John 18--21: What is Truth?

'What is truth?,' Pilate asks Jesus in the course of trying to determine why the Jews so badly want Jesus to die.  Try as he could, Pilate could not get Jesus to confess to anything other than the fact that he was sent from God.
   Jesus said, “My kingdom is not of this world. If it were, my servants would fight to prevent my arrest by the Jewish leaders. But now my kingdom is from another place.”
  “You are a king, then!” said Pilate.
   Jesus answered, “You say that I am a king. In fact, the reason I was born and came into the world is to testify to the truth. Everyone on the side of truth listens to me.”
  “What is truth?” retorted Pilate. With this he went out again to the Jews gathered there and said, “I find no basis for a charge against him. - John 18:36-38 NIV

Pilate was like many of those who observed Jesus and knew there was something different about him, but who did not completely understand who he really was or who were afraid to publicly confess that they believed in him for fear of the Jews.  Pilate may not have saved Jesus from crucifixion, but he had a notice prepared and nailed above his head on the cross which read, Jesus of Nazareth, The King of the Jews.  'What I have written, I have written.' he told the Jews when they confronted him. 

Both Joseph of Arimathea, who followed Jesus only at a distance, and Nicodemus, who came to Jesus at night, cared about Jesus the man enough to ask Pilate for Jesus' body in order to give him a proper Jewish burial. 

Even Thomas, one of the twelve, was slow to believe the words that Jesus had been saying all along:  that he was sent from God, that he was one with the Father, that he was sent to die, and that he would rise from the dead.   “Unless I see the nail marks in his hands and put my finger where the nails were, and put my hand into his side, I will not believe.”, (John 20:25 NIV) he told the disciples when they said they had seen Jesus. 

All of these had seen Jesus' ministry, had witnessed his miracles, had listened to his words, but still harbored a lingering doubt that everything was true.  But then there was John, the writer of this gospel and the one who would see visions on the Isle of Pathmos years later.  John witnessed all of these things first hand, including Peter's denial and Jesus' reinstatement of Peter after the resurrection.  This is the disciple who testifies to these things and who wrote them down. We know that his testimony is true. - John 21:24 NIV

What is truth?  All the stories, all the denials, all the confessions, all the words.  They are all the truth.