Forgive all the reminiscence, and if you want to read more, I can loan you all the collected works which are sitting on my bookshelves here at home. I went through all of that so I could give a little context for the strip I want to talk about. The one I hope you can see right here. I pray there aren’t copyright issues, but I wanted to share it with you. It is typical of many strips with just the two main characters. Calvin says something outrageous or imaginative, and Hobbes adds some interpretive wisdom. Or maybe a little bit of reality. Or truth.
Calvin is here questioning the foundation of reality. Am I real or some sort of figment? And he’s now so troubled by the question that he’s afraid to move. Night has fallen and he still stands at the puddle afraid to challenge the truth that he is real. Who am I? That’s a question we all ask from time to time. Sometimes in the darkness of the night when all the distractions have faded away and there is nothing but you and your thoughts. When “I am what I do” is challenged by the fact that you aren’t doing anything at the moment. Or when you’ve changed what it is that you have done most of your working life. I was a preacher and now I don’t preach. Who am I? Am I real anymore? People ask that when they retire. Or when they lose their jobs. Or when a relationship changes. For so long I belonged to her or to him and now … what? To whom do I belong? Am I real any more?
It’s a questioning time. Elections and pandemics, civil unrest and questions of what is real and true and right seem to come at us from all sides these days. We are standing at the puddle afraid to move away for fear we won’t exist anymore. The tigers of the night come along with a word of truth and we no longer know who we are. Some argue that the popularity of the current president is due to the shakiness of a people who no longer know who they are, or who have been through so much change that they’ve lost their grip on their own reality. Let’s remember a time when things were better, when things were great and go back there. Let’s stand at our puddle even as the darkness falls and look at the self we know and resist change, resist growth. Can we cling tightly enough to a self image with which we are familiar that it won’t vanish when we wander away?
Deep questions, I know. It’s a deep question time. A self and national reflection time. We stare at the image in the puddle and wonder if what we see is the truth about who and what we are. Is this, however we define the this that surrounds us, that overwhelms us, is this truth?
We aren’t the first to ask these questions, you know. The whole field of philosophy is built on these questions. But there is one that comes to my mind when I see Calvin’s worried eyes staring into the puddle in the dark. Pilate. The politician’s politician. He made a career of poking people in the snoot. Flexing his power over temple and ritual. Taunting the religious leaders, sneering at the masses gathering for worship. Oh, sure, he brought peace. Or rather he brought the Pax Romana. The peace of Rome. Which was essentially a cold war of oppression, the iron hand without a velvet glove. The peace of knowing your place, of following the law and keeping the order. He knew who and what he was. A strong man in backwater nation, lining the roadways with the dead and the dying because that’s what leaders do. He knew who he was. Except for a moment. When the mask of confidence slipped and the image in the puddle seemed ready to wander off.
John 18:33-38a Then Pilate entered the headquarters again, summoned Jesus, and asked him, "Are you the King of the Jews?" 34 Jesus answered, "Do you ask this on your own, or did others tell you about me?" 35 Pilate replied, "I am not a Jew, am I? Your own nation and the chief priests have handed you over to me. What have you done?" 36 Jesus answered, "My kingdom is not from this world. If my kingdom were from this world, my followers would be fighting to keep me from being handed over to the Jews. But as it is, my kingdom is not from here." 37 Pilate asked him, "So you are a king?" Jesus answered, "You say that I am a king. For this I was born, and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice." 38 Pilate asked him, "What is truth?"
Once more I wish for an audio version of the Bible story. How did he ask that question? Was it with bored incomprehension that didn’t have time for such high sounding diatribes? With sneering disgust that anyone could see what he had seen in his life and still believe there was such a thing as truth in this messy world of itches and scratches and getting by on greased palms and secret payoffs? Or, and I really wonder, is it possible that in this moment, faced with this prisoner, beaten and bruised before him barely able to make himself understood through the swollen lips and black eyes, that Pilate held his breath allowing himself to hope that maybe there was an answer to his question and this … man … might give it to him?
The last verse goes on with Pilate going to the Jewish leaders standing outside so as not to defile themselves by entering the house of a Gentile and saying, “I find no case against him.” Did he leave because he couldn’t stand to hear the answer to his question, or because there wasn’t one coming? Did his hope give out and the mask get replaced and so he shrugged his shoulders and went out to finish the farce he was a part of?
Except there was an answer, had he stayed a moment longer gazing into the puddle he stood beside. Had he looked at his image and seen that he wasn’t alone. There was that man. Blood dripping on the clean mansion floor, eyes all but hidden behind the swollen and darkened flesh, but staring nonetheless into the core of his being. The truth staring him in the face. The truth, bearing Pilate’s wounds, cradling Pilate’s questions and doubts and fears. The truth offering him hope. Like a tiger ready to spring, threatening his security of power and position and self. But a truth that would set him free.
Who am I? First and foremost I am His. And because I am His, I am more me than I could be on my own. I can wander from the puddle trusting that even if I disappear I will continue in His grace, in His love, in His peace. I am real. You are too. Thanks be to God.
Shalom,
Derek
