What were you born for?
In one of my favorite Peanuts cartoons, Lucy says this to Charlie Brown. “I’m intrigued by this view you have on the purpose of life, Charlie Brown.” The next panel says: “You say we’re put here on earth to make others happy.” “That’s right,” says Charlie Brown. The next panel shows Lucy pondering that response. And then in the final panel, she asks: “Then what are the others put here for?”
Jesus answers that question for himself in the gospel. “For this I was born, for this I came into the world – to testify to the truth.” Of all the responses that Jesus could have given to the question of why he was born, isn’t this perhaps the most puzzling, and, the most disappointing? Even Charlie Brown’s response of “We’re here to serve others” seems ‘better’. What does it mean to testify to the truth?
What does it mean to testify to the truth? It is not an idle question in our days. The word truth seems more and more to be modified by possessive personal adjectives. There is my truth, your truth, his truth, and her truth. We know about alternate facts and fake news. What is judged to be true seems to be determined by each person. If I believe, for example, that human life is a gift from God to be cherished from conception to natural death, that is my truth. But if someone else believes human life is just the lucky result of a series of random coincidences, that that is his/her truth. The real question becomes: “Is there a truth about the dignity and inherent worth of all life, from its moment of conception to natural death, regardless of what our ‘opinion’ on the matter might be?
“For this I was born, for this I came into the world – to testify to the truth.” Standing there before Pilate, knowing that Pilate holds Jesus’ physical life in his hands, Jesus is very deliberate. And he stand in the only place that he knows has LIFE for him – in his love for the Father. I have come to serve a kingdom, but not like you think – not with power, not with force or violence. I am no threat to your earthly kingship. But I am a huge threat to what you think really matters. For what really matters is testifying to the truth.
But here you need to understand what that word “TRUTH” meant in the cultural world of Jesus. Truth was not a mental assent to logically proven and deducted formulas. Truth was a road that one can follow with complete trust that it would lead to life. Truth is a road you can follow trusting it will lead you to life.
And what is that truth that Jesus was born for, lived for and died for – if not precisely this? That the kingdom of God is the one where love reigns, where forgiveness rules, where sacrifice is the order of the day, where thinking of the other first is our deepest truth and our greatest priority. The Kingdom of God is any experience and choice in life that loves without holding anything back. The Kingdom of God is every experience and choice in life that loves without holding back. And if that is not a truth that is worth my life, my energy, all that I am and all that I have to give, then I don’t know what is!
We celebrate today the feast of Christ the King, the one who was born to testify to the truth, and the one who would die to show us the ultimate nature of the truth. The pattern, the truth about life that will always lead to LIFE ETERNAL – is that of sacrificial love – loving without holding anything back. FOR THIS I WAS BORN, says Jesus. What are YOU born for?