A few nights ago, I watched an interview between the late show host, Stephen Colbert and the actor, Andrew Garfield. In this interview, Colbert was asking Garfield about the movie Silence, in which Garfield plays a Jesuit missionary who travels to Japan. In preparation for his role, Garfield spent a period of time living and training with a Jesuit monk. He spent his time praying, mediating, fasting, and learning the art of silence. During the interview with Colbert, Garfield voiced his admiration for the life and transformative power of spirituality and, specifically, Jesus.
I was intrigued and zealous that Garfield’s experience with Jesus was so positive and encouraged to hear that he appeared genuinely effected; I was troubled, however, when Colbert asked him if he believed in the supernatural, and this was his response:
“Certainty about anything is the most terrifying.”
My heart sank.
Certainty is terrifying?
This led to an all-night “toss ‘n turn.”
It was the kind of night where my brain imploded and exploded with confusion… the kind of night in which Garfield’s statement pounded against me so ferociously that all I could do was lay there, wide-eyed, and take the beating. No matter if I was flat on my back, curled up in the fetal position, or belly-pressed against a mountain of pillows, this question crept into every crevice of my mind:
Why is the world terrified of the one thing it needs the most?
Certainty, by definition, is the conviction that something is definitely true. In a culture saturated by sensitivity, one thing has been horrifically distorted, and that is the nature of truth. Truth, in its essence, is unwavering. It is solid. It is matter-of-fact. Truth cannot change. The way we perceive truth may in fact change, but the actual, tangible truth itself does not. New facts and perceptions only lend themselves to a closer realization of the truth which has never changed.
I’ll try to avoid sounding too philosophical—my brain bleeds when I try.
So if truth is concrete, unwavering, and certain, why do people claim that it is malleable based upon experience and choice? Why have variations of truth sprung up from the minds of many and taken on an entirely different shape? Why do people take comfort in formulating their own version of truth?
The world has spent thousands of years trying to convince everyone that it can produce a truth that does not offend anyone. It finds comfort in the “uncertain” because it can’t conclude a “certain” which would include everyone’s ideas. Uncertainty becomes a security blanket. At least no one’s feelings or belief systems are shot down, right? There, clinging to our strange existence, we little humans are all delighting in our own comfortable truths, no matter how absurd they might be; if everything is relative, then nothing is absolute, and apparently that is okay.
Is it okay? Do we honestly risk our eternity upon our acceptance of uncertainty?
Suppose there was one thing? Suppose there was one, sure, certain thing into which we could anchor ourselves? Suppose that one, certain thing was Jesus?
To say that Jesus is certain would create a stream of cause and effect: if Jesus is certain, then every other belief system in the world is uncertain; if Jesus is absolute, then everything else in the world is relative; if Jesus is truth, then every other religious system in the world is false; if Jesus is God, then every other deistic claim is man-made. If Jesus is the Way, the Truth, and the Life, then no man can obtain eternal life without Him. If Jesus is the “Word made flesh,” then the Word is alive today.
My heart aches for the world. It claims sight, never having seen a thing. It claims clarity, living it’s entire life in a dense fog. It claims that uncertainty is certain, never having met the One who has saved us from certain death. Instead of allowing the world to continue fearing and rejecting certainty, let us boldly, in love, speak what is true: Christ died for all. He rose again. He loves us fiercely. And no matter what we say or do, nothing will change that.
“For Christ’s love compels us, because we are convinced that One died for all, therefore all died. And He died for all that those who live should no longer live for themselves, but for Him who died for them and was raised again.” 2 Corinthians 5:14,15.
I would say this to Mr. Garfield: Certainty in Jesus is the most beautiful thing; in fact, it is the only thing.