The Truth About Rumors

It’s a cold early spring morning. In a season that is often celebrating new life, a group of religious hypocrites want blood. They want approval from their Roman governor to kill an innocent man. They send him, chained up and beaten, to the Governor’s palace. The Governor really wants nothing to do with their pity issues with this nobody, but they’re relentless; they want this man dead. So the Governor meets the alleged criminal privately. What takes place in this meeting is one of the most fascinating conversations in history. In one corner, a powerful Governor of a dominant Empire. In other corner, a traveler who’s message was gaining followers by the day and many argued, was on it’s way to changing the world.

A lot had been said about this prisoner. What he wasn’t and the rumors that attached to him aren’t historically recorded in their entirety, other than the fact that he was confused for being the return of some famous religious people like Moses or Elijah. Who he actually was, he had said plenty of times in his short life on earth. Many just seemed to have a hard time believing, well, the truth. Which is going to be focal point of our blog today. When we go to someone for information, isn’t the truth what we’re seeking? Or is it something that just supports our own preconceived ideas that we want to be the truth so we don’t have to change our own minds about something because that would mean we’re wrong?

I hate rumors. I hate rumors because I care what people think about me. I’ve been told for years I care too much. For a long time, especially when I first graduated high school and I was kind of lost in the shuffle as to what God wanted to do in my life, I change my appearance, change my interests, friendships, relationships, all out of the fear of what others were thinking. Yeah, incase you aren’t already thinking it, it made me look like an idiot. I wish I could say at 18 I learned my lesson, but I didn’t. I continued making that mistake in my early 20’s. Rumors were just fuel to the fire that I created myself. Rumors are annoying because I make plenty of mistakes all by myself. I don’t need made up stories or stretches of the truth smearing my name to go with it. Rumors can quickly make you the laughing stock, destroy your reputation and the reputation of your family, church, work place, you name it. They’re also annoying because if you didn’t give people something to talk about in the first place, people wouldn’t play telephone with your reputation.

The prisoner in question had a lot of rumors made about him. He cared what others thought about him too. But here’s where me and this prisoner are different: He’s the epitome of innocence. Also, he didn’t care what others thought about him for himself. He cared for their sakes. You see, like me or hate me, I have little to offer you in comparison to what this prisoner was promising his followers. I mean, to be blunt, I can’t give anybody life after death. I can’t heal the sick, keep the party going by turning water to wine, and I certainty can’t bring anyone back from the dead. But this prisoner? He did. Life lesson: When you crash funerals by bringing the diseased to life, you should expect rumors. The man in question promised his followers that everyone that believed in him, wouldn’t have to fear death, but would spend eternity with him in heaven. He claimed to be the son of God. This is some heavy stuff. But what made him end up shackled in Governor Pilate’s palace (say that ten times fast) was his claim to be a four letter word – a word that would trigger these religious elites to illegally arrest him in the middle of the night in a garden, send him off to Pilate and eventually his death. He claimed he was King.

By who’s authority? King of who? If he’s King, where’s his kingdom? They found him in a garden when some half asleep friends of his, praying in the middle of the night? Pilate at least has a palace; where’s this King’s castle? I mean, these are questions I’d ask, right? After all the rumors, all the spectating and here say, what’s the truth? Let’s take a look at their conversation recorded in the Gospel of John chapter 18:

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.

So this went about as predicted, “are you a king? Where’s your kingdom?” But this last question, I gotta tell you when I read this, this last week, it was one of those, “how have I never caught this?” moments when studying scripture. Pilate asks what was the most important question he gave to Jesus in this historical confrontation. “What is truth?” And what does he do after? Well, if you keep reading in John 18, he walks away. He asks the most important question and doesn’t allow a response. I want to know what Jesus would’ve said to him, but we’ll never know because he left the prisoner’s presence, sought counsel with the Jews, exchanged Jesus for another prisoner and thus he was crucified. Pilate would have to live with that the rest of his life. To my theologians, yes, I get it, thank you. Jesus took His own life and could’ve stopped all of this from happening, but He didn’t and through His death, burial and resurrection, fulfilled prophecy and kept His promise that he was the resurrection and the life. I get it.  But Pilate didn’t know that in this moment. All Pilate knew was what he heard. But was what he heard from the source? Was what he heard the truth?

Unfortunately, this is the reality we live in a lot of times. People will hear something, and if the rumor is juicy enough, or fits their narrative, then it must be truth. If you already don’t like someone or a group of people, and you hear something harmful about them, how much work are you going to do to find out if its really true? How easy is it to just say, “eh, makes sense.” I don’t know if Pilate ever came to a place in his life when he realized he truly needed Christ, but if this was the extent of their relationship, not waiting to hear Jesus’ answer cost Pilate, “everlasting life” (John 3:16). So with that, do you seek the truth or do you believe in everything you hear? Think about this: What could not knowing the truth be costing you? Friendships? Peace of mind? The ability to forgive? Rumors cost relationships with family members, fellow church goers, friends, coworkers and its all lies. Is it worth it?

“If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” – Jesus; John 8:32-33

Signing out for now. Talk to you again soon. Thanks for reading.