Date: September 18, 2016
1
GOD’S HONEST TRUTH
SCRIPTURE: JEREMIAH 8: 18
–
9:1; JOHN 3: 13
–
17
GRACE COVENANT PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH, ASHEVILLE, NC
September 18, 2016
The Rev. Dr. Marcia Mount Shoop, Pastor
“
What is truth?
”
Pontius Pilate asks Jesus this question. Jesus,
the way, the truth,
and
the life.
“
What is truth?
”
Pilate says with truth staring him right in the face.
Pilate is an opportunist. A political animal. A man who does not impress with his
moral courage.
At face value, it sounds like Pilate wants
ju
st
the facts about Jesus of Nazareth
—
“Are
you who they say you are, the King of the Jews?” “Do you think you are
King of the
Jews
?”
Questions he would only ask if he couldn’t see who was right in front of him.
Or just maybe
his question is a desperate
plea. Perhaps the words of a man jaded by
the way power shows you that you really have no friends, you really cannot trust
anyone’s word.
Pilate doesn’t ev
en trust himself
.
H
is question
exposes
his
interior torture
.
“
What is truth?
” he has wondered fo
r so
long now.
“
How will I ever know truth again when I’
ve seen the things I have seen,
when I have done the things I have done?”
“
And here this man is before me
—
innocent
of any crime I can see
—
and his own
people are betraying him, his own people want
him dead.
” “And I will let them have
their cooked up truth. I will let him die. I will let the lies have their way.”
What is truth in such brokenness, in such brutality, in such ambivalence?
Pil
ate’s question may be more
despair than devil may care.
What is truth?
The Gospel of John is all about truth
—
and Jesus is it!
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This gospel is the most removed
of the four gospels
from the generation of those
who knew Jesus. And this gospel is the most unambiguous
of all four gospels about
who Jesus was.
This gospel, more than Matthew, Mark, or Luke, is the one to make
unequivocal claims about Jesus’ divinity
—
and Jesus’ self knowledge about his
divinity.
This clarity in John is a response in part to what was happening in the gospel
writer’s time
—
more th
an about what was happening in Jesus’ time. There was a
movement afoot that espoused the notion that Jes
us’ suffering was an illusion
.
John wants readers to see
the reality of Jesus’ suffering,
a suffering God, the
suffering God is the one who has the po
wer to truly heal us, to redeem our suffering.
Our passage today is one of the most well kno
wn passages in scripture and it is one
of the most weaponized passages in scripture. John 3:16:
the formula for many for
why you MUST believe in Jesus,
for Chri
stian superiorit
y over
other faiths
.
This is the verse that
can prop
up Christian arrogance
—
the litmus test
for who is
going to heaven or hell.
Is Jesus Christ your Lord and Savior?
Do you believe in him? This is your password
to salvation.
John’s gospel is the gospel of 14:6
“I am the way, the truth, and the life, no one comes to the father except through me.”
These are
powerful, unequivocal statement
s
. But what does it say about
generations of Christians since
Jesus walked on earth tha
t these statements have
been used to justify a narrowing of truth, a narrowing of the gate to eternity?
Truth be told, John’s gospel was more about expanding, opening, reaching into
communities and into hearts that had yet to really know the power of being up close
to Jesus. This gospel writer confronts us all with Jesus’ power to change lives, to
change the
world.
These
unequivocal statement
s of truth
can feel really comforting, especially to those
who are marginalized, to those who are ridiculed
for their beliefs
.
And to those
being told their faith identity has no validity.
The community that received
John’s gospel was trying to find some
spiritual
traction. The generation
of Jesus followers
after Jesus’ death did not have a lot of
social capital in their culture.
