What Is Truth?

 

The already-and-not-yet reign of Christ is not about crowns.

2 Samuel 23:1-7
Psalm 132:1-13 (14-19)
Revelation 1:4b-8
John 18:33-37

©2021 Seth Olson

Holy God, let my words be your words, and when my words are not your words, let your people be wise enough to know the same. Amen.

Does anyone remember what happens next in this story? Do you know what Pilate said? Starting in John 18:38, Pilate responded, “What is truth?”

How did Jesus answer him? Certainly, with some wisdom-soaked teaching, right? A profound healing that stunned the governor? No, Jesus said nothing. His response was in God’s first language—silence. And, if you are bothered by this, you are not alone.

Frederick Beuchner, the spiritual giant and once-in-a-generation preacher put it this way, “The silence that has always most haunted me is the silence of Jesus before Pilate. Pilate asks his famous question, ‘What is truth?’ (John 18:38), and Jesus answers him with a silence that is overwhelming in its eloquence. In case there should be any question as to what that silence meant, on another occasion Jesus put it into words for his disciple Thomas. ‘I,’ [Jesus] said, ‘I am the truth’ (14:6).”[1]

When facing his own death, being interrogated by the highest power in his people’s occupied land, Jesus answered audaciously with self-emptying silence. Not a mighty teaching on truth, nor an earth-altering moment of restoration, Christ Jesus simply stood there.

Part of me wants to yield the rest of my time in the pulpit to God—to allow for Jesus’ silent reply to search our souls. I would love to simply dwell on what it means that Christ Jesus is the truth. However, I love working at All Saints too much to make you all sit in silence for an undetermined amount of time. And, as much as I would love to rest here in the quiet allowing God to speak in our hearts—and I know some of you would love that too—everyone might not enjoy an unannounced contemplative service. Still in wordless moments we discover the truth of Christ Jesus and on this day especially, we can aspire to know the truth of his reign in our lives and in the world.

Today is the last Sunday in our liturgical year. Advent is right around the corner and Christmas ever on its heels. Some call today Christ the King Sunday. You may wonder, where did this celebration originate? This feast sounds like an ancient occasion, so you might be surprised to discover that it emerged in Mainline Protestant Christianity after the Second World War.

Religious councils were gathering in a world and a time that felt torn apart and broken—not unlike our own day. These ecclesiastical bodies sought a shift in a brave, new, post-war world. They wondered how we as a species might avoid another contest that would bring us to the brink of total annihilation. One answer arose, which we commemorate today—Christ the King Sunday.

During this occasion we recognize that no power or principality of this world sits upon a higher throne than Christ, our true king. Of course, we here in the United States do not like kings very much. So, this feast is often referred to as the Reign of Christ Sunday, and that feels a bit more fitting—at least here stateside.

Reign of Christ Sunday sounds marvelous, but what exactly do we mean by this? What is truth in regards to Christ’s reign?

There’s a marvelous saying out at Camp McDowell, our diocesan camp and conference center, that I absolutely love, and it provides a helpful analogy. The motto goes, “This is God’s Backyard—the way the worldcould be.” Likewise we might say about Christ’s Reign that we can find it anywhere, and it’s the way God dreams it can be! There are of course, more weighty examples of what Christ’s Reign might look like or the way the world could be—including in today’s readings.

Our lesson from Second Samuel put it this way: He will “[rule] over people justly… who is like the light of morning, like the sunrising on a cloudless morning, gleaming from the rain on the grassy land.” Can’t you see Christ making things right—shining the brightness of truth over the whole earth?

The Revelation of John tells us Christ will be the Alpha and the Omega—the beginning and the end. So, the Reign of Christ has already commenced, and yet it is not yet fully realized. We are getting more pieces in the puzzle of the way God dreams the world can be!

Isaiah whom we will hear from during Advent… in 2022, so next December, describes what the Reign of Christ will look like in even more expansive and poetic language:

The wolf shall live with the lamb,
the leopard shall lie down with the kid,
the calf and the lion and the fatling together,
and a little child shall lead them.
The cow and the bear shall graze,
their young shall lie down together;
and the lion shall eat straw like the ox.
The nursing child shall play over the hole of the asp,
and the weaned child shall put its hand on the adder’s den.
They will not hurt or destroy
on all my holy mountain;
for the earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord
as the waters cover the sea. (Isaiah 11:6-9).

This vision is stunningly beautiful. A wolf and a lamb, a leopard and a kid, a calf and a lion, a child and a snake dwelling together without violence—what a different way of being than what we are accustomed to seeing in our world of competition! It gets me wondering about this age—if Christ’s Reign started long ago at the beginning and it continues to the end, then what does the reign of Christ look like now?

Instead of a lion and lamb lying down peaceably—how about during this Iron Bowl Week the Tide and Tigers getting along? We might chuckle at this, but more seriously how about political donkeys and elephants finding ways to serve one another and the common good together! Try remembering that when you are about to argue across the Thanksgiving table. Least you think I am picking unnecessarily on politicians, how about us in the Church not deriding brothers and sisters from other denominations or other religions, but gathering around Christ’s throne?

This week I was overjoyed to walk in on Monday morning to see an empty Angel Tree. Your generosity and giving offered a glimpse at the Reign of Christ. What now we see in part through a mirror dimly God will reveal fully when God’s Kingdom comes. In the fullness of time that Angel Tree will hopefully be empty not because we took all the names of children whose parents are in jail, but because we have a reformed prison system and restored people reunited with their families.

During our Thanksserving project we gave out 40 turkeys and Thanksgiving baskets yesterday, which was wonderful and another look at God’s Kingdom. And, the full Reign of Christ may appear different. A place where there is no more hunger or children who go to sleep malnourished or starving. The Kingdom is already here, but not yet fully realized.

We have a class called Sacred Ground, which will soon begin discussing the challenges we as individuals and a church face regarding systemic racism. This course will be both challenging and life-giving! And this sort of work will open opportunities for all of us to participate in the work of truth and reconciliation. That work invites us into the Reign of Christ that has begun and beckons us to make it fully known one day.

During the Prayers of the People in a few moments we will remember Leann Hampton, a member of this parish who died tragically this week. I have been devastated and will continue to mourn the loss of this beloved child of God who had the gift of making life more fun and who rarely did not have a smile on her face when she walked in the doors of All Saints. She now dwells in the fullness of God’s presence—even if we who are on this side of the grave long for the fullness of the Reign of Christ where sorrow and pain are no more, neither sighing, but life everlasting.

Are you seeing the paradoxical nature of the Reign of Christ? It is the beginning and the end. It has already started and is also not yet. It is both here on earth and also in heaven. It is seen in who we are and what we do, still not fully. And while we spend time yearning for the whole kingdom to be revealed we would be wise not to let our own expectations get in the way of how God is already here and already working among us.

Simon Peter, one of Jesus’ chief disciples, put his own vision of Christ’s reign ahead of the truth. When Jesus talked aboutthe suffering that he would undergo—that his throne would be a cross and hisenthronement would be his crucifixion—Peter rebuked Jesus saying, “I will neverlet this happen.” To which, Jesus replied, “Get behind me Satan” and “You haveyour mind set on earthly things, not divine things.” Christ’s Reign may not look like what I expect, what I think, or even what I hope for, but that’s okay for it’s not my kingdom but Thy Kingdom.

As we dwell in the already-and-not-yet Dominion of God and anticipate Christ’s Reign which stretches from the beginning to the end, Jesus calls us to set our minds and our whole lives on how the earthly things become the divine things with God’s help. He revealed God’s “kingdom come” in eloquent teachings, powerful healings, and life-giving sacraments. We may also find the fullness of truth in God’s first language of silence. May we dwell with Christ in his reign now and forever. Amen.

 

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[1]Frederick Buechner. Weekly Sermon Illustration: Truth, November 19, 2018. https://www.frederickbuechner.com/blog/2018/11/19/weekly-sermon-illustration-truth [accessed November 18, 2021]