Secure in his palace and fortress, Pilate looked at the prisoner in front of him. The ever-growing mob that had simmered in the early morning dark would soon start boiling as its leaders awaited — actually demanded — this execution.
The leaders also refused to enter — claiming it would defile them — when they first arrived, so Pilate went to them, but when he asked them to identify the charges against their prisoner, the Jewish officials merely responded, “If he were not a malefactor, we would not have delivered him up unto thee” (John 18:29-32).
“Take ye him, and judge him according to your law,” Pilate responded (John 18:31).
That, apparently, wasn’t the answer they wanted.
“We found this fellow perverting the nation, and forbidding to give tribute to Caesar, saying that he himself is Christ a King,” they said, suddenly remembering the reasons why the man should die (Luke 23:2).
A king?
Pilate returned to the praetorium to ponder — and speak to this prisoner without his accusers.
“Art thou the King of the Jews?”
A simple question that only required a simple answer: Yes or no.
No problem.
“Sayest thou this thing of thyself, or did others tell it thee of me?”
Never mind.
“Am I a Jew? Thine own nation and chief priests have delivered thee unto me: what hast thou done?”
“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 18:33-36).
Finally, he admits it: He rules a kingdom, but what kind of kingdom is not of this world?
“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).
And then Pilate asked …
But how did he ask? The Bible inerrantly records all its details, but it doesn’t record all details. For instance …
“What is truth?” he asked with an absent-minded tone, pretending to listen as he sipped his wine and perused the unending list of other appointments that smothered his too-busy schedule.
“What is truth?” Pilate asked despondently, unleashing a frustrated sigh as he collapsed into the judgment seat, weary at asking the same question that no one had ever answered — and no one ever would.
“What is truth?” Pilate asked with a new edge in his voice, as he for some reason glanced at the nearby chest with sacred money he … took … from the Jewish Temple to support a Roman aqueduct. Then his lip curled in a sneer as he dismissed the notion that this simple Jewish prison could teach a Roman governor anything more than the quirks of his small-town religion.
Or …
“What is truth?” Pilate shouted in an excited voice, tears forming in his eyes as he clutched Jesus’ robe, daring to hope that finally this king from a kingdom he couldn’t explain may give him the answers he couldn’t understand, answers that could relieve the longing that all other truths couldn’t fill.
“What is truth?”
Pilate’s question still echoes throughout the past 2,000 years, and perhaps it echoes even more loudly this time of year, as politicians and pundits present their own spin on the facts, while journalists (and people pretending to be journalists) entrench themselves more and more deeply into their biases both on the right and left — while still facetiously claiming neutrality.
Yet truth goes beyond politics and the issues of the day, as the next several columns attempt to explain.
What is truth?
Sadly, too many people don’t think they can answer that question.
Christians, though, can.
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