What is Truth?

Jesus answered, “You say that I am a king. For this I was born, and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice.” ³⁸ Pilate asked him, “What is truth?”

When my sister in law died suddenly at age 39, my father in law said he would no longer be able to say "This is the day that the Lord has made. Let us rejoice and be glad in it." And he carried that feeling for the rest of his life. Good Friday stirs up the same thoughts for me... a medley of cacophonous emotions, questions and confusions. Why did it have to happen, why the cruelty and the violence? How can this be a Good day?

Pilate is a strange character in this melee. He is right on the cusp of getting it, knowing that this Jesus should not be sacrificed, knowing that there is truth in him "and truth will set you free." But he gives in to the crowd and washes his hands of the whole situation turning the prince of Peace over to death.

A voice from the 13th century offers Truth which I find redeeming on this horrific day. It comes from the Persian poet Rumi who said, " Out there beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing, there is a field. I'll meet you there." Perhaps we can take comfort in imagining that field, what it is going to be like, where it is and even who we will meet there.

But we cannot bypass this day, because without it we have no Resurrection. And so we must sit in the painful silence with Jesus in the face of Pilate's question, no hindsight allowed. Tomorrow we might thing about that field.

The Procession to Calvary by Pieter Bruegel the Elder (public domain)