What is Truth? (John 18:38)

 What is Truth? (John 18:38)

We were talking on the sidewalk in front of Starbucks, as we usually do most days of the week, about one thing or another. Israel and the Palestinians and Hamas came up, and I recounted what I remembered from a study that I had done in the past - that the word “Hamas” is actually the Hebrew word for hate. Afterward, I decided to check that, and guess what, I was wrong. I don’t know how that thought got into my head, but I shared wrong information as fact. Did I lie? Well, it was a  mistake. But did I lie? Yes.

We lie when we tell an un-truth. When we quote a liar, we are in fact lying. We should watch the sources from which we quote. In my case, it was my own memory. Evidently, not to be trusted. We are liars when we quote even people we trust, who are quoting someone who has lied or, perhaps, has mis-remembered. But when we speak an un-truth, no matter how respected a source, we are lying. 

When Pilate asked this question at  Jesus’ trial, “What is truth?”, it almost seems rhetorical. The Jewish leaders were speaking facts that he knew not to be true. He was a politician in the Roman Empire, having a Play-Doh view of truth that can be shaped into most anything imaginable. But there was something different about Jesus’ view of truth. He spoke the truth. And, He lived the truth.

You have reason not to trust me when it comes to the Hebrew background of words that we use today, but “truth” in the Old Testament not only speaks of factual accuracy, as in “true” or “false.” It goes beyond that and speaks of fidelity between the statement and the person. Truth might be defined as an accurate description of the reality of things, but then it goes on to describe a person’s right living in the midst of that right reality. So when Jesus stated that God alone was worthy to be worshipped,  He was not caught worshipping a boat or some earthly experience or money. He stated the truth, and He lived the truth. And if He had failed to live the truth, He would have been a liar.

And that reaches to us as well. When we state that Christians are to love their neighbors, and we don’t, then the truth that we state is confounded by our conduct, and, we are found to be liars, not so  much by our words, but by our conduct.

Truth is difficult for us. It was not difficult for Jesus, because not only did He he speak truth, but He also lived truth, and, as the verse says Him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life.”