Good Friday ... What is Truth?

John 19:19-20 "19 And Pilate posted a sign over him that read, 'Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews.' The place where Jesus was crucified was near the city, and the sign was written in Hebrew, Latin, and Greek, so that many people could read it."

Crucified. We take the word in stride. Truly, over the years, it has become a catch-phrase for Christians - another "church word." In a world of lethal injection, the word "crucified" seems so foreign to us. Many of us remember the words "electric chair" and "firing squad." Fewer and fewer can really grasp a mental image of "gas chamber" and "work camp." Still, the thought is the same: getting rid of someone who for some reason, on valid or "trumped up" charges, presents a threat, real or imagined, to society.

Pilate even knew the score. He knew that the charges were not valid ones. As a Roman leader, I would guess that Pilate had played his political games with lives. He had charged a few innocents to cover up the crimes of influential others. Yet this case seemed different somehow. From all that he could tell, this man Jesus was guilty of believing something about himself and acting on it, always to the benefit of others. Pilate had questioned him, and had come up with ... nothing. No charge to warrant death. Beat him and let him go, and he didn't really even deserve the beating, but maybe it would satisfy the blood-thirsty religious leaders.

No. It had not.

So, Pilate does the thing he knows he can do. The custom was to nail a placard to the cross above the head of the criminal being crucified to let the passers-by know what the person had done. In the languages of the Church, the government, and secular society, Pilate had written the transcription to read the charge: "Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews." The religious leaders scoffed! He was not their king! He had done nothing to overthrow Roman rule and establish the Jewish nation-state with its own king, as in the glorious days of David and Solomon. But the placard stays, by order of the one person who could have released Jesus, only to cause a religious uprising. By sacrificing this one man that Pilate was convinced was innocent, maybe those thinking of rising up again Roman rule would think twice. Maybe even the word "example" crosses his mind. Perhaps this Jesus could stand as an example of what happens to those who fight the government or the church. Or perhaps it was Pilate's desperate way of declaring what he knows is the answer to his question, "What is truth?"

And Jesus dies, not for crimes committed like his suffering neighbors, but innocent of all charges except for accomplishing the one divine plan - to save humanity from the consequences of sin and to restore right relations with God. John poignantly places this on the same day that the lambs would have been sacrificed in the temple for the sins of the people. "Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world," John the Baptizer had said.

What is truth? As we live out this day and head into tomorrow, a day of rest, let us rediscover the answer as Pilate did ... in the death of an innocent man for the sake of the guilty ... for our sake.