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 Chicago Bears' search for a new
head coach. The latest buzz is that former Denver Broncos coach John Fox has
been in town for an interview. Will he be "The Promised One?" Will he
be the promised savior to all of our Bears woes? In the end, whoever they hire,
and regardless of their record, Bears fans will divide into three categories: (a)
true believers; (b) fence-sitters…. those who’d like to believe but
continue to fret about whether we got the best
man for the job, and (c) skeptics—those who wish someone else had been
chosen.
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 as a 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 and 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 and 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 and 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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