TRUTH

Pilate was a cynic. He believed all truth was relative. Even more, since he was a person in authority, truth was what he said it was. If power could alter the truth, as it obviously could in Pilate’s mind, who wouldn’t be cynical? Thus, if one has power, one can easily be tempted to play loose with the truth and even get away with it. Pilate, of course, was not the only one in power who has played loose with the truth. History is replete with like examples.

The truth is that no one has a lock on the truth. Why? Because not all truth is known, that’s why. There is still much about life we do not know and do not understand. We are still learning: about this universe, about our bodies, about how we think, about life and death, about so much. Every year Nobel Awards are given out to researchers and scientists who have learned something about us and our world that we never knew before or what they proved to be incorrect. We know so much more today than did the people of Pilate’s time. So much of what Pilate honestly believed to be true has proven to be false.

Jesus said as much, not to Pilate who was not about to listen to anyone, but to his disciples in the hours leading up to his arrest and crucifixion. As they were eating their last Passover meal together, Jesus was preparing his followers for what was to come. They did not understand everything he was saying nor did they even have the foggiest notion of what was to come. That is why he told them that he would send them the Holy Spirit who would lead them into all truth.

The Holy Spirit is still guiding, leading us into all the truth. But we do not receive it all at once. Would, perhaps, that we could. Would that there be one book in which we could find all the truth in clear and sure and uncertain terms. Opps, I guess there is. It’s called the Bible. The truth is all there – somewhere in there. Unfortunately, it is not all that clear. The truth has to be mined, if you will. It has to be dug up and dug out of the words of scripture, refined, polished, and then refined and polished over and over again.

All of the truth is in there, but it is not all black and white. And sometimes what once seemed so sure and certain proved to be simply in error. Slavery was permitted; the earth as the center of the universe was an accepted scientific truth; women were second class citizens, if that; polygamy was allowed especially to those in power; prostitutes were part of the landscape: weary soldiers deserved some reward did they not? All this and more is only for starters.

The point is that no one generation has ever had a lock on the truth, not even today’s generation that arrogantly considers itself the best and the brightest – a truth that is truly relative. The Holy Spirit is still with us, still leading us into the truth. It is guaranteed that some truths we hold today will be proved false some day.

Each generation has to deal with issues that were never addressed in scripture but whose truths can be found in there somewhere –with the grace and wisdom and inspiration of the Holy Spirit. Each generation has to deal with newly discovered truths that make what was once believed to be true, even if scripturally accepted, now known to be false.

Does that mean that scripture is in error? No. It simply means that the writers only dealt with the truth as they knew it and as they understood it – as do we, as does every generation. We have struggled to discover the truth from Day One. We have struggled to accept the truth once we have found it, also from Day One. The Holy Spirit will continue to lead all of us into the truth, as the Spirit has done from Day One. Our response is not to be cynical like Pilate or arrogant like we can all be at times, but to be open, honest and, most of all, patient.