Nathaniel

Gospel reflection for Sept. 29 2006

John 1:47-51

Now when I first read this passage to prepare a reflection on it, I have to admit I saw very little potential in it. So I cheated, and did research on it.

Notice when Jesus sees Nathaniel, he says “Here is truly an Israelite in whom there is no deceit!”

Now think about this. If I was going over to meet some stranger and he said “Oh, here comes a Canadian in whom there is no deceit.” I’d probably be like “Where?”. A person who doesn’t know me couldn’t know there was no deceit in me, and a person who does know me would know there is deceit!

But Nathaniel is like “I’m sorry, have we met? How do you know me?”

What strikes me about this passage is that Jesus doesn’t just know Nathaniel at a surface level. We kind of see a person and say “Oh, there’s Jim, a chartered accountant with a wife and 3 kids” and eventually we might begin to see past those things and get to actually know Jim, but we never really see the heart. When the bible talks about ‘deceit’ it talks about how deceit is in the heart. Jesus sees right through everything else to what JPII referred to as the ‘unrepeatable person’- the heart. There’s a poster up in the school that says “Who you are begins with what you do.” I have to admit, I disagree. Who you are is not something that can be listed as a set of qualities, or even defined by your actions, but only in the dignity that you have in Christ, which is unaltered by either sin or accomplishment. But that wouldn’t have made as catchy of a poster.

Nathaniel is taken a back that Jesus would know him at all, and further that Jesus would know the state of his heart! The “I saw you under the fig tree” explanation does not indicate the state of Nathaniel’s soul. This is perhaps why it evokes the response from Nathaniel “You are the Son of God; You are the King of Israel.” Nathaniel said that because Jesus saw him under a fig tree? If someone seemed like they knew me, and I asked them how, and they said “I saw you when you were sitting under a tree”, this would not make me think he was the son of God. I would just think I hadn’t noticed him there.

So something more must have happened. Jesus appeared to be more than a man, more than even a wizard with psychic powers- Nathaniel felt known by Jesus in his depths, and Nathaniel knew that he was known as only God knows.

But Jesus makes this even more apparent. He says “Very Truly I tell you…” Whenever you see something translated as Jesus saying ‘Very truly’ or ‘verily verily’, or ‘I tell you solemnly’, what is being translated is not Greek, but is Aramaic, the term “Amen, amen.” So some translations will read “Amen, amen I say to you…”

Amen means, as many of you know, “So be it” or “I believe” or “this thing is true.” So if Jesus couples to amens together He’s basically saying “this thing is really true, and it’s important, so you’d better understand me and believe it, I am not speaking in Parables.”

And then he tells Nathaniel that he “will see Heaven opened and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man.” When in the Bible did someone see the heavens opened and angels Ascending and Descending?

Genesis 28: 11-13, 16-17

11 When he reached a certain place, he stopped for the night because the sun had set. Taking one of the stones there, he put it under his head and lay down to sleep. 12 He had a dream in which he saw a stairway resting on the earth, with its top reaching to heaven, and the angels of God were ascending and descending on it. 13 There above it stood the LORD, and he said: "I am the LORD, the God of your father Abraham and the God of Isaac. I will give you and your descendants the land on which you are lying.

16 When Jacob awoke from his sleep, he thought, "Surely the LORD is in this place, and I was not aware of it." 17 He was afraid and said, "How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God; this is the gate of heaven."

Jacob goes on to call the place Bethel, or “house of God”

So Jesus is making an amazing claim! He’s saying “I’m the gate to Heaven! I’m the house of God! I am the place where you encounter God!”

I always think it’s funny when people say that Jesus was just a good moral teacher. The claims he makes are outlandish and arrogant- unless they are true!

Here’s what I think we should take away from this passage;

God sees us as we really are with no pretense and no disguise. We encounter God most intimately in Jesus, who we encounter most intimately in the Eucharist. This afternoon, we are going to go to Mass, and probably we’re all going to be thinking about how we need to get the kids to behave and participate. But I challenge you to be aware yourself that Mass is the very place where we meet God. Jacob said “Surely the LORD is in this place, and I was not aware of it.” Even if the kids aren’t aware of what’s happening at Mass, part of our mission is to bring Christ to the kids, and the source and summit of that is in the Mass. But for yourselves too, I challenge you to open yourselves up to the grace of God at the Mass today, and let Him see you, see your heart. Give Him all those little things that maybe no one else ever sees.