JESUS CALLS US TO A NEW LIFE FORMED BY HIS CROSS
Prayer: Lord, as Your eye was on Nathanael sitting under the fig tree and You already knew him intimately, You also see and know us intimately. Like Nathanael You have called us to be Your disciples and follow You. For us this happened in our Baptism, but You call us by Your Gospel every day. Help us to have expectations that aren’t from our own sinful thinking or wishes, but from the greater things You speak to us in Your Word. Amen.
The Text, St. John 1:43-51 (v. 50). Jesus answered and said to Nathanael, “Because I said to you, ‘I saw you under the fig tree,’ do you believe? You will see greater things than these.”
Lord, this is Your Word and these are Your words. Sanctify us by the truth. Your Word is truth. Lord, call us to Your truth every day of our lives. Amen!
Dear people loved by God in Christ, to whom He says, “Follow Me”:
“Bartholomew” is really Bar – “son of” – Tolmai. In the lists of Jesus’ 12 disciples his name comes after Philip’s. But in John, instead of the name Bartholomew we hear this delightful story of Philip’s friend Nathanael, who’s obviously the same man as Bartholomew: Nathanael, Bar – son of –Tolmai.
In this chapter, Jesus calls His first six disciples: the first four – James and John, Peter and Andrew, the fisher-friends – and then Philip, who like the four fisher-friends lived in Bethsaida. It says that Jesus “found Philip and said to him, ‘Follow Me.’ ” That’s five. Now we meet the sixth one.
Nathanael is off on his own. But Philip doesn’t let him stay alone. After heeding Jesus’ call, Philip goes to find Nathanael who isn’t in their “friend group” – but he will be! Jesus will bring them together. In the Christian Church we don’t choose one another; Jesus gathers us together as one.
The way this happens with Nathanael shows us that these disciples are not just faceless men, they have personalities. Jesus uses our unique personalities, but as we’ll see He brings us on a road we don’t expect.
Nathanael was sitting under a fig tree. That’s not just coincidental. This shows his faith. The Old Testament prophets said more than once that when the promised Messiah came, He would inaugurate a kingdom of peace in which every man would “sit under his fig tree” (Mic 4:4).
So first: Nathanael was waiting for the Messiah. We sometimes wonder what the average Israelite actually believed on the basis of Old Testament Scripture. Here’s an example. Nathanael is a fervent believer. Philip knows this, so he came to Nathanael with the best endorsement of Jesus he could think of for his friend: “We have found Him of whom Moses in the law, and also the prophets, wrote – Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph.”
Nathanael was meditating on the Old Testament Scriptures. He was looking for the glorious age of the Messiah. He and other Israelites associated this with some earthly glory for the nation of Israel. The little village of Nazareth didn’t fit this picture, so at first he reacted skeptically: “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?”
But Nathanael wasn’t really a skeptic. We see how ready to believe he is. He’s steeped in the Scriptures, he believes them, he’s waiting with all his heart for the Christ. Jesus reveals to Nathanael that He is all-knowing and all-seeing — Jesus saw Nathanael under the fig tree before coming within sight of him; and before that, He knew Nathanael intimately, knew everything about him, enough to call him “an Israelite in whom is no guile!” Since omniscience is true only of God, this is what Nathanael exclaims: “You are the Son of God!” He already believes Jesus is the Son of God, way before Peter says, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.”
Our reaction would be to feel a triumph, that Nathanael has faith in Jesus as God. The interesting thing is, Jesus doesn’t respond that way. He has some teaching to do. He says: “Because I said to you, ‘I saw you under the fig tree,’ do you believe? You will see greater things than these.”
What’s going on here? This is about expectations. Nathanael expects a Messiah who will restore Israel’s earthly glory. That’s not why Jesus is here. He came not to be a divine earthly unbeatable king, but to share Nathanael’s human flesh so that he could carry his sin to the cross.
Jesus isn’t walking an easy road, and if Nathanael thinks that’s what he’s on then he has quite an education ahead of him. What are the “greater things” he and the other disciples will see? Jesus’ next words give a clue.
He starts with his very first utterance of “truly, truly.” Amen, Amen. Jesus says – not just to Nathanael but to all of them – “Truly, truly, I say to you [all], hereafter you shall see heaven open, and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man.”
Jesus hearkens back to Jacob’s vision of angels – when he had fled from Esau, was all alone, and at night “he dreamed, and behold, a ladder was set up on the earth, and its top reached to heaven; and the angels of God were ascending and descending on it” (Gen 28:12) – but Jesus says it was really about Him. He is the ladder. He is the only Way to the Father.
Jesus came down from heaven to bring us to the Father. He came to make peace with God for us all. How? It’s in the words “truly, truly.” This was the first “truly, truly.” The last “truly, truly” Jesus speaks will be to the thief on a cross: “Truly, truly, I say to you, today you shall be with Me in Paradise” (Lk 23:43). The “greater things” the disciples will see are found in Jesus’ cross. This is the road Jesus was on: the road of the cross.
This is the road Nathanael was going to be on. He would be changed. Jesus was starting where Nathanael was, but taking him on a journey to His cross and empty tomb. It would take three years. Jesus leads only to His cross. That’s the kingdom Nathanael would be a part of. Not the kind he imagined at first, but a much better one, not ruled by power and force but only the gentleness, kindness, and forgiving love of Jesus. A love that doesn’t say “What’s in it for me?” but sacrifices, gives up self, and lays down His life in order to give you a kingdom you don’t deserve.
Just as Jesus called Nathanael – who was the sixth disciple He called, and there were six more still to come – He calls you. He called you when you were baptized. That’s when you came into His kingdom. What we see in Nathanael is that he was thoughtful and studious. He also had thoughts and opinions. He could be skeptical about some things like Nazareth. He also could have big reactions. And He had certain expectations.
These things are true of us too. Jesus doesn’t erase your personality. He brings you into His kingdom with all your foibles. If you have thoughts and opinions, that’s OK. God gave you your mind and reason. But He doesn’t approve all your thoughts and wishes. We’re sinners. We want what we want. His will isn’t always our will. Contrary to Proverbs 3:6, often you trust in the Lord way less than your own understanding.
He wants your thoughts to be conformed to His will, to have the mind of Christ. Bringing you into His kingdom, He redeems you: purchased you with His blood, so you are not your own; your body, your mind, are not your own. He redeemed you so you’ll be His own. He sanctifies and cleanses your thoughts, your will and desires. He removes what’s sinful and wrong.
As an example, see Nathanael. On the surface, we’d say this is the only Nathanael “scene” in the gospels. He seems to be silent and disappear aside from this. But we know that isn’t true. When the disciples don’t understand, when they complain to Jesus, when they bicker over who’s greatest, when He has to say “Where is your faith?”, and when He is arrested and they flee Him in His moment of need and reveal their own weakness – there’s Nathanael, he’s one of them, he’s doing that too.
Even in this scene, Jesus hints that Nathanael’s expectations of the Messiah are not right. He will take Nathanael on a road that his sinful flesh doesn’t want to go on. Not on the road of glory but the road to the cross.
So we too learn that your own expectations will clash with what God is doing with you and your life. We want it to be an easy road. God does things that make you cry out – that make your sinful flesh cry out. We don’t always understand what He’s doing, what He’s allowing. Sometimes Christians want to hold God to promises He hasn’t made in His Word, instead it’s something from their own wishes or human expectations.
We learn to take refuge in His “truly, truly” – what He says in His word. He promises that you will see Him, the true ladder to heaven, the only Way to the Father. You see Him in His Word. You see Him in His Supper, in His body and blood. Truly, truly. He promises that “you shall see heaven open,” heaven is open to you in spite of your sins, because He died for you. Truly, truly. It might be the case that your life down here doesn’t seem to be going so well, not as you wish, and Satan – the “liar from the beginning” – tries to tell you that your life isn’t good and God is angry with you or is at least ignoring you or forsaking you; but Jesus says that’s not true. Through faith in Him, “heaven [is] open” to you. Truly, truly.
These are the “greater things” that you get to see: what He does for you as your Savior, that He comes to you, to forgive you, to never forsake you.
This is the road He has you on. Even when it includes crosses and hard things, it’s still a good road. Nathanael found this out. He preached near present-day Russia, in present-day Iran and India, and brought Christian-ity to Armenia. He died a painful, gruesome death but he died as a martyr, a witness to his faith in Jesus. The point is, he went to his death unafraid, not wishing for or expecting something different, but knowing his road ended in an open heaven. Nathanael saw “greater things,” and he’s still seeing them. There’s nothing greater for us, than to join him in that. Amen!