Come and See! A sermon based on John 1:43-51
Throughout my Christian journey I
have had moments where I have struggled and wrestled with questions of the
faith. The first memory I have of such
questions was when I was in the third grade and my grandmother was diagnosed
with cancer and given a prognosis of 6 months to live. She was only 50 years old. I remember being at church around a bonfire
and praying my little third grade heart out for God to take away her pain. She lived 6 years longer than her prognosis
and for me at the time, that was the answer to our prayers.
My next struggle came when my best
friend’s mom died after a long battle with cancer that took her life at 46
years old, leaving behind four daughters, two who were still at home. I wrestled at great length and with great
pain to understand why bad things happen to good people. The very first sermon I ever preached
featured some of my struggles with this question and how her faith as she
quoted the 91st psalm as she was dying, strengthened my own
faith.
There have been other questions on
my faith journey. Questions like Why do
four gospel writers tell the same story with different and sometimes
conflicting details? What about hell? Could a God who is identified as love, really
condemn people to a lifetime in hell?
What about the genocide of children in at least two different stories in
the Bible, old and New testament. Why
would God allow that to happen? How does
God view human sexuality? Can someone
who is sexually oriented differently really be a Christian? Why were my aunt and uncle who would make
such wonderful parents, not able to have children? Why did my nephew have to die?
How about you what questions have
you brought to your faith journey? Where
have you been suspicious or skeptical?
Where have you doubted? I posed
this question on Facebook and got a variety of answers. The age-old question of why bad things happen
to good people is always present in this list.
How do you reconcile your cultural practices with your identity of a
follower of Christ especially when bad things happened to your cultural
ancestors in the name of Christianity?
What do you do when God seems not to be giving a specific answer in a
situation? How do you wait it out
without getting burned out? Why can’t I
have a neon sign with the answer? Why am
I having to go thru this and why are you letting it go on this long?
The writer of the gospel of John
introduces us to a man, named Nathaniel, who had questions of his own. AS we hear this story, we are going to find
that Jesus can handle our questions and is the gate through which we might find
the answers. Perhaps, even, he is the
answer. Hear these words from the gospel
of John, chapter 1 verse 43-51.
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 about whom Moses in the law
and also the prophets wrote, Jesus son of Joseph from Nazareth.” 46 Nathanael
said to him, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” Philip said to him,
“Come and see.” 47 When Jesus saw Nathanael coming
toward him, he said of him, “Here is truly an Israelite in whom there is no
deceit!” 48 Nathanael asked him, “Where did you get
to know me?” Jesus answered, “I saw you under the fig tree before Philip called
you.” 49 Nathanael replied, “Rabbi, you are the Son
of God! You are the King of Israel!” 50 Jesus
answered, “Do you believe because I told you that I saw you under the fig tree?
You will see greater things than these.” 51 And he
said to him, “Very truly, I tell you,[m] you will see heaven opened and the
angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man.”
This
story comes in the Prologue of John.
John’s gospel is introduced through a prologue identifying Jesus as the
Word that was with God in the beginning and as light shining in the darkness. There is then a move to describe a set of
four days in which activity about Jesus is taking place. First, John the Baptist testifies about Jesus
as the Lamb of God, the son of God, one who has the Spirit of God. The next day Jesus goes about the business of
calling his first disciples. In that
first day he invites Andrew and another disciple of John the Baptist to come
and see where he stays and what he is about.
Andrew goes and finds Peter and they are called to follow Jesus. We will delve more into that part of the story
next week as we move back to Mark. The
gospel of John however, interrupts our sequence in Mark to introduce a
character that only John talks about and that is the character of Nathanael. A man from Cana who is obviously friends with
Phillip who Jesus went to find, the day after his encounter with Andrew and
Peter. Phillip was from the same town as
Andrew and Peter, perhaps they referred Jesus to Phillip. Perhaps Jesus already
knew he wanted Phillip on is team.
Nonetheless he sought after Phillip and then Phillip went to tell Nathanael
what he had learned which was that they had found “the One” that Moses and the
prophets had talked about. He is
referring here to the promise that Moses reveals in Deuteronomy chapter 18
verse 15 where he says “The Lord your
God will raise up a prophet like me from your community, from your fellow
Israelites. He’s the one you must listen to.”
Phillip believes this is who they have found in Jesus.
Nathanael
is revealed to be a bit of skeptic. He immediately poses a question of
Phillip. Nazareth, he says, can anything
good come out of Nazareth? We don’t know
what Nathanael’s prejudices are about Nazareth.
He is after all from another Galilean town. We aren’t given the information but we know
that for some reason Nathanael’s experience of Nazareth is not a good one and
he wonders if anything good can come from there. Phillip’s response is this. It is Come and See. Come, meet him. Come, see him. Come get to know him the way I have. Open your heart and mind Nathanael. Come and see.
And Nathanael does, he goes and he sees and he is convinced, yet not
immediately.
As
Nathanael approaches Jesus shows off part of his divinity. He shows off the part that in Christian
language is called omniscience. To put
it another way, he shows off his all-knowing power by identifying
Nathanael. He says to Nathanael Here is
a true Israelite in whom there is nothing false. Other translations state in who there is no deceit. When a true Israelite hears this phrase, they
might call to mind Psalm 32 verse 1-2 “Blessed is the one whose transgressions are
forgiven, whose sins are covered Blessed is the one whose sin the Lord does not
count against him and in whose spirit, there is no deceit.” Jesus here has declared upon his first sight of
Nathanael that he is a blessed man.
Nathanael responds to this declaration with more skepticism. How do you know me? It reminds me of when we watch some of these
talk shows that will have persons claiming to know the future or to be in touch
with dead people. We are skeptical. There has to be some kind of trick to what
they are doing. They are asking
questions that will solicit information that they need to make it seem like
they know about something or someone that they know nothing about. This is how Nathanael seems to be feeling in
this moment. Just who are you and how
did you get information about me. Then
Jesus reveals something that convinced Nathanael of his authenticity, something
that in Nathanael’s mind Jesus would have no way of knowing except that he is
truly the Son of God with divine powers.
Jesus tells him I saw you while you were still under the fig three before
Phillip called you. From where Jesus
was, physical site of Nathanael must not have been possible. There must not have been time for a spy to
come bring Jesus that piece of intel. Jesus
didn’t merely physically see Nathanael but he saw inside of Nathanael. He saw who Nathanael was. This convinced Nathanael to declare: “Rabbi,
you are the Son of God; you are the King of Israel.
I
can just see Jesus chuckle at this revelation.
Is that all it took? Jesus
basically tells Nathanael “you ain’t seen nothing yet.” Hear again what Jesus says to Nathanael. “you believe because I told you I saw you under
the fig tree. You shall see greater
things than that.” You ain’t seen nothing
yet. Then he goes on and here is where
the story of Jacobs ladder that I read earlier to you comes into play. He says:
I tell you the truth, you shall see heaven open, and the angels of God
ascending and descending on the Son of Man.”
Does that sound familiar?
Where
else have we seen the heavens open and angels ascending and descending. We go back to the story of Jacob. Jacob has just received Issacs’s blessing and
has started making his way to Haran where he would marry first Leah and then
Rachel. He stops on the way to sleep and
he has a dream. This dream features a
stairway to heaven with angels ascending and descending on it. The Lord stood at the top of it and announces
to Jacob that he is the LORD, the God of Abraham and of Issacs. He then says to Jacob I will give you and
your descendants the land on which you are lying. Your descendants will be like the dust of the
earth and you will spread out to the west and to the east to the north and to
the south. All peoples on earth will be
blessed through you and your offspring Then he makes this promise: “I am with
you, and will watch over you wherever you go and I will bring you back to this
land. I will not leave you until I have
done what I have promised you. Jacob
woke up and he declared surely the presence of the Lord is in this place. HE declared that this was the house of
God. That stairway in Jacob’s dream gave
him access to God. Jesus brings this
image to mind and in doing so declares that it is now he who is the gateway to
God. Where Jesus is, there is God and
Jesus is the gateway through whom we all have access to God.
What
can you and I learn from Nathanael today?
Go back to all those questions we talked about in the beginning. I think sometimes we feel guilty for
questioning our faith? I think we try to
hide our questions from each other and from God? WE think it makes us look weak. We think others will judge us for not
thinking exactly like them. The truth is,
I think, if we are honest that we have all had periods of questioning. Jesus shows us a couple of things in this
story. First Jesus knows us, he knows
our hearts, he knows our questions. If
he knew Nathanael was under that fig tree, he no doubt knew that Nathanael had
questioned Jesus’ authenticity. He knew
that Nathanael had judged him based on where he came from. Yet, Jesus still called him blessed. Yet, Jesus still invited him to join in on
the journey of faith on which Jesus would reveal things even greater than
Nathanael had already seen. Still Jesus
provided him with access to God. When we
have access to God, we can bring all of those questions to God and we can have
eyes to see and ears to hear the answers that are waiting to be discovered. In that my friends we find freedom from those
things that keep us awake at night.
We
also learn from Nathanael that we, like him, have an invitation to come and
see. Nathanael answered that invitation
to Come and See. We too are invited to
come and see. We are invited in two ways
to come and see. WE too are invited to
come and see who Jesus is and discover the salvation and redemption he can
bring to our lives if we open ourselves up to him. WE are also invited to come and see those
people who we might judge as being no good.
Can anything good come out of Nazareth?
Who are the people whose authenticity you question? Are you willing to go to them and see. Are you willing to take the time to get to
know their stories and who they really are?
You might be surprised. You might
see something great and then even greater.
Finally,
we learn something from Phillip in this story.
Jesus sought at Phillip and what did Phillip do? He went and found Nathanael. We aren’t told in this story who Nathanael
was to Phillip. I would guess that he
was a coworker for at the end of John we find Nathanael out fishing in the lake
where Jesus would make a final resurrection appearance. Phillip had met the Messiah and the first
thing he did was to go and tell his friend and extend an invitation for him to
come and see. Who in your life needs
this invitation to come and see? Are you
willing to extend that invitation to them today.
We
are going to spend this year focusing on the gospel, on the good news of Jesus. We are going to spend this year rediscovering
who Jesus is and what it means to follow him.
I invite you today to commit to come and see and to extend that invitation
to others. Will you open your eyes wide
today to discover the keys that will set you free. Will you open your ears today to hear the
voice of truth that you have been given access to through Jesus. Will you open your mouth today and invite
others to join you in the journey, to come and see. Surely the Presence of the Lord is in this
place, Come and See. In the name of the
Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.
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