The Cost of Recognising the Truth
Sometimes the hardest part is not seeing the truth. It is living with what it asks of us.
Welcome to today’s reflection.
Each weekday, paid subscribers receive an exclusive reflection designed to offer a thoughtful pause amid ordinary life. My prayer is that these brief pieces create a little space for curiosity, contemplation and wonder amid the noise of the day.
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We often imagine that people reject truth because they do not recognise it.
If only they knew more. If only someone explained it more clearly. If only the evidence were stronger. We assume that misunderstanding is the greatest obstacle to belief.
It is an attractive way of looking at the world because it suggests that more information is usually the answer.
But the trial of Jesus makes me wonder whether something much deeper is going on.
When we read the Gospel accounts carefully, the religious leaders do not come across as people who simply failed to understand Jesus. They had listened to him for years. They had watched his miracles. They had questioned him publicly and privately. They knew the Scriptures better than anyone else. If anyone was equipped to recognise what was happening, it was them.
And yet they became the people who handed him over.
That has always been the most challenging aspect of the story to me.
