Here Am I. Send Me: Being on the Side of the Truth in a Post-Truth Age

“[T]he 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”- John 18:37b-38a

Pilate didn’t expect an answer from Jesus that day. The irony, of course, is that Truth itself is standing right there in front of him, but Pilate doesn’t recognize it. Instead, he rushes to get rid of this problem thrown at him in the morning. The truth has a way of disrupting us from time to time.

But, no matter how difficult, unpleasant, or uncooperative the truth may be, it always has a way of prevailing in the end. That’s why whatever is true, good, and beautiful is of God and why Jesus affirms that he came to testify to the truth and that those who listen to him are on the side of the truth. His church, his veritable body here on earth, is all about the truth.

When Paul writes to Timothy about church matters in Ephesus, he focuses on what the church is, eventually likening it to a grand, stately structure with a high ceiling and large pillars to hold it up. Foundations are often taken for granted, but without a firm one, such a structure would collapse easily. And so Paul presents the church as the household of God - a family, but then he switches to this structure metaphor, writing that God’s household is "the church of the living God, the pillar and foundation of the truth” (1 Tm 3.15b).

This image of the church reveals how the truth both sustains the church and yet the church also has a role in upholding the truth to the world. A foundation without pillars offers little to the world, but even worse would be pillars without their own foundation - they'd simply collapse. 

A Post-Truth Age?

Many today are wondering if we are entering a post-truth age. For as long as there have been people with imaginations and people with greed, the truth has shown itself to be rather bendable. But nowadays, with AI, media being owned by a few very rich people who care little about standards, and phones that deliver us tailor-made, distorted visions of the world, the truth seems to be in peril now more than ever before.

And that brings me back to the church - the household of God that is to listen to the truth, is to be sustained by the truth, and is to uphold the truth to the world. But what happens if the church too gets caught up in our new post-truth age? The era of the Old Testament prophets gives us some insight as God sent them to his household, Israel, in order to call them back to God - to the truth. 

When God's People Abandon the Truth

For starters, one thing that never stopped when God’s people abandoned the truth is their religious ceremonies and festivals. John chapter 18 notes that the leaders who handed Jesus over to Pilate were influenced by their own concerns to maintain ritual purity during a religious festival. God sent Amos to a relatively rich and powerful era of Israel’s history to complain about how they bothered keeping up their religious rituals, while denying the truth behind them:

“I hate, I despise your religious festivals;

    your assemblies are a stench to me.

Even though you bring me burnt offerings and grain offerings,

    I will not accept them.

Though you bring choice fellowship offerings,

    I will have no regard for them.

Away with the noise of your songs!

    I will not listen to the music of your harps.

But let justice roll on like a river,

    righteousness like a never-failing stream!”

- Amos 5:21-24 (cf. Isaiah 1:10-15)

And so today churches that have abandoned the truth are still holding worship services, maybe even well-attended ones. They probably have robust social media output too, right alongside churches of the truth. So if such things are not a mark of a church that has abandoned the truth, then what is? The answer in the Book of Isaiah is whether or not God’s people recognize God’s authority over them by following his heart.

The prophet Isaiah recounts his prophetic calling in a vision where he is brought up to God’s holy throne room that was full of majestic angels worshipping the shimmering glory of the Lord. And in contrast, Isaiah knew that his people and himself did not live up to God’s truth. He lamented that he was unclean and his people were unclean, but God takes away his guilt, atoning for his sin, and gives him a calling to go to his own people and proclaim ruin and judgment unless they too repent like he did. He responds to the call, “Here am I. Send me! (6:8).

Oddly enough, Isaiah does not begin his book with this vision or calling. Instead there are five chapters of God’s case against his people who have wandered far from the truth. Instead of following God’s holy law that reflects his righteous character and his mercy, they have pursued fleeting pleasure, exploitive wealth, and cruel power:

First, God condemns them for not recognizing their own Father, Lord, and Master: 

“I reared children and brought them up,

    but they have rebelled against me.

The ox knows its master,

    the donkey its owner’s manger,

but Israel does not know,

    my people do not understand” (1:2b-3).

Next, God bluntly tells them to stop doing wrong and instead embrace his values, which are polar opposite from the values of the world:

"Wash and make yourselves clean.

    Take your evil deeds out of my sight;

    stop doing wrong.

Learn to do right; seek justice.

    Defend the oppressed.

Take up the cause of the fatherless;

    plead the case of the widow. [. . .].

Your rulers are rebels,

    partners with thieves;

they all love bribes

    and chase after gifts.

They do not defend the cause of the fatherless;

    the widow’s case does not come before them” (1:16-17, 23).

God makes it clear that the poison and corruption of his people flows from the top down - their own leaders have betrayed them:

The Lord enters into judgment

    against the elders and leaders of his people:

“It is you who have ruined my vineyard;

    the plunder from the poor is in your houses.

What do you mean by crushing my people

    and grinding the faces of the poor?”

declares the Lord, the Lord Almighty” (3:14-15).

God judges those who are profiting from this upside-down life, who are all caught up in themselves…in the passing moment, never valuing God and his precious creations into account:

"Woe to those who rise early in the morning

    to run after their drinks,

who stay up late at night

    till they are inflamed with wine.

They have harps and lyres at their banquets,

    pipes and timbrels and wine,

but they have no regard for the deeds of the Lord,

    no respect for the work of his hands" (5:11-12).

Messengers of the Truth

And that brings us back to Chapter 6 and the throne room scene where God tells Isaiah that people will not listen to his message until judgment comes. It’s easy to envision ourselves as an Isaiah, responding “Here am I. Send me.” It’s harder to admit to our own sins and then be willing to proclaim a message to our own family and friends about what true obedience and faithfulness actually looks like. I struggle being up for such a challenge, but perhaps I am still at that first stage - seeing my own uncleanness and observing my own temptation to abandon the truth.

The best thing about the truth is that it will always be vindicated in the end; that’s the hope of all of the prophets, especially Isaiah (e.g. chapters 55, 66). And that was the hope for Jesus as well, even as he faced the cross (Hebrews 12:2).

As for Pilate, he was pretty hopeless, as are all of those who live their lives uncertain of the truth. The only version of "truth" he knew was political power based on fear, greed, lies, and oppression. As God’s church let’s offer the world the real truth, full of justice and righteousness that roll down like a river! Our worship should reflect our way of life and vice versa. This is the way.