It was our first Thanksgiving on our own; always before we had traveled to our parents, but now, with a baby in the house and with other responsibilities, we had elected to do it our own, complete with a full-fledged roasted turkey. Margaret had done a magnificent job. Brother turkey presented his sixteen pounds of drumsticks and breasts, done to a golden perfection, smelling like heaven itself, to our dining table. Only one thing remained to be done before we could enjoy. We needed to carve up that fowl.
Now Margaret said, “In my home, carving the turkey was always my dad’s job. So here is a knife and here are some instructions. Go to it. Carve that big brown bird.”
Well, I looked at the knife and I looked at the bird. I looked at the instructions, which were lavishly illustrated with gorgeous pictures of a smiling father, his white shirt and tie perfectly arrayed, standing triumphantly over a platter of precisely sliced white meat, his elegantly coifed wife and his 2.3 well-behaved children standing eagerly by, waiting for their plates to be filled. It looked so easy.
But again I looked at the knife and I looked at the bird. How was I going to get from the reality on the table to the fantasy in the picture? Instructions, that’s how! Detailed how-to-do-it instructions. There was a drawing, complete with dotted lines, showing where and how to cut! I was enchanted. I read it all. I assimilated every hint, took notice of every nuance. Of course our turkey was getting cold while I did that, but I thought it was important to study and know all that needed to be known. Margaret said she was ready to serve the meal; I said I didn’t know enough yet. She said the vegetables were already on the table; I said I needed to read it one more time. She said the rolls were at mouth-watering perfection; I said that the trouble was our turkey didn’t have any dotted lines on it. She said I needed to hurry; I said I’m studying!
Well, in a flash she took that knife from my faltering hand, she lifted it, and plunged it in – the other turkey, not me – and carved out something we could eat!
You can keep on asking questions. You can keep on searching for truth. You can stay on the tentative side. You can continue to shop around. You can live out on the edge. But you will never, never get the full experience of life and truth until you just plunge in. You will never know all the truth until you commit to the truth you have. You will never get beyond skepticism to truth until you commit to the truth that is right in front of you.
When they brought Jesus to trial before Pontius Pilate, two men faced each other to make a decision. One of the two was confident, assured, serene, certain. The other was hesitant, dubious, exasperated, struggling to find a way out. I think you know which was which. It all turned on the Pilate’s question, “What is truth?” Born in skepticism, nourished in doubt, fostered by political intrigue, but uttered out of a mind that had entertained many claims to truth, Pilate’s question really makes us sit up and take notice. “What is truth?” If you know what it is, you are set for life. If you don’t know what it is, you can wander for a very long time. You can keep on searching for truth. You can stay on the tentative side. You can continue to shop around. But I say you will never get the full experience of truth and life until you just plunge in. You will never know the truth until you commit to Him who is Truth.
“What is truth?” Isn’t Pilate’s question interesting? How do you read it? It could mean any one of a number of things. I want this morning to suggest several different ways we can read Pilate’s question. There are at least four interpretations you can put on Pilate’s nervous query. But, remember, in every case, I want you to see that the only way it can finally be answered is to plunge in. Dotted lines or no dotted lines, plunge in. For you will only know truth fully as you commit to the truth you have, the truth that is right in front of you.
I
“What is truth?” One way to read the question is as the cynical snarl of a determined skeptic. The cynical, hard-boiled snarl of a determined skeptic. That’s what most people have heard in Pilate. The usual interpretation is that here is a man for whom truth was a cheap commodity. A person for whom there was no truth except what power would bring you. “What is truth?” One answer is that there is no truth other than what the powerful say it is. You know the old saying, “He who pays the piper calls the tune.” For some people, truth is nothing more than whatever the folks you are trying to please say it is.
Now that’s something we know about. That’s the Washington way. You’re a politician, and so you speak the party line. You’re an attorney, and so you say what the client wants said. You’re an ordinary guy just trying to get along in the neighborhood, and so you say what makes your neighbor feel good. A whole lot of us are like Pilate. Truth is whatever the folks you are trying to please want it to be.
Pilate sold his soul to political power. Pilate cared about keeping his job and burnishing his position, and so all that mattered was pleasing the powers that be. They really got to him when they said, “If you don’t condemn Jesus, you are no friend of Caesar.” Some folks read truth like that. Some have no convictions of their own; they just live on the convictions of convenience. What is truth? If you are a determined skeptic, flush with cynicism, truth is what pleases somebody else.
Have you heard about the pastor who met with a pulpit committee? He really wanted to go to that church. No, he didn’t just want to go to that church; he needed to go to that church. And so he tried his best to answer their questions in the way he thought they wanted them answered. He was doing pretty well, he thought, until somebody threw him a theological curve ball. “Pastor,” they said, “about your eschatology. Are you a premillennialist, a postmillennialist, or an amillennialist?” Well, the poor soul could hardly remember what these words meant, much less develop a position on the question. So he came up with an all-purpose answer: “I’ll tell you what. I can preach it any way you like!”
For some of us, truth doesn’t really exist. We’ve been so burned with powerful people around us who want to tell us what to think and what to feel, we can’t think, we can’t feel anymore. We’re so tired of truth being bought and paid for. Somewhere along the way we have to learn who we are. If we’re going to ask Pilate’s question, I suggest we start with knowing our own hearts. I suggest we find out who we are and run with that. If we are children of God, then we have to plunge into our own instincts. We have to trust ourselves; we have to believe that the Spirit of God speaks to us and does not deceive us. What is truth? It is not to be found in what is popular. It is to be found in the inner chambers of our own hearts, where the Spirit whispers to us. We have to learn to trust that, to trust ourselves. To plunge in.
Because we will never know truth fully until we commit to the truth we have. Just plunge in.
II
There’s another way to read Pilate’s question. There’s a second shading you can put on Pilate’s inquiry, “What is truth?” It might be the playful words of an intellectual sparring partner. The playful words of an intellectual sparring partner. Pilate’s question might be playing games with words. Some folks just love to play with ideas and not get down to cases. Some folks just love to play word games and spar with others to see if they can win the war of words. “What is truth?” might be a kind of intellectual tease on Pilate’s part. Professor Pontius Pilate, pontificating platitudes in order to pacify his burning mind.
You see, some of us philosophize in order to keep truth from hitting us right between the eyes. Some of us theorize so that they will not have to commit to anything. If you can keep your ideas juggling around in the air for a long time, then whatever is confronting you, whatever is claiming you, might just go away. Hey, if I get into an intellectual sparring match with Jesus about the nature of truth, I won’t have to confront His claim that He is Lord! We can just keep it out here in the nebulous realm of ideas. “What is truth?” might be Pilate’s way of playing with Jesus so that he won’t have to get down to a decision about Jesus.
But I tell you, we will never get all the truth until we act on the truth we already have.
There is a wonderful story by Stephen Leacock called The Retroactive Existence of Mr. Juggins. In this story Mr. Juggins has fallen in love with a very spiritual young lady. She is so good, so spiritual, so pious, that Mr. Juggins knows he is not good enough for her. And so Mr. Juggins decides that he needs to become a Bible student in order to qualify for his fair lady’s attentions. He enrolls in Bible class; after a few weeks he has learned the books of the Bible, Old and New Testaments. After a few more weeks he has memorized their dates and their authors. Then he learns the Ten Commandments, the Beatitudes, and First Corinthians 13 forwards and backwards, the Love Chapter, with which he can impress the object of his affections. But the trouble is that no matter how much Mr. Juggins learns; no matter how many Biblical facts he accumulates; still he feels inadequate. He feels as though he doesn’t qualify. He doesn’t have enough yet. And so, as the story has it, after Mr. Juggins finally has finished the arduous task of memorizing the Kings of Israel and Judah, in chronological order, he picks up the newspaper and reads, to his dismay, that his ladylove has up and married some lout who doesn’t know the difference between Moses and Methuselah!
Truth is not just a matter of knowledge. Truth is not merely a question of information. Truth is plunging in. Truth is commitment to a person. Truth is acting on what you know. And when you see Christ, in all His love and all His glory, how much more do you need to know? How many questions must you have answered? How much information can you compile? And if you want more, is that just a smokescreen that you are using to keep Him at arm’s length?
You will never get all the truth you want without committing to the truth you have, the truth that is right in front of your eyes.
III
Well, I don’t know. Maybe we have not hit it yet. Maybe we have not yet figured out what Pilate was asking. “What is truth?” Maybe it is not the cynicism of somebody who’s heard it all and thinks that truth is determined by who pays the bills. “What is truth?” Maybe it is more than the word game of a perpetual child who has never had to grow up. “What is truth?” Maybe it’s something far more serious. Maybe the question is something that should draw out our sympathy.
Could it be that Pilate’s question is the plaintive cry of a battered soul! Maybe Pilate’s question is the sign of a wounded spirit which has been through too many battles, somebody’s who’s done the trial-and-error thing and mostly wound up with error? Maybe Pilate’s question is the wistful, longing cry of a wounded spirit which got right up on the edge of truth a few times, only to be beaten back. “What is truth?”
Maybe Pilate is just tired. Just tired of struggling and fighting and trying to get it right. Maybe Pilate is like somebody who has been through depression and heartache and disappointment and frustration, and after a while it all seems confusing. It seems to lead nowhere. Maybe Pilate is not cynical at all, but he’s just worn out. Not playing head games, but sick at heart. Maybe Pilate just wants to come home, but he no longer is sure that home is out there. He’s a long, long way from where anybody cares. He’s alone. Desperately alone. “What is truth?” It might mean, “Who will be honest with me? Who will care about me? Who will take the time just to love me for my sake?”
Because, you see, truth always has a personal face. Truth is often the same thing as trust. When we ask about truth, maybe we are not looking for information. Maybe we are not looking for facts and figures. Heaven knows, in the information age, there are plenty of facts around. No, if this is the plaintive cry of a wounded soul, we really want to know what truth is for us. We really want to know what will make sense of our lives. We really want to know who we can trust. Truth always has a human face.
Can you imagine how lonely Pilate must have been? Did you ever consider that? How desperately lonely! Laden with responsibility, far from home, among a people who despise everything you represent. That’s tough duty. Our text tells us that even when the Jewish leaders came to ask for something, they stayed outside the pagan Pilate’s palace, because, they said, it would defile them, dirty them. So come out here, Roman, outside your house, because we won’t set foot in there. What a lonely, unhappy place to be!
And so truth has a human face, it has a personal face. I imagine that for just a fleeting moment the Roman governor looked into the eyes of the Galilean peasant and felt compassion there, saw love there. Too bad, Pilate, that you quashed your instincts! Too bad, Governor, that you let duty take over your heart! For if you had melted before this nobody standing in front of you, He would have loved you, and loved you to the end, you would have known Truth. You would have found the truth that works for you. You would have found power and meaning in your life. Too bad, Pilate, that you did not just throw caution to the winds and plunge in. Too bad.
Because, if you are a wounded soul, more than ever, you will never know truth, not the truth that works for you, until you trust the truth that is right in front of you, the truth with a human face. If you are a wounded soul, you will never deal with your desperate loneliness until you trust Him. Only trust Him.
IV
Or again, maybe, we still don’t have it right. Maybe, just maybe, the Roman governor is not far from the Kingdom. Is it possible, just barely possible, that his question is the hopeful sound of a hungry heart? Is this, at last, the hopeful sound of a hungry heart? Is it possible, just possible, that after a long dark night of the soul, in which, like the Psalmist, Pilate has moaned, “As a hart pants after the waterbrooks, so pants my soul after you, O God”, that now, at last, he is on the very verge of finding what his heart has sought so long? Maybe Pilate’s asking “What is truth?” is the final reaching out for something that is just right there. Just at the fingertips. Just a little more. Just a touch. Can I grasp it?
Is it possible? That like the aged Simeon in the Temple, holding the infant Jesus, Pilate senses that he is at the end of a spiritual search? That the promise of the ages is right in front of him? Is it possible that for one brief instant this Roman, a long way from his roots, in trouble with everybody from the Emperor to the high priests to the people themselves .. is it possible that for one brief shining instant this politician, this hack, this hungry soul is going to be fed? He is about to quench the thirst that has drained his very soul? For every one of us has inside a God-shaped void, you know. Not one of us will be satisfied apart from God. Not even Pontius Pilate in all his loneliness.
But at the last moment Pilate stepped back from Truth. Pilate let truth slip from his grip. Pilate signed truth’s death warrant. Pilate signed his own death warrant. He was so close; and the offer was right there. “For this I came into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice."
Truth stood there and silently offered love and compassion, hope and possibility. Truth was no wispy thing, no cloudy ideal, no abstraction. Truth was flesh and blood. Truth was personal. Its name was Jesus Christ. "I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you know me, you will know my Father also. From now on you do know him and have seen him."
It was not Jesus who was on trial. It was the governor who was on trial. It was Pilate in the dock. Pilate who would have to answer the question, “What is truth?” For Truth stood before him, and stands before us, just waiting. Just waiting and offering. Just waiting and offering.
So if you see Him, why not know Him. And if you know Him, why not love Him? And if you love Him, why not follow Him? And if you follow Him, why not serve Him? If you know truth, this truth will set you free. If you know truth, this truth will keep you and hold you to the end. If you know the Son, you will be free indeed. Just commit. Just plunge in. For you will never know truth from the outside. The only way to know truth is to trust the truth you have, right in front of you: Jesus Christ.
