The Solemnity of Our Lord Jesus Christ, King of the Universe

Reflecting on John 18: 33b-37

Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice. This is Jesus’ defense before Pilate, the man who will decide between his life, or death. And what does Pilate say in response? Truth. What is truth?

We don’t hear that chilling and cynical question because it’s the verse just outside the boundaries of today’s gospel. We’ll have to wait ‘til Good Friday to hear it, but it should give us pause when we do. In fact, that sentence is the oldest extant piece of the New Testament ever discovered. Can you imagine being a biblical archaeologist digging the dry Egyptian dirt, and finding THAT sentence, and, after analysis, learning that you had unearthed the oldest piece of the New Testament ever found?

It might be the oldest question in the hearts of the earliest Christians, or our hearts, too. Can Jesus be trusted? So many religious (and secular) ideas are competing for our hearts. Can we trust this crucified Messiah? The first-century followers of Jesus, especially his disciples who, out of terror of the Romans, abandoned Jesus to face Pilate alone, had to have asked this question themselves.

Yes, they’d been with him when he healed the man born blind, the hemorrhaging woman, the woman bent double, and so many more. They even watched him raise Jairus’ little twelve-year-old daughter from what appeared to be death. And now he was standing before Pilate, testifying to the Truth, and everyone on the side of Truth would listen to him until the end of the world. And yes, the martyrs, too.

We live in a day when the sophisticated agnostics among us believe that all truth is relative. Pilate would have been very comfortable with them.

What is your Truth?

Kathy McGovern ©2024

Ordinary Time - Cycle B