"What is truth?" Pilate asked.
I posted a little while ago about this book, "Telling The Truth" by Frederick Buechner. We had to read this book as part of a theology and film class I took in seminary. It basically encourages preachers to present the whole truth of the gospel in its tragedy, comedy, and fairytale wholeness. Buechner summarizes better than I ever could so here's what he says:
"It is possible to think of the Gospel and our preaching of it as, above all and at no matter what risk, a speaking of the truth about the way things are. And it is possible to think of that truth as tragedy, as comedy, and as fairy tale.
"The gospel is bad news before it is good news. It is the news that man is a sinner, to use the old word, that he is evil in the imagination of his heart, that when he looks in the mirror all in a lather of what he sees is at least eight parts chicken, phony, slob. That is the tragedy. But it also gives news that he is loved anyway, cherished, forgiven, bleeding to be sure, but also bled for. That is the comedy. And yet, so what? So what if even in his sin the slob is loved and forgiven when the very mark and substance of his sin and of his slobbery is that he keeps turning down the love and forgiveness because he either doesn't believe them or doesn't want them or just doesn't give a damn? In answer, the news of the Gospel is that extraordinary things happen to him just as in fairy tales extraordinary things happen. Henry Ward Beecher cheats on his wife, his God, himself, but manages to keep on bringing the Gospel to life for people anyway, maybe even for himself. Lear goes berserk on a heath but comes out of it for a few brief hours every inch a king. Zaccheus climbs up a sycamore tree a crook and climbs down a saint. Paul sets out a hatchet man for the Pharisees and comes back a fool for Christ. It is impossible for anybody to leave behind the darkness of the world he carries on his back like a snail, but for God all things are possible. That is the fairy tale. All together they are the truth."
I guess this resonates with me because I have experienced truth in these three ways. I have felt the sting of sin and looked in that mirror only to see that chicken, that phony, and that slob. I have laughed those tears of joy in recognition that beyond that reflection in the back corner of the room there is my Lord and Savior who waits to catch me every time I fall - to lift my chin, restore me, and utter..."do better now my child." I've shaken my head in disbelief and awe at how beautiful things are produced with bent, battered, and broken tools such as myself that God chooses to use - how He uses all things toward His purposes.
"What is truth?" Pilate asked. With this he went out....
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