What is Truth
What is Truth The Rev. Bingham Powell Pontius Pilate was the Roman Procurator of Palestine during the reign of Tiberius. Though he commanded a Roman legion of 4500 soldiers, his was not a plush assignment. Saddled with governing one of the frontier provinces of the Roman Empire he spent most of his time in Caesarea Maritime where the weather was reasonably decent and where he was able to have minimal contact with the stubbornly unruly inhabitants of the region under his control. Only on high holy days did Pilate trouble himself to go into Jerusalem so as to be present should any sort of problem arise. Still, he was the face of the Roman Empire in that part of the world, and as such, he literally had the power of life or death over the people under his control. Yet, for all the trappings that went with his position, it is quite possible that Pontius Pilate would have lived and died utterly forgotten by history had it not been for one fateful day when he crossed paths with a Galilean Jew named Jesus of Nazareth. Of the two men who came face to face that day, Pilate gave the appearance of being the more powerful, and indeed, given his position, he did wield great power. However, there’s a difference between wielding power and being powerful. Pilate was a man used to being treated as if he were powerful, so therefore in his own mind, he was. He was used to the people who came before him groveling, begging for mercy. Condemning people to death or setting them free didn’t require any inner or physical strength on his part. If anyone caused trouble, attempted to escape or to fight back, he had soldiers at hand to enforce whatever he decreed. But then this Galilean Jew showed up who didn’t behave at all like the others had. He didn’t beg for mercy, he didn’t try to flee. Indeed, quite the opposite, he seemed unnaturally calm. It had to have been confusing if not downright unnerving for Pilate to have this seemingly powerless peasant stand before him appearing to be not at all afraid of what Pilate might do to him. He didn’t even answer directly when Pilate asked if he was a king, but instead informed Pilate that he came into the world to testify to the truth, and then added for good measure, everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice. Pilate reacted to that rather perplexing response by asking Jesus, What is truth? Now we don’t know what Pilate’s tone was at that point. Possibly quite frustrated by this upstart peasant passively challenging his power, Pilate may well have been responding rather sarcastically when he asked, What is truth? Or, for just an instant, maybe the part of Pilate that deep down suspected that Jesus was innocent, and therefore knew he really should let this nondescript peasant go, came close enough to the surface to wonder, almost fearfully, what is the truth and how many people know it? Do others suspect as I do, that this man is innocent? Will I be judged forever by how I handle this? Pilate could have let Jesus go, and then used his soldiers as needed to quell any sort of protest that action might have produced. Instead, he took the easy way out. In the name of doing his job of keeping the peace, he went along with what the Jewish authorities wanted and condemned Jesus to death. It’s possible that Pilate knew what was real, what the truth was in that situation, but he chose to pretend that he didn’t. What is truth? I’m not sure there’s a more relevant question in the world today. The dictionary, yes, I do still own one, says that truth is the quality of being in accordance with experience, facts, or reality. There was a time when scientists determined what was real, what was true in a given situation with regard to the natural world based on what they could prove with experiments that they evaluated with their senses. With time and the development of ever more sophisticated equipment scientists have learned to interpret all manner of indirect evidence for explaining our world and