Biblical Text

You can read John 18.19-40 here.

Sermon Video

You can watch the sermon video here.

Sermon Transcript

[Note: The actual sermon will differ somewhat from what I had typed.]

His was one of the most brilliant minds of the twentieth century. No one could match the depths of his understanding of the human psyche and of what motivates humans to act the ways they act. With his words he moved an entire nation into action in a matter of months. And, recognizing his immense ability, his commander-in-chief assigned to him the task of influencing the views of people outside the nation as well. These three quotes will give you an idea of his brilliance.
First, “It would not be impossible to prove with sufficient repetition and a psychological understanding of the people concerned that a square is in fact a circle. They are mere words, and words can be molded until they clothe ideas and disguise.” Second, “The most brilliant propagandist technique will yield no success unless one fundamental principle is borne in mind constantly – it must confine itself to a few points and repeat them over and over.”
Third, and this may be familiar to many of you, “Repeat a lie often enough and it becomes the truth.” The person I refer to, whom I think was the greatest influencer of the twentieth century is Joseph Goebbels, the minister of propaganda for the German Third Reich. Almost single handedly, he managed to convince a whole nation of a lie, making them believe it was the single truth that defined them, a truth to die for – a truth to kill for.
But he also said, “The truth is always stronger than the lie.” And it pays to listen to him because of how effective he was in obscuring truths with his lies. You know why? Because Joseph Goebbels was an ambitious man. He initially joined the Nazi party against his convictions only because he believed that the Nazis would ascend to power, enabling his rise in the ranks as well. The teachers he favored most were his Jewish teachers and he was even engaged to a half-Jewish woman.
But years of developing, fine-tuning, and repeating the Nazi propaganda turned him into a vitriolic anti-Jewish person who, in the end, actually believed all the lies that Nazi party was spreading across Germany and other parts of the world. He, in other words, was the living embodiment of his statement, “Repeat a lie often enough and it becomes the truth” – and he knew it. He had repeated what he knew to be a lie often enough that he ended up believing it was the truth.
We Christians, living in the twenty-first century, have been lied to and we have believed the lies and have become liars ourselves. And we have repeated the lies so often that we don’t even realize we are lying anymore. The lies, repeated often enough, have become our truths. Today’s passage gives us the knowledge we need to lay bare the lies and to recover the truth. And in fact, the passage tells us four important things about truth.
The first lesson we learn is that truth does not need to hide. At the start of our passage, Jesus is being interrogated by Annas. Annas was probably at his wits end with Jesus. When he questioned Jesus, Jesus had asked him what had merited all the secrecy with which he had been captured. He reminded Annas that he himself had spoken openly in the temple courts. If indeed the Jewish leaders were keen to know what Jesus had been teaching, they could have done so quite easily.
Jesus was also implying that, if he had been saying incorrect things, then the Jewish authorities had had ample opportunities to correct him in public. To the contrary, they had come to capture him under cover of the night, when the common people, who thronged around Jesus, were away asleep. The stealthy manner in which they captured Jesus clearly indicated that it was they, not he, who had something to hide. What was the reason for the stealth?
But someone could cite situations in which governments employ stealth tactics to catch criminals. Such sting operations are widely used not just to bust crime rings but also as a tactic in warfare. On the face of it, this may seem like a valid point. However, it pays to observe that the party that came to capture Jesus was not acting on the orders of the government. Even if Jesus was a threat – and believe me he was and is a threat to all systems that support injustice – the party was just a mob.
You see, if the party had been sanctioned by Pilate, they would have taken Jesus to Pilate, not the Jewish authorities. Since they took Jesus to the Jewish authorities we can conclude that this was a primarily Jewish mob that came to capture Jesus. But such group vigilantism would certainly have caught the eyes of Pilate. You can’t have different fringe segments of the populace deciding that they would be the agents for bringing order and justice to society.
That would actually be anarchy since every group or person with sufficient means and motivation could then decide to take to the streets to impose their versions of justice on the hapless masses.
And since mobs know that they do not have the backing of the law, they do their dirty work clandestinely, most often under cover of darkness, when mobilizing the law enforcement authorities is more difficult than usual and when identification of perpetrators is almost impossible.
The truth, you see, does not operate in the shadows. It works out in the open for all to see. This is why Jesus reminds his interlocutors that he worked in public where anyone could hear his words. There was no secrecy about him because it is only falsehood that requires the cover of anonymity and plausible deniability. The truth, being a reflection of how things really are, does not fear the light and in fact flourishes in the light.
But when we accept what is untrue, what is false, we have no recourse but to resort to hiding. Peter had a false view of Jesus. He thought Jesus was going to be a military conqueror. But when Jesus repudiated this view, Peter realized that he had been believing a falsehood. But because he was not convinced of the truth of what Jesus said, he could not bear the light of the truth and followed Jesus from a distance, skulking in the shadows, hoping to be an undetected spectator.
The second lesson we learn is that truth cannot be coerced. While interrogating Jesus, Annas’ frustration becomes clear when one of his officials strikes Jesus for responding to the High Priest in a supposedly disrespectful manner. Jesus responds by asking, “If I said something wrong, testify as to what is wrong. But if I spoke the truth, why did you strike me?” I’m going to make a slight detour now before returning to the important second point about truth.
It is quite likely that Jesus primarily spoke Aramaic and that he had only a working knowledge of Greek. However, v. 23 has an interesting play on words in Greek. The word translated ‘wrong’ is κακῶς (kakos), which most often is translated as ‘badly’ or ‘evilly’. And the word translated ‘truth’ is καλῶς (kalos), which is most often translated as ‘well’ or ‘rightly’. We don’t know what Jesus said in Aramaic, but John has intentionally used these two words.
As I said, it is a play on words. But also, we learn an important life lesson. When our kids were young we introduced them to Veggie Tales, a Christian animated show. One of the songs from the show has the following lyrics: “If your friends tell you that you gotta be cool/ Remember what you learned in church and Sunday school/ Just check it out/ The bible tells us what it’s all about.” The message of the song might seem above board. But it is actually quite damaging.
What is implied by the song is that it is easy to decide between right and wrong. All you have to do is attend church and Sunday School and read the Bible. But if that were true, why would Christians differ so greatly on all sorts of issues? But what John tells us with his word play is that it is extremely difficult to decide what’s good and what’s bad in real life. One is κακῶς while the other is καλῶς, a difference of only one letter in Greek and in the Greek script a difference of a half stroke of a letter.
So back to the second point. Jesus asks the High Priest’s servant to declare where Jesus had gone wrong instead of resorting to striking him. You see, the one thing that cannot be imposed by force is the truth. One of the best stories of Star Trek: The Next Generation is a two parter called Chain of Command. In these episodes, the interrogator tries to get Captain Picard to say he sees five lights when in fact there are only four. Picard is tortured and starved almost to the point of death.
When he is finally released, as he is leaving his interrogator, he shouts out, “There are four lights.” The interrogator wanted him to be willing to state a lie in order to be spared the torture. But even if he had broken, there would still have been four lights, not five. All the violence in the world would not change that fact. And all the violence in the world could only be invoked in the service of the lie, not of the truth, for only falsehood needs the assistance of the threat of retaliation.
This, unfortunately, is a lesson the Church has failed to understand and has resolutely rejected. The dismal story of the Christian Church is that, whenever it has assumed a position of authority or has been given even the slightest modicum of power, it has abused that power to suppress and oppress others. In recent years, this tendency has been revealed in such movements as the Seven Mountain Mandate and the Evangelical support of former US President Donald Trump.
Both of these examples reveal the inability of Christians who obtain power to act in ways that are consistent with what Jesus said. While Jesus said, “The Son of Man came not to be served but to serve,” most Christians who achieve some degree of power abuse it to impose their wills on others, confusing domination for dominion. But if we were to take our cue from Jesus, it would seem that those who impose their wills on others do so precisely because they are opposed to the truth.
But the message of such people is enticing. We humans love to be in control of our lives. So when we hear about the unjust incarceration without trial of people like Father Stan Swamy, some of us may wish we had more power to change the world for the better. That his arrest is a clear violation of human rights and an abuse of power by an insecure regime is evident when you consider a simple fact that he was awarded the Mukundan C. Menon award for human rights earlier this year.
In the face of such injustice and abuse of power, some of us may believe that, if we only had sufficient power, we would be able to right the wrongs in the world. But if we entertain such ideas, we are only revealing that we have failed to understand Lord Acton’s words, “Power tends to corrupt. Absolute power corrupts absolutely.” Power can rightly be handled only by those who abjure its use to control others and bend their wills – that is, by those who refuse to resort to violence.
The problem is that power is enticing and seductive. It is easy to conclude that, just because I am given power, I am qualified to wield it. Last year, when we were dealing with the life of Joseph, we saw how he assumed that, because he had competently managed the affairs of Potiphar and the jailor, he was competent to manage the affairs of Pharaoh. We then saw how his policies led to the enslavement of the Egyptians which, in time, led to the enslavement of the Israelites.
We see a wise approach to power in Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings. When Gandalf tells Frodo about the insidious nature of the ring of power, Frodo asks Gandalf to take the ring from him for safe keeping. In response Gandalf says, “Don’t tempt me Frodo! I dare not take it. Not even to keep it safe. Understand Frodo, I would use this Ring from a desire to do good. But through me, it would wield a power too great and terrible to imagine.” What insight did he possess that eludes us?
You see, most of us think we would be better at wielding power than those who currently do. And this is simply because most of us never have had any real power to wield. We speak from our ignorance about what we do not understand. Jesus tells us this when James and John ask him to assign them to sit at his right and left when he is enthroned. Jesus tells his disciples that those who are in positions of authority lord it over those who are subordinate to them. But it was to be different with them.
And the reason why Jesus says that his disciples are not to attempt to dominate others is precisely because the truth does not need the support of force. It stands on its own simply because it corresponds to reality. This is why, despite all the persecutions the early Church faced, it was the Roman Empire that was defeated by the truth of Jesus’ resurrection. No amount of coercion could convince the Christians that Jesus was still dead when they experienced the truth of his life in them daily.
But when we know we do not have the truth, we cannot stand our ground. And then the slightest coercion will make us deny the truth and proclaim a lie, especially when we know that declaring the truth could be harmful to us. We see this in Peter as he warms himself around the fire. In an attempt to hide himself, he gathered with the others around a fire, hiding in plain sight. It’s a good strategy when you are wearing a turban and robe and do not have unique physical features.
But when someone recognizes you, the strategy fails and you find yourself exposed and feeling the pressure to lie your way out of an uncomfortable situation. So this disciple, who had brazenly attempted to defend Jesus at the Garden of Gethsemane, found himself confronted by a relative of the man he had attacked. And in that simple confrontation, Peter discovered that the brightness of the spotlight was too much to bear and he lied, denying Jesus, and crept back into the shadows.
The third thing that we learn from our passage is that truth and violence do not mix. Violence, being a form of coercion, cannot be a tool used by the truth. This is why Jesus tells Pilate, “My kingdom is not from this world. If it were, my servants would fight to prevent my arrest by the Jewish leaders. But now my kingdom is from another place.” Please note an important point. Jesus does not say he does not have a kingdom. Rather, he says that his kingdom is not from this world.
Too often we have bought into the Enlightenment split that relegates religious faith only to the private sphere, having no relevance to the public domain, and having no voice in public debate. How did we accept such a sacrilegious thought? How did we buy into this lie? Jesus was not crucified in private, out of the way, in some quiet corner of the world. No! He was stripped naked and nailed to a cross in an act of public humiliation that announced the truth that Rome was in power.
The central event of the Christian faith is the public humiliation of its central figure in a political act that was intended to declare to all the world who it was that ultimately wielded the power over life and death. And we have given up this political truth and cowered down in the safe and sterile and ultimately fruitless confines of our homes and communal worship spaces. It is time we recover the truth that, if Jesus has nothing to say about our politics, then he has nothing to say about anything.
But I digress, even though it is an important digression. Jesus tells Pilate that, if his kingdom was defined according to the principles of this world, then his disciples would have fought to ensure that he wasn’t captured by the Jewish authorities. Jesus is clear. Kingdoms defined by this world rely on violence to enforce their wills and subjugate others. On the other hand, the Kingdom of God is quite different and repudiates the use of violence as a means to an end, even the best of ends.
In the early years of the Christian Church, this rejection of violence was almost universally accepted. However, with the Constantinian synthesis, which saw the merger of the Church and the state, the clear lines that separated the Church from the state vanished and the Church became embroiled in the matters that concerned the state. But as soon as this unholy Constantinian synthesis took place, the Church realized that it had lost its prophetic voice and agreed to remain silent.
But the Church knew it was on the earth for a crucial purpose, even though, by now, it had forgotten what that purpose was. In an attempt to recover a purpose, the Church began to underwrite the campaigns of the state. This led to considerable military victories. However, once the Church began to defend itself with swords and even advance itself with swords, we lost the true battle. The spread of the Christian message was thwarted by a Church that surrendered truth for power.
Please note what I am saying. It was not the governments that thwarted the Church. Rather, it was the Church that stunted its own growth by accepting the lure of power presented to it by the state. By accepting means that were at odds with the message it was created to bear, the Church gave up its prophetic voice and has been rendered mute for much of its history, except in small pockets where Christians have dared to proclaim the truth of its message into the darkness created by power.
The fourth thing we learn from our passage is that God ushers in his kingdom by truth-telling. Truth telling is that subversive act through which the wrongs of the world can be righted. Truth telling is the world altering act through which darkness is dispelled and replaced by light. Darkness, no matter how deep, no matter how strongly supported, no matter how deeply ingrained in our minds, cannot but vanish when exposed to the light.
The sad story of the Christian Church is that, once it gained political power, it used that power to subjugate others and enforce its truth on them. But if there is one thing we learn from Jesus it is that only a lie needs the help of coercion in order to stand. The truth comes with its own legs and does not need any external support. It is my prayer that the Church around the world recovers its truth speaking and darkness dispelling ministry as we eagerly await the return of Jesus.
One way in which we do this is by remembering Jesus’ suffering and death. All through his ministry, Jesus was faced with the temptation to acquiesce to the pressure to not speak the truth and to seek the short route to power. But he resolutely rejected such an approach because the truth cannot coexist with falsehood just as light and darkness cannot coexist and just as water and oil do not mix. We will now be moving on to a celebration of communion.
And as we do so, let us take this occasion to speak truth to power. The powers of darkness tried in vain to silence Jesus. And it is my prayer that the powers of darkness would find in us, disciples who are equally resolute. As Joseph Goebbels said, “The truth is always stronger than the lie.” We should listen to him because he of all people knew the power of the lie. And so let us participate in communion by using it as an occasion to speak truth to power.
The truth we speak as we participate in communion is that Jesus has defeated sin, Satan, and death. The truth we declare as we eat the bread and drink the wine is that sin, Satan, and death have been vanquished. It is a tiny step we take, eating a morsel of bread and drinking a sip of wine. But through it we loudly speak the truth to power that Jesus has defeated all God’s foes and has invited us to participate in his comprehensive victory.
But we also speak another truth to power. By participating in Holy Communion we announce to the powers of darkness that need deception to propagate that, by surrendering himself to the worst that they could unleash on him, Jesus has unveiled and exposed these powers as powerless in the face of truth and that any human person or institution that resorts to violence will ultimately be exposed as fraudulent and will be judged. I pray that we may be committed to this truth telling act.
So, as we participate in this Holy Communion, let us recognize that, through his victorious death, Jesus vanquished and defanged the powers of sin, Satan, and death. And let us commit to take this truth into the weeks ahead, declaring to the fallen powers that they have been defeated. And let us join in the commitment we make to participate with this Lord who calls us to join him in his task of speaking truth to power.