What is Truth? (3)

"Then you are a king?"

"For this I was born and came into the world, to testify to the truth.

Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice."

"What is truth?"

Skeptics (like Pilate) believe that no one possesses truth -- and they are correct!  We do not have the Truth -- it has us:  Those who belong to the truth listen to Me. 

Jean Vanier founded an international network of communities for people with intellectual disabilities, and he also wrote a book called Drawn into the Mystery of Jesus through the Gospel of John.  His title alone would be enough for us to contemplate, if we but followed where it would lead.  But his writing on truth is so profound that all I can do here is to share it with you:

We are called humbly to contemplate the truth that is given to us,

to search unceasingly in order to be drawn into truth,

to be possessed by truth and to serve truth.

To live in truth is to live a relationship of love

with the Word of God made flesh,

who is truth, compassion, and forgiveness.

To be true is to let oneself be challenged by others

and to accept all the brokenness in us.

The truth, then, is not something to make us feel superior.

On the contrary, it calls us into humility, to littleness,

and to the light of love.

All the light in us comes from the light of the Word of God.

The light of truth, then, is the gentle marriage

of what we see and experience,

with what we have received from above and the Word of God,

each one enlightening the other,

each one calling us to live in God

and to see things through the loving eyes and loving heart of God.

I know of no greater joy than to take each event of our lives and to examine it in conversation with The Truth, the Light of the World, Jesus of Nazareth, Who came into the world to bear witness to the Truth.  He alone is the Wisdom of God, the One who "makes sense" of our experience, who opens our eyes to see and to understand the ways of God.  He is indeed the king, but not of this world. 

If Truth possesses us, we, like Mary, turn over "all these things" in our hearts, pondering "what this might mean."  If we do not give ourselves over to Truth, if we do not enter into the Truth, we remain like Pilate, skeptical that Truth exists.  Jesus came to testify to Truth.  The only way we can know Truth is to surrender and to listen to Him.  He unfolded it gradually to those who walked with Him daily.  The process is still the same for us today.