"What is truth?"
It’s a timeless question, and I’m sure Pilate wasn’t the first one to pose it. Indeed, it seems like it’s more relevant today than it was two millennia ago. What is truth?
In this modern world connected by vast technological networks conveying unlimited knowledge and a myriad of perspectives in conflict with one another, what is true and what is false? There is such a thing as absolute truth and absolute falsehood, isn't there? For those of us who live in the United States, we live in an increasingly polarized political climate and can no longer agree on the facts. We used to be able to do that (and you'd think we'd have retained that capacity). Now, people on either side of the political spectrum live in opposing, contrasting realities.
We disagree on who was responsible for the storming of the Capitol on January 6 and whether allegations of widespread election fraud are true. Some of us think COVID-19 was a “plandemic” created by Jews or Chinese, while the rest of us believe that it’s an actual health crisis that requires following the CDC’s guidelines to the letter. And these are simple things that are either objectively wrong or objectively false, right?
We are so stuck in our own interpretation of the world that we forget there are other people who don’t live in our political reality. We forget that they are human beings made in the image of God (just like us) and denigrate them into diabolical villains out to get us. It doesn’t have to be this way, does it?
I have to admit that I'm not really sure what to believe anymore, as far as political events are concerned. It’s hard to know who to trust. It’s hard to know what’s true.
I don’t know how you’re feeling right now about politics and life in general. 2020 has been an extremely unstable year for all of us, what with ruined traveling plans, changes with school and work, masks and social distancing, as well as all the other social modifications we've had to adjust to due to the virus. On top of that, the year added (as if we needed it) a tumultuous and contested election. For me, 2020 has been hard also because my church endured a split that it didn't need to go through.
Everything just seems so transient. So much of what we used to be able to rely on and trust to be true (all of which we took for granted) has now been taken away. What can we trust?
That’s why I find the way Jesus answered Pilate’s question so comforting. He never answered Pilate directly, but He did address his question for us when He said, “I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.”
I think at least one of the things Jesus meant when He called Himself the Truth is that He never changes, because Truth represents the immutable aggregate fact of reality. He will always be there for us. Even when things aren’t going as planned and the world seems turned upside down, He is still in control and He loves us very much. He is still making things work together for the good of those who love Him.
So maybe, while everything else is uncertain, when nothing else seems right and everything seems wrong, He is still holding my hand, and yours as well.
And He can always be trusted, because He is the Truth.