Pondering John 18:28-40

You can click HERE to read the passage.

Two things from this passage:

1) Verse 28 would be comical if it were not so sad. “Then the Jewish leaders took Jesus from Caiaphas to the palace of the Roman governor. By now it was early morning, and to avoid ceremonial uncleanness they did not enter the palace, because they wanted to be able to eat the Passover.”

The Jewish leaders have just finished plotting murder and physically abusing Jesus and committing perjury and yet they are concerned about ceremonial uncleanness. Somehow, in their own minds, they have rationalized that what they were doing with Jesus was right. That they were still clean in the eyes of God. But before I get all high and holy I have to remind myself that I do the very same thing. Perhaps not to the point of killing someone, but I still find ways to justify my sin and make myself (at least in my own mind) clean before God.

2) Verse 38 is a question that has been around for a long time. “What is truth?”  Most people in today’s world have framed the answer in subjective terms. What is true for you may or may not be true for me. But believers take a much more objective approach to this question. Truth is the Word of God! The written and incarnate Word of God. We base our lives on what the Bible says and on who Jesus is. They provide the objective framework for who we are and what we do.

Or at least that’s what we say. Sometimes we act as if the Truth is subjective much like the Jewish leaders did in verse 28. We make it say what we want it to say not what it really says. And in doing so, we grieve the heart of God.

Next Week’s Passage: John 19:1-16