Rector’s Reflections
Friday 4th October 2024
A Life-Giving Conversation with Jesus
In yesterday’s reflections, we began to look at the final part of Jesus’ conversation with Nathanael, recorded at the end of Chapter 1 of John’s gospel. I mentioned that I think Jesus wished to make 3 key points. The first point is that we can expect our faith to grow and deepen over the years, and so we can expect that the grounds for our belief in Jesus will also grow and deepen as the years go by. We looked at this in yesterday’s reflections. Today we shall can look at the other two points.
It was not sufficient for Jesus to limit his comments to the grounds on which we place our trust in him. He also wished to turn our attention to the future. “Jesus answered [Nathanael], “Do you believe because I told you that I saw you under the fig tree? You will see greater things than these”. Jesus’ words encouraged Nathanael to look to the future. We know something about ourselves, and about God, in the present. But we shall know so much more in the future.
This belief, that at sometime in the future God will disclose more of Himself and His purposes for ourselves and for our world, was popular in the Judaism of Jesus’ day. It surfaces in different parts of the New Testament, for example in Chapter 13 of Mark’s gospel, in many of Paul’s letters, and perhaps most famously in the Book of Revelation. You may well be asking yourself: at what point in the future will God reveal His plans? What form will this revelation take? Will it be good news or bad news? Will there be winners and losers? It probably won’t surprise you to learn that different writers have different answers to these questions. But there was a widespread belief that at some time in the future, God would indeed reveal His plans in all their fulness. In the meantime, the faithful Jew or Christian was to wait, trusting that the future was safe in God’s hands and that in due course all would be revealed. In the words of Jesus to Nathanael, “You will see greater things than these”. These words teach us to be patient, and to be humble. At present, our knowledge of God and His purposes is limited, and so we should not assume we know all the answers. We shall know more as the years go by, and this knowledge will amaze us. We shall discover hidden and unexpected dimensions to the love and the mercy and the wisdom of God.
And furthermore, this knowledge will not be limited to knowledge of the things of God. It will also involve deeper knowledge about human beings: human beings in general, and human beings in the particular. In other words, the future will bring not only greater knowledge and insight into God and His ways. It will also bring grater knowledge and insight into our selves. We shall know ourselves as we truly are. So Jesus says to Nathanael, “Very truly, I tell you, you will see heaven opened and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man”. The phrase “Son of Man” has different meanings depending on the context in which it is used, but in this context Jesus seems to be referring to himself in the fulness of his perfect humanity.
In other words, Jesus is saying to Nathanael, and to you and I, “Look, if you want to know what it means to be a fulfilled human being, look to me. Follow my teaching, do the things I do. And if you focus on me, you will discover God, because there is a constant process of communication between myself and God. God’s messengers, the angels, are busy at work, carrying messages between the world of human beings here on earth and God’s world up in heaven. I know I am speaking the language of poetry. But you get the point. Nathanel, I know you are looking for a sense of peace and fulfilment. I have seen you wrestling with your thoughts and doubts in the shade of the fig tree. Turn your gaze from yourself and your own thoughts. Focus on me. Look to me, and you will find what you are really looking for : you will see “heaven opened and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of God”.
And with these words, Jesus left Nathanael to his thoughts. And as we read his story, two thousand years later, Jesus similarly leaves us to our thoughts. Are we prepared to turn to Jesus, and to focus on his teaching and significance for our lives? Perhaps we shall do so for the first time, or perhaps we have done so at some time in the past, but over the years the reality of Jesus has become a distant memory. Jesus is holding out his hand in friendship, to you and to me. But are we prepared to grasp it?