It Happens All the Time
It Happens All the Time
First, missing the Word; second, missing the Son. Now third, missing the Truth.
There is a third scene. This of all scenarios takes place when the three factors of religious authority, cultural practice, and political power converge. In John’s Gospel, chapter 18, once again it is Passover time. Jesus is not a boy now. He is a full-grown man, and his work is about to come to an end. The religious leaders are at their most powerful and most self-impressed at this nationally important time of the year as they lead the nation in their ceremonial worship. Cultural expressions come into play, including a custom that granted one prisoner special grace, someone guilty of petty crimes, practices that the culture deemed a violation of their convictions, or even a hard-core criminal.
It is during this time that Jesus is brought before Pilate, who is engaged in a tug-of-war between Caesar and the religious authorities in Judea who threatened Pilate with disloyalty to Caesar if he did not give them their way with Jesus. If they could persuade Pilate that Jesus was seditious and a religious extremist standing against Roman authority, they could accomplish their goals to do away with him, justifying his death with sound political reasoning.
At the end of John 18 we find Jesus standing bound before Pilate. Pilate tries to engage Jesus by asking him if he is indeed the king of the Jews (v. 33). Jesus very shrewdly asks him whether his question is genuine or he has been set up for it. I have said on numerous occasions that intent precedes content. Pilate, somewhat exasperated, tells him that though he has had nothing to do with Jesus’ arrest, his future is now in Pilate’s hands. Isn’t this the arrogance with which political rulers and media pundits live? We see articles, especially around Christmas and Easter, asking, “Is there a future for God?” It is also the question Stalin and Mao asked and answered in the negative. They are both gone, and the Church in China is the strongest it has ever been, while much of the same is happening in Russia. The question should really be whether, apart from God, there is any future for humanity.
Jesus’ response to Pilate’s question is profound. “My kingdom is not of this world,” he says (John 18:36 NIV).
“You are a king, then!” comes Pilate’s triumphant response (v. 37 NIV). This is something he can wrest to his advantage.
Jesus replies, “In fact, the reason I was born and came into the world is to testify to the truth. Everyone on the side of truth listens to me.” (v. 37 NIV).
“What is truth?” asks Pilate in disgust, and he walks away (v. 38 NIV).
I have to think that this is one of the most defining moments in the Bible. Pause and put this in context. In the prophecy of Isaiah, we read, “For to us a child is born, to us a son is given” (9:6 NIV). Note carefully that the Son is not born: The Son eternally existed.
Note now that Jesus says, “The reason I was born…” The incarnation of Jesus did not create him; it brought him down into the context of our human condition. He did not need to attain God-consciousness; he was God in the flesh, the incarnate expression of God. He did not reach a pinnacle by doing what he did; it was because of “who” he already was that he did what he did. In fact, in the book of Philippians we are told that although Jesus “existed in the form of God, [he] did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped” (2: 6 NASB). The very thing the New Spiritualists make of him, a man who has attained God-consciousness (Chopra in particular), is specifically denied in the Scriptures. The Bible goes on to say in Hebrews 1 that in previous times God had spoken to us through his prophets, but now in the latter days, he has spoken to us through his Son: The “Word of God” had become “flesh” and lived among us.
The people to whom the Word and God’s miracles were given lost him in the bustle of ceremony. His parents lost Jesus because they didn’t completely understand who he was. Now we have lost him because we prefer to live a lie rather than the truth; we prefer to believe that we are gods ourselves when, in truth, we are the glory of creation gone wrong. We have set up a context of rebellion within ourselves against him and are therefore no longer on the side of truth. Jesus makes a sweeping statement that our true intentions regarding truth or falsehood are revealed by what we do with him.
If there is any passage of Scripture that accurately describes our modern-day contempt for truth, our attachment to power, and our voluntary surrender to culture, it is this. It is not accidental that religious authorities, political appointees, and cultural symbols have come together to crucify him once again in our day. Barabbas was released… a cultural practice was fulfilled. “We have a law”… political correctness was enjoined. “He claims to be the Son of God… kill him”… all at the behest and with the blessing of religion. The irony is that he wanted to be owned by none of the three: culture, politics, or religion.
It is very easy to lose Jesus in the plethora of temple practices. It is easy to lose him in the busyness of our family lives. It is easy to limit him in the name of our laws. This is the strongest indictment I make against the New Spirituality. They have violated the true Jesus and formed him in their own image. While exalting themselves, they have denigrated him. Against the backdrop and the evolving ethics of a culture that is lost, the New Spirituality has manipulated the text of Scripture, ignored history with redefinitions of their own to leverage cultural desires to their own advantage. Consider the cultural hits they take at Christianity, which gain them a hearing from the same ones who would like to reject Christianity because of their own moral choices.
Not only did culture, politics, and religion or spirituality come together to kill Jesus, ironically, only in him do the Word, the flesh, and the absolute come together. John says in the first chapter of his Gospel, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God… [And] the Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth” (vv. 1, 14 NIV).
In this one passage, the Gospel writer shatters the false beliefs of the Gnostics and the legalists. The incarnation of Jesus showed that the flesh was not corrupt, though it was corruptible. Jesus showed us that “in the flesh” we could see the glory of God. How wonderful it is that all that is lost can be found in him, through grace. Today we are a little more sophisticated than Jesus’ parents. We do not lose him in places; we evict him from our lives and justify it with ideas.