Skip to main content

Sermon Notes: The Truth Among Us

John 18:28-40

Notes:

- The crowd does not enter Pilate’s headquarters because it would have rendered them unclean. They needed to stay clean for the Passover celebration. What’s the central part of a Passover meal? A lamb. (John’s gospel is nothing, if not dramatic.)

- The crowd asks for Barabbas. The gospel writer tells us that Barabbas was a “bandit”. Bandit is the same word that is used in John 10, when Jesus refers to himself as the ‘Good Shepherd’. Bandits are contrasted with the shepherd as ones who want to harm the sheep.

- Why doesn’t Pilate let Jesus go if he knows that Jesus is innocent? Remember Pilate is in a political appointment. He is charged with upholding law and order in Judea. He ultimately decides to have Jesus killed to get things to settle down in his area. They never do.

- It is important to recognize that Jesus gives Pilate a chance to come to him (Jesus) as a believer. Pilate could listen and believe, thus coming into the light. He chooses political expediency over the Truth.

- In John 8, Jesus says, “You shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free”.

- In John 14, Jesus says, “I am the way, the truth, and the life.”



Reflection:

Why do you believe in Jesus?

Push beyond your reading, your upbringing, your habits.

What is your experience with Jesus?

Fundamentally, experiencing Jesus is both a corporate (group) and personal event. We have our own experiences, but we come to understand them as experiences of the Truth because we can compare notes with other people who have been burnished by the same Truth.

Jesus doesn’t answer Pilate’s question with words. That’s because he is, himself, the answer, the Word.

The Truth is standing in front of Pilate as a tired Galilean- fully human and fully divine.

Simply by being. The sheer fact of his existence, his embodiment of all that is Holy, answered the question.

Ultimately, our stewardship of our time, talents, and resources is not a response to what we have read, what we have heard, or even what we hope for.

It is a response to the Truth we have experienced. It is our answer to Pilate’s question. It is the way we move in the light of faith.

Why do you believe? What do you believe? Who do you believe?

What is Truth?

May God grant us the grace to answer those questions, daily, with all that we have.


Amen.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Religious Holidays in Anchorage

You may have read in the Anchorage Daily News about a new policy regarding certain religious holidays and the scheduling of school activities. If not, a link to the article is here . The new rules do not mean that school will be out on these new holiday inclusions, but that the Anchorage School District will avoid scheduling activities, like sporting events, on these days. The new list includes Passover, Rosh Hashanah , Yom Kippur , Eid al - Fitr and Eid al - Adha . They are added to a list which includes New Year's, Orthodox Christmas and Easter, Good Friday, Easter, Thanksgiving Day and Christmas. The new holidays may be unfamiliar to some: Passover is a Jewish celebration, in the springtime, that commemorates the events in Egypt that led up to the Exodus. The name of the holiday comes specifically from the fact that the angel of death "passed over" the houses of the Israelites during the plague which killed the eldest sons of the Egyptians. Passover is a holiday
Post a Comment
Read more

Latibule

I like words and I recently discovered Save the Words , a website which allows you to adopt words that have faded from the English lexicon and are endanger of being dropped from the Oxford English Dictionary. When you adopt a word, you agree to use it in conversation and writing in an attempt to re-introduce said word back into regular usage. It is exactly as geeky as it sounds. And I love it. A latibule is a hiding place. Use it in a sentence, please. After my son goes to bed, I pull out the good chocolate from my latibule and have a "mommy moment". The perfect latibule was just behind the northwest corner of the barn, where one had a clear view during "Kick the Can". She tucked the movie stub into an old chocolate box, her latibule for sentimental souvenirs. I like the sound of latibule, though I think I would spend more time defining it and defending myself than actually using it. Come to think of it, I'm not really sure how often I use the
2 comments
Read more

When the Body of Christ is Fat

Bitmoji Julia enjoys tea Within a very short amount of time, two people whom I love were called "fat ass". One of these slurs occurred in the church building and the other occurred in the same building and within the context of worship. Both incidents were the result of a person with already impaired judgment lashing out at the person who was in front of them, perceiving them to be unhelpful or denying aid or service. Regardless of the "why", the reality is that the name was uncalled for, hurtful, and aimed to be a deep cut. The reality is that a person who is under the influence of legal or illegal substances and often displays impaired judgment can still tell that body shaming- comments about shape, appearance, or size- is a way to lash out at someone who is frustrating you. That means those words and that way of using them are deeply rooted in our culture. An additional truth is that when we, as a congregation, attempted to console and listen to those who h
6 comments
Read more