What is Truth?
It’s a fair question, “What is truth?”. Isn’t truth that which coincides with the will of God? Simply saying ‘Jesus is the truth’ is a reductionist statement that needs unfolded in all its complexity. Truth is love overcoming the systems we employ to control our failures. Truth is unwelcome in a world where war is justified and nationalism reigns in people’s heart. The truth is, we mar the image of God and abuse our freedom to create reality by deifying our political and legal systems. We should think deeply about the question, “What is truth?” because the pursuit of truth is the pursuit of our living God.
'Truth' is confronted with ethical choices in this complicated world. We can affirm the goodness of God and the Lordship of Christ Jesus, but we will still face complexities that require wisdom. Through the choices we encounter, we learn truth to be a living reality (person) and not a static position. Truth is embodied in the Lord and like the Lord, we are challenged to live our lives in the face of evil, ignorance, and systemic structures that challenge the purity of lived truth.
Truth is the judgment of the cross on the world, in this world we crucify God daily to our systems as we face our struggle to survive the hostility of creation. When truth is silenced, the voice of God is crucified.
Truth is a battle-scarred believer who walks in grace, pursues mercy, and is dependent upon the love of God to survive in this cruel world. We believe 'into' Christ Jesus (who is the truth).[i] Truth is always enfleshed, therefore, as the object of faith, Jesus is the embodiment of truth.
The poetic stories, aphorisms, and wisdom sayings of Jesus need dressed in the existential crisis of daily living where the decisions we make bring God into the world (or not). To dismiss the poetic nature of Jesus’ speech leads to mindless dogmatism; we are expected to think.
We do not read poetic speech or wisdom sayings like we read a legal statement or a newspaper. Jesus’ poetic speech needs colored with all the glories of being human in this world where truth is crucified.
As the embodiment of the truth, Jesus displays living truth on the stage of history in his particular life. So, truth is revealed in the life, teaching, and resurrection of Jesus. Jesus reveals God, lives truth, and exposes the world to condemnation for its willingness to kill the innocent through systems of power that are in conflict with God.
Truth is a relational reality that dwells in God’s love, mercy, redemptive desire and reconciliatory efforts. Truth is never the attempts of the powerful at self-justification, for truth lifts up the weak. Do the weak owe the powerful the truth? Is not a life preserving lie in the face of power an act of righteousness? Perhaps, it is truth’s companion and wisdom’s friend?
It is apparent that Pilate understood truth as an uncomfortable reality, subject to authority. Through an abuse of the symbolic, Pilate washes his hands, yet he still participates in the crucifixion of the innocent man. In Pilate’s view of truth, truth is subject to order and order is maintained by the sacrifice of the innocent, the poor. For Pilate, sacrificial violence enacted upon an innocent victim was more important than truth, because it temporarily halted the chaos of the masses in the crowd, the religious, and the political. However, ‘I am’ is Lord over the chaos. Truth rises from the earth as hope’s indomitable certainty.
Truth enfleshed speaks the language of God with a living word that requires a poet’s tongue and understands the sayings of the wise. Truth is a living way and not a legal system.
[i] Interestingly John 3:16 uses the Greek preposition 'into' rather than the preposition for 'in'. Belief is the conduit through which we connect spiritually with Christ.
