Pilate asked [Jesus], "What is truth?" (John 18:38) and we keep asking the same question with our actions if not with our words - even when the Truth of His Kingdom is starring us in the face. Post-modern commercialism completely embraces the idea that there is no absolute truth and we followers of Jesus Christ are bold enough to say that we follow the truth, the way and the life that leads to eternal life in complete reconciliation with an absolute, pure, holy and true God.
Popular thinking says, “Live and let live the way others want to live.” "What's true for you may not be true for me!" The popular media give conflicting images of truth and real truth seem too hard to find.
Jesus introduces his teachings and prophesies with "I tell you the truth." Everything he did and said is completely trustworthy and totally believable. When He finally says that He is the way, and the truth, and the life (John 14:6), He is preparing us to hear Pilate just four chapters later with all our windows wide open for Jesus to bring even the most confused and pathetic ruler the truth. "What is truth?" is a pathetic and weak comeback. To just walk away and leave the room when the Truth waits for you is foolish in deed.
I still battle against walking away from the truth like Pilate sometimes. I have been just as cynical and full of doubt. But Jesus stays with me. He never leaves, even if I seem to prefer living a lie rather than face up to my responsibility and God’s sovereignty. I pray that God seek me out and purge my soul so that I will serve Jesus Christ with my every thought and action, but I keep failing. How can I possibly help others to accept Jesus Christ and His eternal Truth all the time, if I still have thoughts and actions that say that I’m searching in the wrong places for His Kingdom and righteousness? How do I help others discover the Truth that is right inside and beside us – when the Kingdom is at hand?
Just as Jesus taught each person to find Him in a personal and unique way we share His Gospel with a mature awareness of how blindsided we are while trying to communicate or share our friendship and fellowship in Christ.
The Johari window is one discovery tool developed by Joseph Luft and Harry Ingham in the 1950s to help people better understand their interpersonal communication and relationships. Imagine a window with four quadrants. You and I are having a discussion on any subject, but what is unique is that we imagine that we are talking through one of the four windows that are missing the glass panes. We are aware and understand differently when we use a different relationship quadrant to communicate. The arena pane allows us to be on the same page with what we know, understand and feel about a particular question or answer. We might agree that we are in the same arena watching the same game or participating in the same event.
Through the blindsided window pane only you experience and know in your mind and heart what is going on, but I don’t and you might say I’ve got and blind spot, but I might say you’ve got a façade that I seem to get through.
The façade window quadrant is where I get it, but you don’t.
The fourth quadrant part of the window where neither one of us get it. Truly mature people supposedly eventually realize that most everyone stays in the fourth quadrant of the mutually unknown, but we are so blindsided that we wouldn’t know the truth if we were covered with it.
Learning, growing and changing can help each other by deciding whether and how to inform the other about the other’s blind spots. But the one suffering from the blind spot may just think it is fake or a mere façade for something else.
At first glance Pilate seems to be blindsided by Jesus Kingship and Truth. He seemed to treat Jesus as an insignificant façade in the face of his imperial status as governor of the province. But Jesus owns the Unknown truth and the Kingdom that is not of this world. He is ready to change Pilate, but the Roman cynicism and self- preservation is all he knows. He’s afraid of the unknown doesn’t want to know the truth like Jesus’ disciples. The judge fears that he might be judged.
How do we apply our notions of what the truth is when the other one in the relationship IS THE TRUTH? I suggest that the beginning of wisdom is the fear of God, which is based on the awareness of our collective ignorance in our shared existence as creatures before the creator God. Pilate was so close to this fear of the unknown truth, but he walked away from it.
Here are some examples of how you might know when Jesus confronts you with His Truth and you will know that the Kingdom has invaded your life.
When Peter was a failure after denying Jesus at the trial Jesus came to Him as the resurrected Savior and made that fallen sinner able to feed the sheep of the Kingdom with the Truth of God’s love and forgiveness. Failure is an experience that invites you to confess your sin and allow Jesus to give you the Holy Spirit so that you may be a adaptable, bold and brave witness of His truth. Your calmness will resemble Christ at His trial, Stephen at his stoning, Polycarp at his buring.
When Jesus confronts you like He did with the woman at the well. He will know all you have done and still forgive and love you no matter what. The compassionate caring Jesus will give you hope and a cheerful witness that overcomes the clever, complex, and superficially confident folk who attack you wrongfully when you decide to follow Jesus and let Him change you. You will become more dependable, dignified, and energetic for the Lord. Your introverted sadness will become extroverted friendliness. You will give to others with a happy and helpful attitude of gratitude.
If you come to Jesus as idealistic and independent as the Rich Young Ruler, you will find Him more ingenious, intelligent and holy. You will be compelled to give to others and follow Him. If you were too extroverted with a sense of self-importance then will become introverted, kind and quietly knowledgeable about Jesus.
Your logical questions might be like Nicodemus or Pilate or seeking observations like Zacheus up a tree. Jesus will give you a loving, mature and responsive heart for the needs of others. Your modesty will surprise you. You won’t be the nervous self important person that wants to organize others’ lives before your own. You’ll be more patient both with the powerful and weak – both with the proud and the meek.
If you quietly and reflectively sit at the feet of Jesus like Mary, then your Martha tendencies will relax and you will learn to respond with a religious piety that is not just searching for the truth but that is self-assertive for the Truth in Jesus as King of your life. Self-consciousness will slide away. You will be more sensible than just sentimental, shying away from the silly foolishness of the moment and pressing on to the goal of the high calling in Christ. You’ll be spontaneously sympathetic instead of intensely distrustful.
Dear Heavenly Father, receive Your Truth in Jesus of Nazareth. Thank you for bringing Your Kingdom to me and allowing me to invite others to Your Kingdom. Help me to share Jesus and His Truth in sincere and lasting ways. May Your warm, wise and even witty Truth be in me. You know me better than I know myself and I am called to share that truth with others – that Jesus already knows them, loves them and forgives them – even before they know and love Him. He will never leave you, even unto the ends of the earth and the end of all time and throughout the eternal Kingdom of God with Him. I put my trust in you and you alone. If I turn my back on Your Truth in Jesus Christ, then send Your hound of heaven to hunt me with Your pure love and bring me back to You in Spirit and Truth – Kingdom coming, Your will doing in Jesus name, Amen.
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