\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n
“The roots of all violence are found in the hatred of the truth.”\u00c2\u00a0 This is a quote from the 2008 Dean Koontz novel “Your Heart Belongs to Me”.\u00c2\u00a0 Let me say it again:\u00c2\u00a0 “The roots of all violence are found in the hatred of the truth.”\u00c2\u00a0 Thinking back, isn’t that what caused the trial and crucifixion of Jesus?\u00c2\u00a0 Because the Jewish leaders hated the truth that Jesus professed, \u00c2\u00a0their hearts agitated and stirred to get rid of him any way they could.\u00c2\u00a0 Because their laws wouldn’t permit killing him for what he said, they turned him over to the Romans to do it. \u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0And isn’t that what caused the horrible incidents of genocide in our past century?\u00c2\u00a0 Because people like Adolph Hitler, Joseph Stalin, and Pol Pot couldn’t handle the educated or wealthy classes which could challenge them with the truth.\u00c2\u00a0 And isn’t that what is behind abortion today?\u00c2\u00a0 Because people refuse to recognize the truth that a fetus is a human being, a life worthy of living, just like their own.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n
Now in today’s Gospel, Jesus talks about how He is a King, but He is not your typical King.\u00c2\u00a0 He clearly testified to Pilate that he was not a king in an earthly sense-\u00c2\u00a0 he was not challenging secular powers to be the power that ruled secular society- Oh no.\u00c2\u00a0 Rather, He says His Kingdom is not of this World.\u00c2\u00a0 Because the emphasis of Jesus Kingdom is not on power; but rather, the emphasis is on truth.\u00c2\u00a0 Specifically, Jesus says:\u00c2\u00a0 “For this I came into the world, to testify to the truth, everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice”.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n
Now right after this Gospel reading, Pilate responds to Jesus with the statement:\u00c2\u00a0 \u00c2\u00a0“What is truth?”\u00c2\u00a0 Indeed, this was a problem in society at Jesus’ time.\u00c2\u00a0 The authorities did not agree on the truth.\u00c2\u00a0 And it seems to me that the same thing is true today.\u00c2\u00a0 Our society no longer agrees on the truth.\u00c2\u00a0 The leadership in our society has asked the same question- What is truth?<\/p>\n
Certainly, truth is not always simple.\u00c2\u00a0 And that’s what our educated secular society tries to tell us.\u00c2\u00a0 So let’s talk abut truth for a minute.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n
One of my references had an interesting view of truth.\u00c2\u00a0 It said that the Truth can be viewed from three different perspectives.\u00c2\u00a0 First, there are the facts.\u00c2\u00a0 \u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0Facts seem to establish the truth- \u00c2\u00a0because facts are what is generally agreed to have happened.\u00c2\u00a0 The car was white; his eyes are blue.\u00c2\u00a0 At first blush, these details seem to be the facts.\u00c2\u00a0 And yet, people can fail to recognize the most important fact \u00c2\u00a0by concentrating on obvious details and not their meaning.\u00c2\u00a0 Let me give an example.\u00c2\u00a0 When Jesus died on the cross, the fact is that He did it to show his love for us, the point is that the fact of an incident is not so much the sum of all the details that make it up, as it is the meaning behind all the details that make it up.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n
Second, truth includes the morality of something.\u00c2\u00a0 It is the right way of behaving in a given situation.\u00c2\u00a0 It is the “true blue” approach.\u00c2\u00a0 Jesus death on the cross bore witness to obedience to what was right and true for Him; it was Jesus obedience to the call of His conscience, not obedience to his physical welfare, or a quest for self indulgence.\u00c2\u00a0 The truth, then, is that which brings forth righteousness in our hearts, not in our physical comforts.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n
Third, the truth implies trustworthiness and dependence.\u00c2\u00a0 When we say that a friend is true, we mean that we can count on them.\u00c2\u00a0 They are trustworthy and honest, even when that may seem uncomfortable.\u00c2\u00a0 You can depend on the truth; you cannot depend on a lie.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n
Now these three perspectives of truth- \u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0The way things really are; the rightness of things; and trustworthiness- these are all totally consistent with the Love Jesus had for us.\u00c2\u00a0 And so, Jesus certainly did testify to the truth, to Love in His words and deeds.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n
What about us? Do we know the truth for us?\u00c2\u00a0 In the past, our society was a mirror of Christian Morality.\u00c2\u00a0 What inspired our laws and the interpretation of them was the Christian values which were an integral part of our popular culture.\u00c2\u00a0 But I don’t think that is true any more.\u00c2\u00a0 American society today has been secularized, just like the Roman World was secularized.\u00c2\u00a0 Society is offended by the display of the ten commandments; by marriage being defined as between a man and a woman; and by prayer in the schools.\u00c2\u00a0 Society today doesn’t know what truth is.\u00c2\u00a0 So, we can no longer trust society to lead us to the truth.\u00c2\u00a0 Rather, we have to seek it out.\u00c2\u00a0 You can do that in many different ways- by seeking out what the Church does teach on the issues of the day; by reading the Bible and studying it; but most especially, by prayer which leads to direct conversation with God and the graces that flow from it.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n
Why do all of us need to seek and understand the truth?\u00c2\u00a0 Because we all want to be part of Jesus Kingdom.\u00c2\u00a0 Life on this earth ends, but life in Jesus Kingdom is everlasting.\u00c2\u00a0 How do we get there?- by testifying to the truth with our lives.\u00c2\u00a0 The last line of the Gospel says it well:\u00c2\u00a0 Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice. \u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\u00c2\u00a0 Christ The King Dan 7: 13-14; Rev 1: 5-8; John 18: 33b-37 Dc. Larry Brockman “The roots of all violence are found in the hatred of the truth.”\u00c2\u00a0 This is a quote from the 2008 Dean Koontz novel “Your Heart Belongs to Me”.\u00c2\u00a0 Let me say it again:\u00c2\u00a0 “The roots of all violence are […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[6],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=88"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=88"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=88"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=88"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}