Selah2020: Pause and Reflect

[This reflection was published in the weekly news bulletin of Horley Baptist Church, 26/June/2022]

Pilate said to Jesus, ‘What is truth?’ (John 18:38) I have a good friend who is well over 90 and, whenever our conversation turns to religion – as it often does – he sincerely repeats essentially the same question. He knows quite a lot about Jesus, and what the Bible says, but he can’t (or won’t) believe that Jesus can possibly be the only absolute truth.

After considering what Martin asked us to think about a few Sundays ago, I realised that all my life my trust in Jesus has been more talk than fact. When Chris asks me why I don’t simply trust that everyday problems are in Jesus’s hands, I have no answer. Very recently, situations arose where we needed practical help. And people turned up just in time! She trusted that He would provide. Before they both appeared, I had begun to panic!

I’ve heard all the arguments about how our understandings of the Bible are inevitably a matter of interpretation. If that’s the case perhaps those who say there is no such thing as absolutely reliable truth – even in scripture – are right. That argument has left me deeply unsettled. I’ve read many, many books about such questions – probably too many! Now I think I know where my unease comes from. The problem is all about the word ‘about’!

How can I be expected to trust anyone whom I’ve heard and read all ABOUT but don’t KNOW intimately? It was when I heard Martin urge us to read – really read – the 4 gospels I realised that I was being invited, challenged, to get to know Jesus so personally that His claim to be the truth I need to rest on will be so settled that the PEACE He also promises will increasingly replace my uncertainty and restlessness.

I know my restlessness has roots – most of them going back to childhood – but now I also know that there is no excuse for letting it characterise my life for another minute!

I will get to KNOW the Person who is truth. What about you?

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