their anxieties.

Just last week I was discussing vaccinations with my son (who’d been in some of my rugby teams as a teenager), and I was trying to ease the tensions of a controversial topic by saying, “Look, at the end of the day, if Ashley Bloomfield [NZ’s Director General of Health] says it’s safe, and the thing we need to do, then that’s good enough for me.”
To which Tom said, with a twinkle in his grin, “Dad, he’s no wiser than you or me … he still gets up each morning and puts his trousers on one leg after the other”.

Touche.

Don’t put your trust in people, people!  … is the message of some of these verses from Psalm 146.

What – you mean don’t trust anyone?  Not my husband, my wife, my family, my friends, the Bishop, the All Blacks, the climate change delegates at COP26?

No, I don’t think the psalmist would go that far.  Like me, he would still insure his car! He’d look to the Lord for safety on the roads, but he would still insure his car.  He would still look to God for his general safety and well-being, but he would still lock his doors at night.  He would trust God for his health, but he would still – would he still, maybe?, get vaccinated!

See what I mean?  If our property is threatened, we would call the police – hopefully they’d come quickly – but still, primarily, trust in our God.  And even if things turned out badly for us, our trust would still be in him … ultimately.

There are many incidents in the Old Testament where the Israelites didn’t have their hope in God, and it cost them.  Times when they made alliances with pagan nations; when they went after other nations’ Gods; when they wanted a King, ‘like the other nations’ (we learn in 1 Samuel chapters 8-10); when they turned to Egypt because the Babylonians were threatening, but Egypt had more horses and chariots than they did (as in Jeremiah 42, for example).
Actually, that chapter is quite instructive: The enemy were at the gates of Jerusalem. The king didn’t know what to do, and his generals and political ‘friends’ were in rebellion. They were wanting to abandon the city, and seek refuge in Egypt. To force the issue, the rebels sought the advice of the prophet Jeremiah, swearing they’d adhere to whatever he counselled.
Jeremiah sought God, then counselled the rebels to stay in Jerusalem – they would be saved – but not to look to Egypt (where they would die if they went there). The rebels promptly ignored the advice and … it didn’t finish well for them.

So this tells us to seek God when we’re in trouble, and to do what seems right before him – not necessarily what human advice might tell us to do.

But, back to the question of whom among men and women can we trust, should we trust?  When is it ok to trust in other people?  The secret is, I suggest, we can trust the people we trust, as long as we can do it without compromising our primary submission to the higher one: God.

I put it to you that it’s fine to ask for help: when I take my car to the garage for repair, when I try to get a good deal on motel accommodation – as Jackie and I were doing this time last week, when I accept my government superannuation, when I ask Jackie to go downstairs and get me the hammer – no, perhaps I shouldn’t admit that here – or when I ask the bank to look after my funds … these are all ways I can trust in men and women without compromising in any way and, whilst still truly trusting God for my overall wellbeing.

But there are times when our hope needs to be in God alone.  Men and women are fallible – they have no real power or comfort or ability to work miracles.  The mechanic is not God; banks collapse; motels can still rip you off.  Only God … He, who is our true backstop.

I love the attitude of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego.  To me these epitomise the attitude of the widow (in the Mark reading):  they were told they must worship the local king, or they’d be thrown into a furnace.  They replied (in Daniel 3), “King Nebuchadnezzar, we do not need to defend ourselves before you in this matter.  If we are thrown into the blazing furnace, the God we serve is able to deliver us from it, and he will deliver us from Your Majesty’s hand. But even if he does not, we want you to know, Your Majesty, that we will not serve your gods or worship the image of gold you have set up.” [Emphasis added]
And you probably know how that panned out.

God forbid that we should ever have to face such a challenge, but let’s adopt their attitude in the face of any challenge.  Do you have any challenges in mind this morning, facing you imminently?  Then, be very clear about this: “God, whom we serve, is able …”  The widow had her whole trust in God; the scribal cabal did not.  Jesus highlighted the difference.  And the psalmist says,

Do not put your trust in princes, in human beings, who cannot save.  Blessed are those whose help is the God of Jacob, whose hope is in the Lord their God.  He remains faithful forever.

Amen