The Ethiopian Church, an ancient national church, regards Pontius Pilate as a saint. Unlike the West, which condemns Pilate for yielding to the mob, the Ethiopians give him credit for acquitting Jesus and arguing with the Jewish authorities about his alleged treasonous contentions.
Anyone who has been in authority can relate to Pilate’s dilemma. He is in charge, but he is a small part of a big empire. Sent to a backwater province, he understands little of the culture or religion around him. Roman governors did not generally serve terms of more than several years. One suspects he was hoping to move on to a better position as soon as possible, or perhaps to retire after an uneventful term in Palestine. There is no sense from the narrative that he is an evil man, rather one who did not grasp the magnitude of what clearly seemed to him as an obscure dispute between the Jewish council and the leader of a small, harmless religious faction.
Pilate interrogates Jesus, and is satisfied by Jesus’ explanation that he is a king, but his kingdom “is not of this world.” But the mob began to shout that anyone proclaiming himself as a king was disloyal to Caesar, while the chief priests opposing Jesus were self-righteously assuring Pilate, in contrast, that they had no king but Caesar. Pilate realized the potential for the dispute to escalate and get Pilate himself in trouble for not acting to stop a rebellion against Caesar himself.
In the course of the trial, Pilate seems aware of the duplicity of the chief priests. When Jesus affirms that his destiny was to be sent into the world “to testify to the truth,” Pilate exclaims, seemingly from weary experience on the judgement seat, “what is truth?” (see John 18:36-38). The false accusations of the chief priests appear transparent to Pilate in their manipulated mendacity. At the same time, he understands the political realities in a world where truth usually comes in second to perception.
Yet the question is an excellent one, even if Pilate despairs of ever living in a world where truth is self-evident. He is not alone in his skepticism. There is a saying in the Church that “once a man becomes a bishop, he never again hears the truth.” Another saying, relevant to the current world situation, is “truth is the first casualty of war.”
Historiography, the writing of history, struggles to find the objective truth somewhere in the jumble of information, some true, some false, some a matter of perception. Even centuries later, with the advantage of hindsight, it can be difficult or impossible to really discern what happened and why. As well, even centuries later, the “spin” efforts continue. No patriot, for example, wants to hear that his or her nation’s history is a long blight of evil, violence, oppression and corruption. Objective history of a nation, movement or institution can be skillfully replaced with a myth the way makeup and surgery can transform an aging face to make it look young again. One of my history professors noted that “history as it is often taught is a lie agreed upon.”
It is incredibly ironic that when Pilate uttered his comment, the truth of the matter was not lost in the fog of disinformation. Truth was standing in front of him (“I am the way, the truth and the life,” Jesus says, in John 14:6). He not only speaks truth, he IS truth. There is no inaccuracy, no falsehood, no half-truths, no spin in him. John notes that God IS love. He doesn’t simply show love, dispense love and act in love; his very definition is that love is of his essence. In the same way, God is truth, devoid of falsehood, unreality, or incomplete information. The Incarnate Christ shares these definitions with the other members of the Trinity.
Sadly, sinful humans can fail to perceive truth even when it is standing before them, perhaps even choosing to avoid the confrontation. Indeed, the Irish-American comedian Oscar Wilde commented, “If you are going to tell people the truth, you have to make them laugh, or they will kill you.” Many times, only the court jester could speak truth to power, because it was sweetened by a comic coating.
Once again, the events of Holy Week, are commemorated among us. As we are mandated by Jesus to celebrate “in remembrance” of him, we recall the ultimate conclusion of Holy Week in his crucifixion and resurrection. The narrative does not have much in it that is comic, so it confronts us directly, as does the presence of the Messiah himself, then as now, among us at the Paschal feast.
“What is truth?” Jesus at his trial states, as noted above, “for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone on the side of truth listens to me” (John 18:37) Pilate comes so close. He does not refute Jesus and even feebly defends him to the mob. But ultimately, truth to Pilate is a subjective and non-essential abstraction whereas the fear of the mob rioting is imminent and existential.
Our world is no different. Frank Griswold, the former primate of ECUSA, told us of “pluriform truths,” the fascinating theory that one can hold alternate and opposing truths simultaneously, much like the legendary man who mounted his horse and rode off in all directions. Even now, we are told by leaders among us that we can have “dual integrities,” that integrity no longer need be formed from the source of all truth, but can be customized to fit more conveniently into our modern world. Finally, we are confronted by something with comic possibilities, but alas it is no longer truth.
The world, of course, avoids the confrontation. When the reality of history stands before them in Resurrected glory, they remove the discussion from that of history and relegate it to “the religious sphere,” the realm of myth, beliefs that are considered opinions, not truth. “Real” history thunders past, full of stories considered true fact, the campaigns of Alexander the Great, the wars of the Romans, Hannibal crossing the Alps. We have no particular reason to doubt the authenticity of these accounts.
But alongside them is the historical event, not only true but at the very center of world history. The Resurrection is meaningless, even tragic, as religious myth, or some kind of “spiritual” happening without awakening Jesus’ body to life. “If Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile, you are still in your sins. Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ are lost. If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are to be pitied more than all men” (St. Paul in1 Corinthians 15:17-19).
The Resurrection of Christ was on a specific day in the First Century, at the conclusion of Passover that year, in a particular place, Jerusalem, out of a particular tomb. It happened among real people, who lived at that time, with over 500 eyewitnesses to the appearance of the risen Christ.
“Christ is risen” is not a religious belief. It is an historical fact, well attested.
You can join the world with the question “what is truth?” But you have just been told the answer (again). The statement “Christ is risen” is answered with “Indeed he is risen.” “Indeed” is a translation from the original Greek, “alethos,” meaning “truth,” “truly.”
In truth. Christ is risen.