LESSON
This Sunday is called Palm Sunday because we are at the beginning of Holy Week when Jesus enters Jerusalem astride a donkey. It is also called Passion Sunday because Jesus’ betrayal, arrest, and crucifixion are just days away. Our focus this week is on the conversation that Jesus had with Pontius Pilate, the Roman governor of Israel, just before Jesus was led to the cross to be crucified.
At the center of this conversation is the word “truth”. “Truth” is a critical idea in John’s Gospel. We encounter that word when Jesus is described in John’s first chapter as being “full of grace and truth” (1:14). In Jesus’ encounter with Pilate, we see grace and truth on display.
In our time, “truth” stands as the opposite of falsity. In Jesus’ day, the word “truth” captured something more; “truth” meant reality. “Truth” was understood as what is real, as what is authentic, as what is reliable, and, therefore, as what is trustworthy.
For John, God is reality, so God is true and “truth”. There is nothing that is more real or more true than God. As Jesus explains to Pilate, Jesus was born as a human child to testify to this “truth” that God is real, and true, and trustworthy. We see this reality in the father and the spirit of truth, and we see this reality in the son who brought that reality to earth, who came to dwell among us and laid down his life for us. God is “truth”. God is trustworthy.
WRITTEN BY | Rev. Mary Bowman