“Truth ? What is that ?”Jn.18:38

            With cynism and pride Pilate asks that question to Christ. For the moment Pilate is the truth because he controls the trigger. He has the army, the power, the position and for Pilate that is the truth. Power, politics, position, prestige is the truth. Pilate cannot see how a silent, feeble, voiceless one, crowned with thorns, semi-naked, with no one to defend him,  can be the truth.

Things have not changed even after two thousand years on the criteria of what is truth. Everyone in power cynically and with pride continue to ask that question, “Truth? What is that?” Military might, political strength, the gun and the bomb continue to be the criteria for truth. 

There is a disturbing war going on in the world. Russia thinks that they are on the side of the truth. They have stronger army and better weapons. That is the truth for them. Ukraine thinks they are defending justice, integrity and sovereignty. That is the truth for them. European powers have another version of the truth. U.S. thinks that they have the truth as they have faster and bigger jets and more destructive bombs. No one seems to pay any attention to the men, women, children who are killed, suffering, driven out from their homes. As per criteria of Pilate these innocent victims are not the truth.

Is there anything called ‘truth’?  Who controls it? Who interprets it? Will we ever come to know the truth? There seems to be as many versions of the truth as the number of people on earth. Though contradictory and on opposite sides, each one is defending their version of  truth  and justice.

It is not only in politics that that truth is misrepresented and questioned. Even custodians of truth and those who call themselves ‘religious’ leaders have different versions of the truth. More wars have been fought in the name of religion and thousands have been sacrificed in defence of what they thought was the ‘truth’. I know of one friend of mine who is apparently ’blameless’ and in whom ‘there is no guile’ but in defence of ‘principles’, he has no scruples in breaking the most fundamental law of love. There are many  ‘religious’ men and women who condemn and accuse their brothers and sisters because they see others as wrong and  themselves as right. They feel that they are custodians of truth and all other versions as untruth. Don’t get me wrong, even one who is reading this may categorize what is stated above as false and they as true.

Power, politics, prestige, position still continue to be the criteria for truth as it was for Pilate. There is a good market for pride, politics and prejudice even among ‘religious’ leaders. The helpless, the poor, the victims, the have-nots, the oppressed are seen far from the truth.

The Resurrection of Jesus has one message. Truth shall rise again. Truth needs no defence. Truth is its own defence. Truth will ultimately prevail. It may be persecuted, crucified, killed and buried but it will rise again. Then the defenders of truth will be known for the lie, the suffering the pain, they inflicted on others, as Pilate is known today, ‘he suffered under Pontius Pilate.’

In Zefferelli’s version of life of Jesus, he gives a very close up shot of Jesus after Pilate asked that question. I believe the director wants to tell Pilate, that this man in front of him scourged, persecuted, condemned is the truth. In our attempt to discover what is truth, focussing a little more time on the victims, the deprived, the persecuted, the crucified, those killed, may guide us to find the answer to the question: “Truth ? What is that?”   

-        TV George sdb