John 1:43 The next day Jesus decided to go to Galilee. He found Philip and said to him, "Follow me." 44 Now Philip was from Bethsaida, the city of Andrew and Peter. 45 Philip found Nathanael and said to him, "We have found him of whom Moses in the Law and also the prophets wrote, Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph." 46 Nathanael said to him, "Can anything good come out of Nazareth?" Philip said to him, "Come and see." 47 Jesus saw Nathanael coming toward him and said of him, "Behold, an Israelite indeed, in whom there is no deceit!" 48 Nathanael said to him, "How do you know me?" Jesus answered him, "Before Philip called you, when you were under the fig tree, I saw you." 49 Nathanael answered him, "Rabbi, you are the Son of God! You are the King of Israel!" 50 Jesus answered him, "Because I said to you, 'I saw you under the fig tree,' do you believe? You will see greater things than these." 51 And he said to him, "Truly, truly, I say to you, you will see heaven opened, and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man."
As the new liturgical year gets off and running tracking on the life and ministry of Jesus of Nazareth, the bird’s eye view to this point is pretty easy to follow. Advent was all about the promise of The Promised One. During Christmas, we celebrated the fact that the promise(s) had been fulfilled. The Promised One is now here. Moving into Epiphany, the theme(s) change a bit. Now it’s more than the fact that the Promised One is HERE. Now the emphasis is on MANIFESTATION and RECOGNITION.
As a brief aside, I should mention that this is the NORMAL way things work in the human experience. As a football fan it’s been interesting to track the responses to Tim Tebow as the starting quarterback for Denver. He has been MANIFESTED/REVEALED as their starter, but even now it’s safe to say that he has not been fully RECOGNIZED as “starting quarterback” material by all of the talking heads around the NFL. At least until the next playoff game there remains an interesting mix of (a) true Tebow believers; (b) fence-sitters…. those who’d like to believe but continue to fret about his unorthodoxy; and finally there are (c) Tebow skeptics—those who point out that, for instance, that Pittsburgh did more to beat themselves than Tebow did to accomplish this defeat. (note: if you’re wondering where I stand on the whole Tebow-as-messiah-for-Denver question, the truth is that I don’t really care. If I had to pick an option, I guess I’d be a fence sitter)
The point is—this is what’s going on with the ministry of Jesus in the narrative of the Gospels. WE in the community of faith know the whole story because we work our way through the Gospels every year. Within the story itself, though, what’s going on is that the MANIFESTATION of Jesus as Messiah is being RECOGNIZED (or not) at varying degrees.
Within this part of the text from John I find several fascinating things going on. Within the first couple of verses the word “found” (in English and Greek) occurs 3 times right off the bat. Jesus FINDS Philip; Philip FINDS Nathanael, and then Philip informs him that “we have found” the one… Theologians talk about “Divine monergism” in terms of how salvation operates. The term means it’s ALL the work of God. Yet this does not mean that humans are robotic. This little passage **wonderfully illustrates Divine monergism. Philip had been looking for something/someone….but it took FIRST the Divine work of grace in his life in order for him to find what he was looking for. Because Jesus first found Philip, Philip was able later to say that he found Jesus.
There’s another very interesting side observance I’d like to make. Frequently we in the Church talk about the “normal, everyday, Joe-lunchbucket type blokes” the disciples were. They were just ordinary fishermen (etc.). In our day, we’d equate them with ordinary working class folks: truckers, farmers, and….well….fishers. In our time the persona of such men ranges from honest/dependable/hard-working….to…hard-living/hard-drinking/hard-cussing, etc. etc. The point is, we do not typically assume such people to be much in the way of religiously zealous; deeply spiritual; intent on attaching themselves to a program of higher education in religious studies. In other words, I find it interesting that it is not the scribes and Pharisees, or sons of scribes and Pharisees, or even scribe and Pharisee wanna-be’s that throw in their lot with this new Rabbi. [of course THOSE guys had regular day jobs too…but they’re always introduced to us & known not by the titles of whatever those regular day jobs may be, but rather as scribe or Pharisee).
If there’s a point here, I think it’s just that the story presents to us the idea that the Messiah, and living a life of discipleship within the Messiah’s community, is precisely FOR everyday ordinary blokes.
There’s a lot more that could be said. There’s Philip’s low-key invitation to Nathanael in addressing Nathanael’s initial skepticism. O the times we could take a page from Philip’s book when we’re dealing with skeptics. And then there’s that whole point about Jesus “seeing” Nathanael under the fig tree. What’s that all about? All we really know is that Nathanael is impressed by this revelation from Jesus. It’s also somewhat noteworthy that the writer John doesn’t unpack this further. Does this imply that his readers have more clues than we do regarding what’s going on?
Regardless, Nathanael responds with a very obscure way of referring to Jesus: “thou art the KING OF ISRAEL.” The phrase is very rare in the NT. It occurs in Matthew & Mark at the crucifixion scene as a term of derision from the mouths of the mocking crowd. In John it occurs twice: here, and at the triumphal entry where Jesus is hailed as KING OF ISRAEL. Even the word “Israel” itself is rare, as more frequently people are referred to as Jews/Judeans and the geographic area is referred to as Judea. Israel is a throw-back word. It denotes a time when God’s Davidic King ruled over his united covenant people. However, it’s also a “throw-forward” word…because it denotes the era of fulfillment of the Messianic promise concerning God’s Davidic King ruling over his re-constituted covenant people (Jew & Gentile alike).
The passage ends with that very enigmatic statement of Jesus in v51: Truly, truly, I say to you, you will see heaven opened, and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man." Every commentator points out the similarity between this statement and the “Jacob’s ladder” scene in the Old Testament. It’s HIGHLY symbolic. In the Genesis/Jacob story, Jacob is convinced he’s stumbled upon a very unique/special place… the place where heaven joins earth. Thus, he names the place Bethel—literally, “house of God.” But come to find out, BETHEL is all over the place. Jesus, PERSONALLY, is the place where heaven joins earth, so wherever he is that’s where Bethel is; his cross where the sins of the world are laid open to Divine judgment is the place where heaven joins earth; The Church, as the mystical Body of Christ…here doing his work…is the place where heaven joins earth, and most specifically the altar, where the true body & blood of Christ is sacramentally joined to bread and wine is where heaven joins earth.
In closing… this is a passage about discipleship; a passage about being found, which entails finding precisely what we were looking for all along. It’s a passage about sharing our discovery with others; and it’s a passage about BEING and REMAINING at “Bethel”… the place where heaven joins earth.
Cheers
TM
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