WHAT IS TRUTH?

WHAT IS TRUTH?

The crowd of the accusers and of the rough populace finally came out into the open place which was before Herod's palace, but they stopped outside, because if they went into a house where there was leaven and bread baked with leaven, they would be contaminated all day long and could not eat the Passover. Innocent blood does not pollute, but leaven does.

Pilate, warned of their coming, went out on the door-sill and asked abruptly: "What accusation bring ye against this man?" (John 18:29)

Those who were before him were his enemies. It appeared that this man was their enemy and Pilate instinctively took his part. Not that he had any pity for him—was he not a Jew like the others, and poor into the bargain? But if he were by any chance innocent, Pilate had no mind to lend himself to a whim of those detestable pests.

Caiaphas answered at once as if offended: "If he were not a malefactor, we would not have delivered him up unto you." (Vs. 30)

Then Pilate who wished to lose no time with ecclesiastical squabbles, and did not think that there was any question of a capital crime, answered dryly: "Take ye him, and judge him according to your law." (Vs. 31a)

Already in these words appears his wish to save the man without being forced to take sides openly. But the concession of the Procurator, which in any other case would have de­lighted Caiaphas and his party, this time did not suit them, because the Sanhedrin could inflict only light sentences and now they desired the most extreme sentence of all and could not dispense with the Roman arm. They answered: "It is not lawful for us to put any man to death." (Vs. 31b)

Pilate suddenly understood what sentence they wished passed on the wretched man who stood before him, and he wished to find out what crime He had committed. What might seem worthy of a death sentence to those bigoted rabbis might seem a venial fault in the eyes of a Roman.

The foxes of the Temple had thought of this difficulty be­fore taking action. They knew very well that Pilate would not be satisfied if they told him that this man attacked the religion of their fathers and announced the Kingdom of God. They were prepared therefore to lie. For a man about to com­mit a base action, one more accessory and subordinate infamy seems of little consequence. Pilate could be conquered only with his own weapons, by appealing to his loyalty to Rome and to the Emperor and to the basis of his office-holding. It was already agreed that they would give a political color to the accusation. If they told him that Jesus was a false Mes­siah, Pilate would smile. But if they said that He was a seditious inciter of revolt, that He was trying to rouse the common people against Rome, Pilate could not do less than put Him to death.

"We found this fellow perverting the nation, and forbidding to give tribute to Caesar, saying that he himself is Christ, a King. . . . He stirreth up all the people, teaching throughout all Jewry, and beginning from Galilee to this place." (Luke 23:2, 5)

Every word was a lie. Jesus had commanded men to render unto Caesar that which was Caesars. He paid no attention whatever to the Romans. He said that He was Christ but not in the coarse, political meaning of a King of the Jews: and He did not stir up the people but wished to make of an unhappy and degraded people a blessed kingdom of saints. However grave these accusations might have seemed to Pilate if they had been true, they only increased his suspicions of the priests. Was it probable that those treacherous vipers who de­tested him and Rome, and who had tried to overturn him so many times and whose one dream was to sweep away the governing pagans and foreigners, should suddenly be kindled with so much zeal to denounce a rebel of their own nation?

Pilate was not convinced and he wished to find out for him­self, by questioning the accused man in private. He went back into the palace and commanded that Jesus be brought to him. Disregarding the less important accusations, he went at once to the essential: "Art thou the King of the Jews?" (Luke 23:3)

But Jesus did not answer. How could He ever make this Roman understand! This Roman who knew nothing of God's promises, misinformed by His assassins, a Pyrrhic atheist, whose only religion was the artificial and diabolical cult of a living man—and of what a man—Tiberius—how could He ever explain to this freedman, a pupil of the lawyers and rhe­toricians of Rome in the most decadent of all the degenerate foulness of that time; how could He explain that He was the King of a Kingdom not yet founded, of a spiritual Kingdom which would abolish all human kingdoms? (Try doing the same to the ones trained and taught in the universities of today.)

Jesus read the depths of Pilate's soul and made no answer, as He had kept silent at first before Annas and before Caiaphas. The Procurator could not understand this silence on the part of a man over whom hung the threat of death. "Hearest thou not how many things they witness against thee?" (Matt. 27:13)

But Jesus answered him never a word. Pilate, who at all costs wished to triumph over those who hated him as much as they hated this man, insisted, hoping to extract a denial which would permit him to set Him at liberty: "Art thou the King of the Jews?" (Luke 23:3)

If Jesus denied this He would betray Himself. He had said to His disciples and to the Jews that He was Christ. He had no wish to lie and save Himself. The better to sound the Roman's mind He answered Him, as was his style, with an­other question: "Sayest thou this thing of thyself, or did others tell it thee of me?" (John 18:34)

Pilate answered, as if offended, "Am I a Jew? Thine own nation and the chief priests have delivered thee unto me. Art thou the King of the Jews?" (Vs. 33, 35)

With the exception of this contemptuous beginning, this an­swer of Pilate was conciliatory. "For whom do you take me? Do you not know that I am a Roman, that I do not believe what your enemies believe? Your accusers are priests, not I; but they are obliged to give you into my hands: your safety rests with me: tell me that what they say is not true and you shall be free."

Jesus had no wish to escape death, but still He determined to try to shed more light on this pagan. Everything is possible to the Father: was it not possible that Pilate might be the last convert of the dying man?

"My kingdom is not of this world: if my kingdom were of this world, then would my servants fight, that I should not be delivered to the Jews: but now is my kingdom not from hence." (John 18:36)

The servant of Tiberius did not understand. The difference between "of this world" and "my kingdom is not from hence" was obscure to him. Pilate thought that what is the phrase "not of this world" meant the gods above if there were really any, gods favorable or malignant to men, and below in Hades the shadows of the dead if really there was anything remaining of us when the body had been consumed by fire or worms: the only reality for such a man as Pilate was "this world," the great world with all its kingdoms. And once more he asked: "Art thou a king then?" (Vs. 37)

There was no longer any reason to deny. He would say to this blinded man what He had proclaimed to the others: "Thou sayest that I am a king. To this end was I born, and for this cause came I into the world, that I should bear witness unto the truth. Every one that is of the truth heareth my voice." (John 18:37)

Then Pilate, annoyed by what seemed to him truculent mystification, answered with the celebrated question: "What is truth?" (Vs. 38) (We face the same problem today with a people so poisoned they wouldn’t recognize Truth even if He stood right before them.)

And without waiting for an answer, he rose to go out. The skeptical Roman had many times been present at the endless disputes of philosophers, and because he had heard so many contradictory metaphysical contentions and so many sophisti­cal quibbling, had become convinced that truth did not exist, or if it did exist, could never be known by men. He did not dream for a moment that this obscure Jew who stood before him as a malefactor could tell him the truth and was Truth Himself for Truth is a Person and He told them so. (John 14:6) It was Pilate's destiny on that one day of his life to contemplate the face of truth, supreme truth made man, and he could not see it. Truth is a Person and His name is Jesus Christ. Liv­ing truth, the truth which could have made him a new man, was before him clothed with human flesh and rough garments, with buffeted face, and hands tied. But in his arrogance he did not guess what prodigious good fortune was his, a good fortune which millions of men have envied him after his death. If anyone had told him that because of this one encounter, because to him was given the overwhelming honor of having spoken to Jesus and having sent Him to the cross, his name would be known, although in shame and blight, through all the centuries and by all the human race, such a prophecy would have seemed to him like the frenzied ravings of a madman. Pilate was blind with an appalling and incura­ble blindness, a hardened heart, but Christ on that very day was to pardon even him because the blind, even less than others, know what they do.