When the church transcends culture, it can transform culture. In the Dark Ages, reform did not arise from the state but from communities of those who remained uncompromising in a compromising age.
~Charles Colson (1931-2012)
So Pilate entered his headquarters again and called Jesus and said to Him, “Are you the King of the Jews?” Jesus answered, “Do you say this of your own accord, or did others say it to you about Me?” Pilate answered, “Am I a Jew? Your own nation and the chief priests have delivered You over to me. What have You done?” Jesus answered, “My kingdom is not of this world. If My kingdom were of this world, My servants would have been fighting, that I might not be delivered over to the Jews. But My kingdom is not from the world.” Then Pilate said to Him, “So you are a King?” Jesus answered, “You say that I am a king. For this purpose I was born and for this purpose I have come into the world—to bear witness to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth listens to My voice.” Pilate said to Him, “What is truth?”
~ Jesus, King of The Universe, in John 18
Oh beloved, it is true. We look through lenses we don’t even know we are wearing. Each of us come from a different part of the world. And that locale, along with all the influences of language and history and context and economy and religion and everything else go a very long way in affecting the way we see – and react to – our world.
And even with the globalization of the globe, the differences have not gone away. Rather, the differences of the cultural approach to how we live become more obvious. Actually, globalization has helped us to see something a little more clearly. Culture is lie.
Culture is a lie just like any other fallen, cosmotic approach to existence is a lie. Culture is a wrapping to cover our putridity. And no matter how different the wrapping is – if it is we who have made the wrapping – it is no different than Adam and Eve trying to cover themselves with fig leaves when they realized their nakedness.
We tend to look at another part of the world and have a reaction that occurs along some sort of continuum. From far away, the culture looks like it has a more balanced approach to life, than the one in which we live now. However, the closer we get (and it does not matter from which direction we come) the more we see that that culture is just as messed up as the one of our own origin.
And then it goes even further. In coming to the culture we have just moved into, we can see that we were really duped by the one that we grew up in. Each of us tends to think that our own way of thinking and processing life was the very best. We nearly deify the way we see the world, and look out at those poor “savages” who do not have the good sense to see things the way that we do.
In seeing other cultures as unbalanced (once we really look at them), we can then look at our own and see it for what it really is. Oh, it is not that the special foods and music and linguistics and humor and art are bad (none of that stuff is). What we see, is that the world does not work anywhere. The entire world is broken, and it groans under the burden of its decay.
And, this is really good news.
Pilate asked the question sarcastically. And the great irony here is that he asked the question of the One who is Truth Himself. However, we can with cross-cultural experiences, see that Truth is not to be found within the system of this world. The collusion of spiritual evil, this fallen world system, and my own wretchedness – can in no way produce any goodness beyond fits and impulse at doing the right thing.
Can we see it? The despair of this world really is informative. There is nothing here for any of us. There must be another place. There must be a place and way of being that is completely different than here if we are to have any hope for the future. Hope does not exist on the other side of the planet. It does not exist anywhere on this globe.
Truly, Hope is a Person. And His name is The Lord Jesus Christ. Further, this same Blessed Hope, has promised that He will indeed usher in another Kingdom (and that actually it has already begun). This place will work – and does work now – if we will but let it begin to work from within us.
So, are you hoping for a geographical or cultural or societal or political solution to your (or the world’s) problems? Time is night beloved. Time to look somewhere else than the world you live in. He is the answer. He is The Way. He is The Truth. He is The Life.
