All Christians can agree on this definition of God: “God is love.” That’s an easy one. But there is something else God is that human beings have trouble wrapping their heads around. Jesus told us who God is by introducing Himself:
“I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”
So if we believe Jesus is God, we must also believe God is truth. This is a definition of God that even Jesus’ disciples had trouble embracing, as Jesus himself told Pilate in today’s gospel reading, when Pilate asks him if he’s the King of the Jews.
“Mine is not a kingdom of this world; if my kingdom were of this world, my men would have fought to prevent my being surrendered to the Jews. As it is, my kingdom does not belong here. … I came into the world for this, to bear witness to the truth; and all who are on the side of truth listen to my voice.”
Even Peter, the Rock Jesus chose to lead His church, couldn’t tell the truth when he was repeatedly asked the previous night if he was one of Jesus’ followers. A rooster testified to that the third time Peter told his whopper.
But just as Peter was saved from his own lies by Jesus’ death, so were we all saved, as today’s reading from the Book of Revelation states:
“He loves us and has washed away our sins with his blood, and made us aKingdomofPrieststo serve his God and Father.”
Lies are moving targets while truth is a constant—navigable as the Northern Star. Lies change to suit our needs. In fact they are like a cheap suit that is comfortable for a while but can only hold together for so long until stress and the light of truth shines through it and dissolves its fabric, leaving us naked before God.
God is Truth, and we are called to follow Jesus’ teaching … which is a living testimony to The Truth … constant as the Star ofBethlehem… which the first believers followed to find Jesus. It’s up to us Brothers in Christ to make sure we’re not the last believers.