Is It True?

by Joseph D. Small
Director, Theology Worship and Education

Jesus’ appearance before Pontius Pilate is a scene of unusual poignancy. Recently hailed by adoring crowds, Jesus of Nazareth now stands accused before the power of Rome. He has been betrayed by one of his disciples, denied by another and abandoned by all of them. He has been rejected by religious authorities and shuttled off to undergo judgment by political powers. Now he undergoes a petty interrogation by a provincial official, providing elusive responses to an exasperated Pilate.

Pilate wants to know Jesus’ answer to the charge that he claims to be “king of the Jews,” but Jesus is determined to talk about something else: “You say that I am a king,” he says. “I came into the world to testify to
the truth ... Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice.” Then Pilate utters the words we remember him by: “What is truth?”

Does Pilate ask the question cynically? hopefully? dismissively? curiously? We don’t know. We don’t even know how we intend the question when it passes through our minds. Or — like many in our culture — we may not bother to ask Pilate’s question because we have become resigned to the suspicion that in a world of half-truths and too many truths, there is no real truth to be had.

In the early 1920s a young Karl Barth spoke at various pastors’ conferences in Germany. His addresses are remarkable for their capacity to cut to the heart of the matter, brushing aside marginal concerns and inconsequential worries about pastoral life, and going directly to the desperate need of the church and the world. In an address on “The Need and Promise of Christian Preaching,” Barth describes Sunday mornings when congregation and minister gather in the church. There is expectancy in the air, says Barth, expectancy that something great, crucial and even momentous is to happen. It doesn’t matter if people’s expectation is intensely felt or even if there is anyone at all who consciously yearns with anticipation. “Expectancy is inherent in the whole situation,” says Barth. “God is present. The whole situation witnesses, cries, simply shouts it, even when in minister or people there arises
questioning, wretchedness, or despair.”

What is this expectancy? What brings people to church week after week, and what do they yearn for whether or not they are conscious of their longing? Karl Barth voices the question that feeds anticipation: Is It True?

Is it true, this talk of a loving and good God, who is more than one of the friendly idols whose rise is so easy to account for, and whose dominion is so brief? What people want to find out and thoroughly understand is, Is it true? ... And so they come to us ... They want to find out and thoroughly understand: they do not want to hear mere assertions and asseverations, however fervent and enthusiastic they may be. And they want to find out and thoroughly understand the answer to this one question, Is it true? [The Word of God and the Word of Man, Pilgrim Press, 1928]

Do you think Barth overstates the situation? I don’t.

There is so much conversation these days about “seekers” and about church programs designed to appeal to them. But there is too little
conversation about just what this mythical band of pilgrims is looking for. Community? Affirmation? Practical help with life’s problems? Prosperity? Connection? Success? Some or all of these things, I’m sure. But is it possible that underneath it all is the seeker’s unsettling question —
Is it true? — a question that remains unvoiced because it seems too foolish, too risky? Is it possible that our churches have not dealt with the question that lies beneath all seeking: Is it true?

What if Barth is right? What if the question that confronts us at every point in our ministry the unspoken, yet urgently expectant question, Is it true? The question hovers over every situation: worship, committee meetings, mission trips, hospital rooms, gravesides and wherever people encounter Christian faith — Is it true? People in churches as well as outside of them want to know: Is any of it true, true enough to warrant my time, invite my energy, dry my tears, give me hope?

The question is especially pointed in our educational ministries, of course. The question is always there — in church school, and youth groups, adult studies and informal settings. People are not longing for logical proofs, didactic explanations or interesting information about the past. Their great expectancy (and ours) is for faithful witness to the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God and the communion of the Holy Spirit. Our
great educational calling is to call people to discover the gospel’s answer to the question behind all questions — Is it true?