Rector’s Reflections
Monday 30th September 2024
A Life-giving Conversation with Jesus
Today, I am starting a new series of reflections. They are based around the conversation between Jesus and Nathanael, found at the end of the 1st chapter of John’s gospel. John’s gospel is full of conversations which have inspired and challenged generations of Christians down the centuries, and Jesus’ conversation with Nathanael is no exception. You may well be wondering: who was Nathanael? The short answer is that unfortunately we know very little about him, other than that he was an early disciple of Jesus. It is possible that he was the same disciple as the person generally known to history as St Bartholomew. The name “Bartholomew” means “son of Tolomei”, so his full name might have been “Nathanael, son of Tolmai”. However, this is merely speculation. For present purposes, I am focussing on his conversation with Jesus.
Let me remind you of the story. “The next day Jesus decided to go to Galilee. He found Philip and said to him, “Follow me”. Now Philip was from Bethsaida, the city of Andrew and Peter. 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.” Nathanael said to him. “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?. Philip said to him, “Come and see”. When Jesus saw Nathanael coming towards him, he said of him, “Here is truly an Israelite in whom there is no deceit!”. Nathanael asked him, “where did you get to know me?” Jesus answered, “I saw you under the fig tree before Philip called you”. Nathanael replied, “Rabbi, you are the Son of God! You are the King of Israel!” Jesus answered, “Do you believe because I told you that I saw you under the fig tree? You will see greater things than these.” And he said to him, “Very truly, I tell you, you will see heaven opened and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man” (John chapter 1, verses 43-51).
There are many possible ways of engaging with this conversation. I am going to take the approach of seeing Nathanael as representative of a man or woman who has encountered Jesus, and wishes to know more. In other words, Nathanael is you or I. We have encountered Jesus and want to know more. We still have our questions. Who is Jesus? What does it mean to become followers of Jesus? What might Jesus want from us?
In short, how might our encounter with Jesus be truly life-giving, not only for ourselves but for our friends and families, and the communities around us? This is what John wanted to achieve when he wrote his gospel: he wished to give his readers the opportunity to have a life-giving encounter with the Risen Lord Jesus. We know this because John tells us: “Now [the Risen] Lord Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book. But these are written so that you may come to believe that Jesus in the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life in his name”. (John Chapter 20, verses 30-31).
We shall be looking in detail at Nathanael’s conversation with Jesus in the days ahead.