What Will Heal

John 18:37-38

September 20, 2026 • Mount Pleasant UMC

I feel like I need an announcer with a deep voice saying, “Previously on “‘Broken Signposts…’” because today we’re picking up the story in the Gospel right where we left off last week. So, in case you weren’t here last week, it’s the story of Jesus’ trial, in particular the part where he is standing before the Roman governor, Pontius Pilate. You might remember that Pilate was not a nice man and history probably would have forgotten him except for this one morning that was interrupted by the Jewish leaders demanding he do something about this Jesus character. They wanted something done about him because he was disrupting their nice, respectable religious practices. But that kind of accusation wasn’t going to fly with Rome, so they bring him to Pilate on charges of sedition, threatening the Roman government. Actually, in John’s gospel, they don’t name any specific charges, I’m guessing that’s so they can’t be accused of lying later. They simply tell Pilate, “If he were not a criminal, we would not have handed him over to you” (18:30). Take our word for it, governor. And so Pilate’s job is to find out what exactly is going on here, and to decide what to do with Jesus.

So we’ve been talking for the last several weeks about these “Broken Signposts,” these ideas, all rooted in the Christian faith, which help us make sense of the world. We have talked about love, justice, freedom, beauty, and spirituality, and then last week we focused on power. Pilate is all about power. He has the power of Rome on his side and as far as Judea is concerned, whatever he says is what happens. But the kind of power he wields is rooted in fear—specifically the fear of death. He will tell Jesus in chapter 19 that he has the power of life and death over him, to which Jesus says, “You would have no power over me if it were not given to you from above” (19:11). All of these signposts have their origin in God, the creator and sustainer of the world, but he has entrusted their use to us, and we have broken every one. And that’s never more true than the final signpost we come to today, which is truth.

Truth seems to be in short supply these days because everyone you talk to has a different “truth.” “Live your truth,” we are told, and because of that, it’s hard to know where to find truthful sources. It’s hard to know what to believe! So-called “truth” today is largely “socially constructed,” which means that we tell ourselves big stories that are usually self-serving lies (cf. Wright, Broken Signposts, pg. 137). In other words: it’s my truth, and it’s all about me. “Truth” becomes whatever we want it to be—usually, whatever makes us look good. For instance, a colleague of mine once told me he had decided to quit a particular ministry. “It wasn’t for me anymore,” he said. What he didn’t know is that I knew people in that ministry who told me a whole different story about how he had been asked to leave. Which story was truly true? On a much larger scale, think about the recent war between Israel and Hamas, largely centered in the Gaza Strip. I know a lot of people who would tell me exactly what was happening, and how one side or the other was completely in the right. And yet, I’ve been there. I’ve been on both sides of the infamous wall. Right and wrong are not as clear cut as we over here seem to think they are—or as our news stations tell us they are. I’ve talked to people on both sides, and it’s a very complex political situation in which the stories each side tells are incompatible. They can’t both be true, and in reality neither one is completely true. Sometimes, “truth itself seems as far away as the farthest star” (Wright 140).

I used to tell my kids they would get in far less trouble if they just told me the truth. I wanted them to know that even if they had done something wrong, it was always going to be better to tell the truth than to try to cover it up. And yet, even as adults, we grow up believing we can somehow “save face” or “protect someone else’s feelings” if we skirt the truth or even tell an outright lie. It’s not just politicians who lie to us; we tell each other “little white lies.” What are those? Is there a definition for “little white lies”? I think it’s this: whatever we think we can get away with. And while untruths used to spread from person to person over a longer period of time, now they spread like wildfire online. Social media has given us an outlet to share what we believe and think, whether it’s true or not, and the amazing thing is that even when people are presented with the irrefutable facts, very often they continue to hold onto “their truth.” And the situation in our world doesn’t help at all. Seth Dillon, owner and CEO of the Christian satire site The Babylon Bee, once said it was getting harder and harder to write satire because what was actually happening in the world was so crazy. And so I think Pilate and his haunted question would be right at home in today’s world.

Let me explain. Pilate, as I said, has been trying to figure out why the religious leaders are so upset with Jesus, and he couldn’t care less about their religion or their arguments about it. So he focused on the political issue: “Are you king of the Jews?” (18:33). It’s a laughable question, and I wonder if Pilate had a smirk on his face when he asked it. Obviously, this man in chains and ragged clothes is no king. And besides, any supposed king would have been appointed by Rome, so Pilate knows that if Jesus says “yes,” he’s just delusional, not dangerous. I mean, after all, his supporters had all fled. It’s not like he had a professional army at hand or anyone who was actually a threat to the empire. Jesus, however, has told Pilate that his kingdom is “not of this world” (18:36); as we talked about last week, what he means is that it’s not from this world but it is for this world. Jesus’ kingdom is intended to transform this world into the world God intended in the first place.

Pilate seizes onto Jesus’ claim that he has a kingdom, so Jesus must believe he is a king, right? I mean, that makes sense. So he is a king! He is delusional! He basically just admitted it! But Jesus, once again, points beyond Pilate’s accusation to the heart of the matter. “You say that I am a king,” he says, basically dismissing that issue (cf. McKnight, John, pg. 296). It’s like he’s telling Pilate, “Call me whatever you want. I’m not really interested in that. Here’s what I really want you and everyone else to see: truth.” Listen again to what he tells Pilate: “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” (18:37). So, basically, he says he came to speak a word that everyone needs to hear and needs to listen to. He came to push aside all extraneous stuff and help us to see what is really true. Like a piece of beautiful artwork that needs cleaning from the grime and dirt accumulated through the centuries, real truth is on display for the first time in a long time. Truth is a person; truth is Jesus, and those who listen to him find true truth.

Jesus’ claim to truth is not new here. It’s shown up in other places in John’s Gospel, so any careful reader isn’t surprised by what he says to Pilate. Back in chapter 8, Jesus, speaking to some Jews who believed in him, told them this: “If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free” (8:31-32). We talked about that passage a few weeks ago, so here I just want to point out that Jesus claims to lead people to truth. And that claim makes the religious leaders angry. Not all that different from today. Did you see the story a few weeks back about the man who became agitated on an airplane when his seat mate, Messianic Jewish author Jonathan Cahn, started talking about Jesus? According to Cahn’s report, the man became violent, so much so that the airline staff had to restrain him with duct tape. Jesus’ claims to point people to the truth still makes people angry. But Jesus does more than point people. A little further on, in chapter 14, he does more than point to the truth; he claims to be the truth himself. During that final walk with the disciples, he says to them, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me” (14:6). That statement still makes people angry. How dare Jesus make such a claim! Isn’t every religious path valid for finding God? How can he claim to be the truth? And yet, that’s what he says. Whether we like it or not. Whether we think it’s fair or not. I appreciate the late Tony Campolo’s take on it. Years ago, on a podcast, I heard him say that God can do whatever he wants to do as far as saving people, but the only sure way we know he has provided is Jesus. Jesus is the way, the truth and the life. He did not wobble on that. He did not intend to. The reason it makes people angry, still today, is because, as N. T. Wright puts it, “The truth he is telling simply won’t fit into their models of how the world works” (148). And so Jesus tells Pilate the truth: “Everyone on the side of truth listens to me” (18:37).

And while that is a great—well, truth for lack of another word—to hold onto, what has long captured my attention is Pilate’s reaction. And this is where I think Pilate would fit perfectly into today’s world. His response and his actions are exactly where a lot of people seem to be today. The translation we read today says Pilate “retorted,” which to me implies anger and frustration. But the original text doesn’t give us any clue as to how Pilate asked what he asked. We simply don’t know. Some interpreters think he was reflective. Some think he was sarcastic. And some think he was wistful and weary (cf. Barclay, The Gospel of John—Volume 2, pg. 242). I think he could have been any or all of those, actually. He’s living in a political system where “truth” can change at the drop of a hat—Caesar’s hat, to be specific. Whatever Caesar says is truth, that’s truth for that moment. I don’t know how Pilate was feeling, but I do believe the question was an honest one. He wasn’t asking just to poke at Jesus or to continue the trial. I believe Jesus’ statement must have stirred something inside Pilate, brought to mind the fact that despite all his power and all his wealth and all his achievements, he still hadn’t found what he was looking for, to quote an old U2 song. “What is truth?” Pilate asks. And then, without giving Jesus a chance to answer, Pilate turns and leaves, going back to those who were demanding a particular sentence to be passed. “I find no basis for a charge against him,” he tells them (18:38). But I can’t help but think, all through that walk and even when he speaks to the Jewish leaders, the question he asked is still hanging in the air. What is truth?

Don’t you wonder what Jesus would have said to Pilate if Pilate had lingered to hear an answer (cf. Card, John: The Gospel of Wisdom, pg. 191)? I do. I would have loved to hear Jesus explain truth point by point to this Roman political leader. But, unfortunately, we don’t get that, and maybe because of that, people today are still asking Pilate’s question. Maybe more than I can remember in my lifetime, the question lingers in the air. Like I mentioned earlier, our culture tells us that truth is whatever you want it to be, but deep in our souls, deep in our God-created souls, we know that can’t be. We can’t all have different truths because if truth is anything, it is singular. If I believe that 1+1=2 but you believe that 1+1=3, we can’t both be right. Both statements cannot be true, no matter how much we believe them. We hear people affirming any sincere belief, but folks, we can be sincerely wrong. I can climb on top of this building and sincerely believe that I am gonna fly when I leap off, but my sincere belief won’t make it so when the truth of gravity causes me to crash into the parking lot. Truth cannot be as relative as we try to make it today. So what is truth? Is there an answer to Pilate’s question?

The irony that is usually pointed out, of course, is that truth with a capital “T” is standing right in front of Pilate. Jesus is truth; he is the answer to what the world is all about. John has told us this way back in chapter 4 with the story of the woman whom Jesus met at a well. The disciples, if you remember, have gone into town to get food while Jesus rests by this well. They are in Samaritan territory, enemy territory because Jews and Samaritans, though biologically related, did not get along with each other. Lots of reasons for that which aren’t important right now except for the fact that Jesus is in a place he shouldn’t have been. And he strikes up a conversation with a woman, which he also shouldn’t have done. So truth isn’t all that concerned with cultural conventions, is it? Lots of layers to that conversation, but the piece I want to focus on is when Jesus asks her to call her husband to join them, and the woman tells…part of the truth. “I have no husband,” she says (4:17). Now, we might likely just move on with the conversation, because it’s getting personal and uncomfortable. It’s none of our business, we might say, why she has no husband. But we’re not Jesus. Or, better, Jesus is not us. He acknowledges that what she has said is true. Partly. “You are right when you say you have no husband,” he tells her. “The fact is, you have had five husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband. What you have just said is quite true” (4:18). That last part is interesting to me. What she said was true—as far as it went. But Jesus challenges her to a different kind of truth (cf. Wright 144), one that exposes who she is and the hurt deep inside. Truth deals with the whole person. Jesus deals with the whole person.

We live in a world that specializes in lies. I wonder what the woman at the well might have had on her Facebook page. If she’s anything like us, and I suspect she was, she would have had carefully curated pictures of her vacations, her kitchen, her meals, and her milestone achievements with the hashtag #bestlife. We all know what we see online is only a snippet of the real lives people live, and yet social media has conditioned us to compare ourselves to everyone else. One author says, “Social media has weaponized comparison in ways previous generations couldn’t have imagined” (Smith, Into the Deep, pg. 51). We’ve learned to lie and believe that someone else’s life would be better than ours. It’s called “identity borrowing,” the belief that if we could just have that other life, everything would be okay (cf. Smith 53). The woman at the well must have done that a hundred times a day or more, and so Jesus confronts her with the truth of her life. Only then, only when she lives in the truth, can she begin to move forward. Jesus is truth and he will not let us get away with the lies.

Maybe that’s why we’re so stuck today. We refuse to live in the truth; we refuse to acknowledge the one who is the way, the truth and the life. He’s standing right in front of us and we turn away, just like Pilate. Danish philosopher and theologian Soren Kierkegaard once said, “Christ is the Truth inasmuch as he is the way. [One] who does not follow the way also abandons the truth. We possess Christ’s truth only by imitating him, not by speculating about him” (qtd. in Beck & Acevedo, A Field Guide to Methodist Fresh Expressions, pg. 106). In other words, Pilate can talk all day about truth, but until he decides to imitate Jesus, to follow him, he won’t know what real truth is.

So how do we follow him into truth? We become people who tell the truth like Jesus did. I’m not talking about showing up at wells and confronting people about their past. I’m talking about doing what Jesus did before Pilate—standing for the truth in a world of lies. Telling the story of Jesus and how he has changed my life and yours. That is the truth the world needs. That is what will repair the signpost of truth in our world today. In John’s Gospel, the Spirit that lives within us is called “the spirit of truth” (14:17). Right after Jesus says that, though, he goes on to say, “The world cannot accept him…” (14:18). Because the world lives by lies, not truth. A bit later, he assures the disciples that the sprit will “guide you into all the truth” (16:13) and he will enable Jesus’ followers to bear witness to that truth. Or, as N. T. Wright puts it, “At the heart of the church’s truth telling will be its true telling of the story of Jesus himself” (152).

I saw a news story the other day on social media about an outreach a church was doing, providing housing and such for a community, which is great and I’m sure much needed. What stuck with me, though, were the comments, which one after another went something like this: “That’s what the church should be doing.” Now, I want you to hear me clearly: churches should absolutely be seeking to make a difference in the lives of the people around them, bringing hope and healing into neighborhoods. But that is not the primary purpose of a church. Those things are important, vital even, but they are not the main reason the church exists. Jesus did not come to heal and raise the dead and feed people; he did those things so that they would hear his message: “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near” (Matthew 4:17). We care for people so that they can hear the truth of the message: “The kingdom of heaven has come near.” And only when we, God’s people, the church, tell the truth can the signpost be repaired and the world be healed.

“What is truth?” Pilate could just as easily have inserted any of these signposts into that question and he would have fit right into today’s world. The world is asking questions. Your neighbors are asking questions. What is love? What is justice? What is freedom, beauty, spirituality, and power? What is truth? The answer to all of these questions is actually the same. Jesus is love. Jesus is justice. Jesus is freedom and beauty and spirituality and power…and truth. The key to repairing all of these broken signposts and bringing healing to the world: the church, God’s people, must tell the story of Jesus and live the story of Jesus. The world is asking the right questions. Our neighbors are asking the right questions. Will they hear the right answer—the true answer, the healing answer—from us? Let’s pray.