Questions, Questions, Questions

Three meditations by Torin Eikler
Matthew 21:1-11 Matthew 26:69-75 John 18:33-38

Matthew 21:1-11 “Who is this Man?”
The story we are celebrating today – what we have come to call Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem – was a strange episode by any standards. Today we would find such a scene laughable, but even in ancient Israel I don’t think it would have been the norm. Here was a man riding into town astride both a donkey and a colt with no banner flapping and no guard of honor, and he received a hero’s welcome – the fore-runner perhaps of more recent ticker-tape parades. It was the sort of treatment reserved for war heroes or reluctantly given to the very important people of the occupying empire. And that, of course, is why it upset the Jewish authorities and why we call it the triumphal entry.

But what a scene to witness…. Imagine coming down the street to find a crowd of half-dressed people lining a dusty road on covered with the rest of their clothes with some branches from nearby trees thrown in for good measure. They’re shouting, chanting “Hosanna, [Praise] to the Son of David. Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord!” And when you look to see what all the fuss is about, to see who it is that deserves such praise as to verge on worship, you discover not a prince or a general but a ragtag bunch of men and women in dirty clothes led by a person who seems no different from anyone else. You wonder out loud, “who is this man?” Someone nearby tells you, “This is the prophet Jesus of Nazareth in Galilee.”


That is an answer to the question. I think it’s likely that some of them would recognize the name and would have heard the stories about him. Maybe they joined in once they realized who that was riding the colt. But most of the people who were up on the gossip of the day and were cheering for Jesus would have gotten the word ahead of time, I think. They were the ones who made up the crowds on the street. It was the rest of the city, the people who were thrown into turmoil by the spectacle of his entrance that were asking the question, and I think they meant it along the lines of, “What is so special about this man? Why is he receiving such adoration?” And the answer they got was not the answer they were looking for. “Yeah, … so he’s Jesus of Nazareth … So what?”

Now there’s a question that transcends time and culture, a question that theologians and apologists have been struggling to answer for century in defense of Christianity, a question that faces each of us if and when someone asks us what we believe. We believe in Jesus the Christ …. So what? Who is this Jesus Christ you worship? Who is this man whose life … and death you celebrate, whose example you ponder, whose teachings you seek to follow?
Maybe you’ve never been in that position. Maybe no one has ever challenged your faith or asked you to defend what you believe. I suppose that’s both a good and a sad thing – good if it’s because so many people have discovered their own truth about Christ … sad because facing those questions is a very effective way to explore our faith and what it means to us.

What would you say if you were in the crowd? What would your answer be if someone you knew asked you the same question? Who is this man to whom we shout hosanna … this rabbi and prophet from Nazareth … this Jesus Christ?


Matthew 26:69-75 “Do you know him?”
I’ve often thought that Peter gets a bit of a bad rap in the gospels. More than once, he is the one who speaks for the disciples, voicing the opinion or viewpoint they all share and sharing the answers that none of the others is willing to put out there, and so he becomes the butt of many of the lessons Jesus teaches them. Sometimes, like when he names Jesus the Messiah, the son of most high God, he gets things spectacularly right. Other times, he is way off base. On this night, we see him living up to our lowest expectations.

Standing there beside the fire he denies Jesus not once but three times. He stands there in the warm darkness … stands by and watches as his rabbi and friend is taken away by his enemies. He leaves Jesus to face brutality and trial cold and alone.

What made him do it? Why didn’t he acknowledge the one he had chosen to follow? He was afraid – afraid of discovery … afraid of what would happen if he too were arrested. Who wouldn’t be … standing in the bastion of power of those who had so easily arrested a man with powers he couldn’t aspire to. If they arrested Jesus what would they do to him, to the man who had cut off one of their ears?

Of course he was afraid, … but I wonder if there wasn’t something else that moved him to that vigil because Peter was a brave and faithful man too. Who else had named the messiah, the son of the most high God? Who else followed the soldiers to the courtyard that night? Who else had picked up a sword to defend Jesus against a whole squad of professional soldiers?

And so I wonder if Peter denied Jesus as much out of hope and faith as out of fear. How many other times had Jesus been in a tight spot only to find some way to confound his would-be accusers and win his freedom? Who, if not the man who had stilled a storm … who had broken even the hold of death … who else had the power to break the hold of any chains that bound him and walk away untouched?

I think, maybe, Peter was waiting so that someone would be there to greet Jesus once he had won his freedom. I think, maybe, he believed that worked his customary “magic” and his ministry would continue – more shining and triumphant than ever. And so he waited in that fearful place in the hope of a dawn that was not to be, buying time by denying Jesus and leaving only when he realized that he had fulfilled a prophesy that he had also denied – that he had done the one thing he thought he never would.


Why is it, then, that we judge him so harshly and with so much pity? I think it’s because we see ourselves in him. We, too, would be the ones to see the divinity in Christ. We, too, would drop everything to follow his lead. We would be the ones with the courage to run along behind the soldiers not knowing what would happen, but hoping that something or someone – maybe us – would change the plot. And, we, too, would stand there watching, waiting, denying, and running.

None of us are martyrs after all, though we may sometimes feel like it. None of us have ever been in Peter’s position. What would we do if it came to that? What would you do if you were faced with the decision to stand with Christ and die or turn away and live?

I don’t think I have it in me to make the stand as much as I wish I could claim that kind of courage and devotion. I think I would choose to live … here and now, and I don’t pretend that I could even do as well as Peter. One time would be enough for me, I think. One question and one denial – “I do not know this man,” and I would be off and running, my sense of guilt and failure growing with each step.

Even though my faith assures me that death is not the end of life, I would turn away.



John 18:33-38 “What is truth?”
“What is truth?” It seems a strange question to be part of a criminal trial. All the rest of the questions Pilote asked were right to the point. “What have you done [to be handed over to me for judgement]?” – the question of a judge trying to understand what’s going on, to figure out if there is really merit for the case being brought. “Are you the king of the Jews?” – anyone claiming that title would be usurping the role of Herod and challenging the authority of the empire. They would be a rabble rouser and could be punished by death. “So you are a king?” – let’s just be sure that we understand the situation before we pass sentence. But “what is truth?” …. That’s a question more fit for philosophical discussion or a church than a court room.

I suppose that Jesus answers were a little less than helpful. He was as evasive and mysterious as ever, which probably got Pilote out of his comfort zone. This was not what he was used to. The man before him was not trying to refute the charges against him. Neither was he some surly criminal or rebel. He was an enigma, a mystery that seemed to make even his accusers uneasy since they had handed him over for sentencing, demanding the death penalty without any evidence but their own dubious claims. Perhaps Pilote’s final question actually got right to the heart of the matter – went straight to the core of what was important … both for the decision he had to make and for the decisions we make every day of our lives.

What is the truth? Plato would have said that truth is an ideal … something we can never know or understand in its fullness, limited as we are by the bodies we inhabit and the world we see around us. That’s an idea that Pilote would have been quite familiar with. But the writer of the gospel of John had a different idea. The good news in this gospel is that Jesus is “the way and the truth and the life” or the way to the true life depending on how you read the text.

For the people who cheered at his entrance to Jerusalem, that meant that he was a great prophet, a teacher who had the power to do signs and wonders in the name of God. For Peter and the other followers close to Jesus, that meant that he was the Messiah, the one who had come to bring freedom to the people of Israel. Many people since then have believed that Jesus was God come to earth to reconcile humanity with the Divine. And there are many more ways to understand who Jesus was and is, but none of them holds all the answers because Plato was right. We only see the truth dimly while we are here.

But it is important to ponder the truth that we do see. The truth, or rather, what we believe is the truth about the man Jesus who we call Christ and Lord?” is the central question we face in the life of faith, and the answer shapes how we live as we seek to join our faith and our daily living as seamlessly as possible.

Do you believe that Jesus was a great teacher or that he was the Messiah? Do you believe that he is the Christ, the Son of God who came to bring salvation to all humanity?

What do you believe?

What is truth … for you?