IN CHRIST ALONE!: From the Taize Community and the Focolare Movement

These Bible meditations are meant as a way of seeking God in silence and prayer in the midst of our daily life. During the course of a day, take a moment to read the Bible passage with the short commentary and to reflect on the questions which follow. Afterwards, a small group of 3 to 10 people can meet to share what they have discovered and perhaps for a time of prayer.

March 2014

John 18:33-38: “What is truth?”

Pilate then went back inside the palace, summoned Jesus and asked him, “Are you the king of the Jews?” “Is that your own idea,” Jesus asked, “or did others talk to you about me?” “Am I a Jew?” Pilate replied. “Your own people and chief priests handed you over to me. What is it you have done?” Jesus said, “My kingdom is not of this world. If it were, my servants would fight to prevent my arrest by the Jewish leaders. But now my kingdom is from another place.” “You are a king, then!” said Pilate. Jesus answered, “You say that I am a king. In fact, 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.” “What is truth?” retorted Pilate. With this he went out again to the Jews gathered there and said, “I find no basis for a charge against him. (John 18:33-38)

When in the early morning hours Jesus is led before Pilate by a party of his accusers, the representative of imperial Rome does not appear eager to receive them. As John’s Gospel tells it, Pilate first tries to have Jesus sent back to the High Priest and the council. “Take him yourselves,” he says to those who have brought Jesus, “and judge him according to your own law.” For Pilate, Jesus’ case is a strictly religious matter and so not his concern. The reply, however, is immediate: “We are not allowed to put anyone to death.” All at once, Jesus stands there condemned in the starkest of terms, his fate cast into Pilate’s hands. What follows, as Jesus appears now alone before his reluctant judge, is a dialogue unique in the Gospels.

Pilate begins his interrogation with a direct question, “Are you the King of the Jews?” Jesus answers with another question: “Is it you who are asking this, or have others told you about me?” While apparently evasive, Jesus’ response is in fact deeply probing. We might paraphrase it in this manner: in what way is Pilate going to engage with Jesus? Will he ask his own questions or else just repeat the questions of others?

Pilate replies objectively, but with a certain distance. “I am not a Jew, am I; it is your own people who have handed you over.” Then he poses a further question, “What have you done?” Here again Jesus’ reponse could seem evasive, confusing even: “My kingdom is not from this world,” he begins. Jesus’ words introduce into the scene a totally different way of seeing. If Pilate represents Ceasar and his empire, then Jesus too, even as he stands there alone before his judge, embodies a kingdom, one which is very different, however, from Pilate’s. Jesus points out something so obvious that it might not be noticed: no one is struggling to keep Jesus from being handed over, neither the disciples nor Jesus himself. Brute force, constraint, violence are all foreign to Jesus and his kingdom. They do not bring God’s presence to bear in the world. To put this in positive terms: the power of Jesus’ kingdom is defenseless love. In this way he is indeed King.

At this point, a new word—truth—is brought into the dialogue. “I have come,” Jesus says, “to testify to the truth. Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice.” No sooner has Pilate replied—“What is truth?”—then he steps outside to address the gathering crowd. What is going on in Pilate’s mind? His hurried exit after asking such a question would seem to betray exasperation more than anything else, but then he tells the crowd he has found nothing against Jesus. Will he be able to take up the dialogue from where they have left off? Events, however, quickly take a turn for the worse. When Pilate returns, apparently shaken by his exchange with the crowd, he orders that Jesus be flogged. The soldiers then ridicule Jesus by placing on his head a crown of thorns. A step has been taken. A door has been opened and the inexorable logic of torture and derision has entered.

What kind of a man do you think Pilate was? How would you describe the way he interacts with Jesus?

What does the passage tell us about Jesus? What does it tell us about truth and the way we engage with it?

If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love. (Jn 15:10)

These words are taken from Jesus’ Farewell Discourse in the Fourth Gospel (Jn 13:31 – 17:26), which he gave to his apostles after the last supper. It becomes clear that by keeping his commandments we remain in his love. These words also recall an earlier verse where Jesus tells his apostles, ‘If you love me, you will keep my commandments’ (Jn 14:15). Here it becomes clear that love for Jesus must be the moving force, the root for keeping his commandments.

The result is a circular motion between love for Jesus and keeping his commandments. Love for Jesus urges us to live his word always more faithfully and, at the same time, living the word of Jesus makes us abide in him and therefore grow always more in love for him.

If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love.

Abide, therefore, in his love. But what does Jesus mean by this?

Undoubtedly, he means that keeping his commandments is the sign, the proof that we are his true friends. It’s the condition for Jesus to reciprocate and assure us of his friendship. But he seems to mean something else as well: namely, that keeping his commandments builds up in us the same love that Jesus has by nature. Keeping them communicates to us the particular way of loving we see displayed in all of Jesus’ earthly life. It is a love that made Jesus one with the Father and at the same time urged him to identify with and be completely one with all his brothers and sisters, especially with the least, the weakest, the most marginalized.

Jesus’ love was a love that healed every wound of the soul and of the body, gave peace and joy to every heart, overcame every division, rebuilding fraternity and unity among all.

If we put his word into practice, Jesus will live in us and will make us too instruments of his love.

If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love.

How then shall we live this month’s Word of Life? By keeping in mind and aiming decisively at the good it proposes: a Christian life that does not rest content with keeping the commandments in a minimal, cold and outward way, but that is full of generosity. The saints acted like this. And they are the living Word of God.

This month let’s take just one of his words, one of his commandments and try to translate it into life.

Since Jesus’ New Commandment (‘love one another as I have loved you’ (Jn 15:12) is like the heart, the summary of all his words, let’s live it in an utterly radical way.

Chiara Lubich

First Published in May 1994

IN CHRIST ALONE!

Sabado, Marso 1, 2014

From the Taize Community and the Focolare Movement

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