+ + + + + On the Fence + + + + +

"If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples.  Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free."

- Jesus (John 8:31-32)

How is it that truth sets me free?  Truth is about black and white.  Truth is the baking concrete under my feet in the summer, reminding me that life is hard so I better deal with it.  Truth is the whip of the master, the razor edge of the knife, the blow of the hammer.  Truth is an unyielding, unforgiving, uncompromising tyrant gleefully watching my failure and not quite satisfied when I do manage to fall within the boundaries.  Truth is a dizzying array of pigeonholes.  Truth is a puzzle with every piece different and fitting in only one place.  Truth is a checklist with an infinite number of pages.  Truth is the electrical leads attached to my skin, waiting for a reason to surge voltage through my tender muscles.  Truth is the cat waiting for the mouse to make a wrong move.

Or is truth something else?

Truth has received a lot of bad press.  The reason being that the human heart, much more fond of deception and fantasy, feels condemned and imprisoned by truth.  When do we ever hear the word "truth" in an upbeat sense?

"I realize that you were told. . .  but the truth is. . ."

"Do you have time to talk?  I need to be truthful about something. . ."

"I swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help me God."

"I've heard both sides of the story.  Now I want the truth."

Not happy conversations usually.  The air is thick with tension.  The room grows quiet.  Someone is going to go away wounded.

The harbingers of truth in Jesus' day were the teachers of the law.  The truth marshals.  If you want to know the way God expects you to behave, ask those guys with the long beards and boxes strapped to their heads.  They'll tell you what to do, not to do, and how to do it (or not do it).  Truth will set you straight or beat you into submission.

Why didn't Jesus say that?

"You will know the truth, and the truth will beat you to a pulp."

Nope.  It will "set you free."  How far from the truth is that in your experience?

Note several important contextual factors in John 8.

• Jesus' audience.  Jesus is in the midst of a people obsessed with finding, knowing and practicing the truth.  Often this clouded their pursuit of God Himself.  The problem was, for many of them, that the truth of the Law had become an oppressive ogre, rendering them so exhausted at checking off boxes while looking over their shoulders that following God became miserable.  They began to drift away from following God altogether.  Truth had become detached from the Truth-Teller.  Jesus had come to rescue them - not with a different "truth" but with clarified truth, and, more importantly, the truth that was dynamically connected to the Living God.  It was the truth that came to bestow life, not suck life out of them.

• The source of truth.  Jesus' first words leading to the discovery of truth are focused on Himself and His teaching.  This could be considered a rather bold challenge to the truth believed to be inherent in the Mosaic Law.  The truth was now more clearly seen once the centuries of varnish was wiped away.  The traditions of moral bean-counters were no longer clouding the vision of what was true.  Jesus brought truth personally into the neighborhood for He was/is truth (see John 14:6 and its context).  Truth is not a list of neatly crafted axioms.  Truth is the presence of God.  Truth is not a periodic golden brick upon which we step to keep our way.  Truth is Jesus Christ walking just ahead of us.  Jesus did not come to replace the old list with a new list.  He came top replace the list with Himself.  We follow HIM.

• The place of truth in the journey.  The statement of Jesus lays out a progression.  Note:  Held "teaching" leads to "disciples" who "know the truth" and then become "free."  Jesus does not slap the shackles of truth on His listeners and then try to convince them that they are now free.  Jesus calls followers to be with Him and, as He does, He teaches them.  Learning with Jesus causes us to become more like Him.  We begin to walk like Him, behave like Him, think like Him, and our transformed life helps us see Him and truth evermore clearly.  That truth so embeds itself into us that we find ourselves immersed in the light of truth.

Suddenly the claws of truth retract.  Truth is not an intimidating beast.  Truth is the fruit of relationship.  Some have considered it a bitter fruit, but its sweetness should be savored.  Truth offers the nectar of freedom.

Those who view religion as oppressive do so because it brings rigid form or rigorous disciplines which tend to strangle the adherent.  A new way of life turns vision away from the old life and toward a new life - one which seems narrow and less fun than that life previously known.

This is not the way of Jesus.

Instead, picture a follower of Jesus being brought inside a fenced area.  The fence represents the boundaries established by a commitment to Jesus.  We must be honest enough to admit that Jesus introduced a fence of sorts.  His call to "deny self, take up your cross and follow me" (Luke 9:23) and similar challenges certainly draw lines in the sand.  But these lines are different than the laws of religious philosophies.

• The fence is divinely-organic, not man-made.  What essentially changes is the human heart, not the boundaries around us.  "I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts" the prophet said (Jeremiah 33:33).  The warped, scarred and broken image given to us in Eden is restored and we have a conscience again - a conscience that more closely resembles God's heart than our sinful one.  Our compulsion to obey and be holy is not driven by our fear of become shredded by the barbed wire of law, but we are given a heart with the capacity to hurt when we stray from the Father's design.  We begin to love holiness as much as He does.  This is definitely a process which takes time, but as God is allowed to meddle in us, truth molds our inner fences.

• The fence does not restrict, but protects.  Fences have two sides and create two contrasting perspectives.  From one side we feel like the monkey in the zoo, wondering why we can't be "out there."  From the other side we feel like the secure citizen, happy that the man-eating lion is contained.  This is why truth in Scripture is so often associated with light as contrasted with darkness.  It is the place of hope, rescue, blessing, favor and joy.  The fool regards truth as the guard rail on the mountain pass that restricts one from the freedom to drive into gravity's maw and discover the bliss of injury and death.  The wise person sees quite another picture: truth is the protector of life, for it knows what a ride to the valley below holds for us - chaos, pain and death.

 

• The fence contains more than it prohibits.  If we must view truth as a fence, then make a 180 degree turn.  Instead of standing at the fence and looking out at your old life, longing for what God has taken from you, turn around.  Look at the vastness within the perimeter of His truth.  You will discover that your old longing was for a small patch of thorns, while what God has protected within His truth is a paradise bigger and more beautiful than the grandest vistas of Montana.  Your old life gave periodic happiness.  Your life in Christ gives eternal joy.

The depths of truth's freedom has yet to be fully fathomed.  Only as we increasingly surrender do we begin to discover that there is freedom that enables the Christ-follower to be at ease in any and every situation.  Our secrets evaporate and playing the part of untarnished sinner can be cast aside.  Living by the script is ludicrous when we can live from the organic pulse of truth.

If the truth is killing you, turn around.  Embrace the Truth and discover the wideness of His mercy.  Allow His holiness to bathe you in joyful surrender.

Only on the lips of Jesus could truth become a tender song beckoning the battered and bruised to drink deeply from the river of true life.