What is TRUTH?

O Heavenly King, Comforter, Spirit of Truth…This is the prayer which we will first sing together at Vespers on the eve of Pentecost and with which we will begin our prayers and most Divine Services for the rest of the year. Spirit of Truth….What is Truth? Pilate asked Jesus this question right before he had Him crucified.

Today, in the words of NT Wright, we might answer: “Truth is what happens when heaven and earth come together as they were always meant to. Truth is what you find in Jesus, who is the point where that happens. Truth is what happens when the Spirit comes to fill, to guide, to commission, and to empower the followers of Jesus. Truth is what happens when we are caught up in the powerful, healing, transforming love of the Holy Trinity, acted out on the Cross and at the Resurrection, poured out at Pentecost, given so that we, the followers of Jesus, may be truth-tellers, truth-tasters here at the Eucharist, truth-livers as we confront the lies in our own hearts and lives and communities, truth-doers in our public and political life, in our ordering of our church at this often confusing time when we are faced with skepticism and relativism on the one hand and Puritanism and fundamentalism on the other. All we can do in such a time is pray the Pentecost prayer, not as triumphalists trying to trump everyone else with our spiritual superiority but as humble hearts seeking after holiness and hope, and ready to find our minds and our manners remade by the truth, by the Truth Incarnate, by the Spirit of Truth whom He sends from the Father.