For the past couple of months, I've really been struggling with the tension that exists between truth and belief. Whether I'm reading the scriptures or listening to the news, I'm having to ask myself, "Do I believe this or not, or, is this true or false?" It's beautiful reading and reflecting on the passages for Lent, and they bring about so much thought and perspective that I didn't have before.
In today's passage (John 1:42-51), we're painted the picture of Jesus running across a man named Philip. He says, just like he tells his other future disciples, "Come, follow me." We're not told that Phillip says anything back to Jesus, but instead runs to find his friend Nathanael, who, according to Jesus is an honest and upright Israelite. Phillip exclaims to Nathanael that "I've found the One who Moses wrote about! The One the prophets preached about! It's Jesus, Joseph's son from Nazareth!"
Nathanael replied, "Nazareth! You've gotta be kidding me."
Phillip responds, "I'm dead serious. Come, and I'll show you."
When the two men approach, Jesus looks over his shoulder at Nathanael and says, "Now there's a real Israelite. There's not a dishonest bone in his body."
Phillip responds, "What? You don't know me dude."
Jesus says, "Oh, I know you. Long before Phillip convinced you to move here, I saw you sitting under a fig tree."
Nathanael loses it and says, "Rabbi! Son of God and King of Israel!"
Jesus is surprised by his response and replies, "You believe me simply because I say I saw you sitting underneath a fig tree? You just wait. You ain't seen nothing yet my friend."
As I was reflecting on this passage, I couldn't help but wonder what was so significant about what Jesus said to Nathanael about the fig tree. What was so important about the statement that made Nathanael assured that Jesus was his Rabbi, Son of God, and the King of Israel? I did some research and found the following passage from the Syriac dictionary:
It is said of Nathanael that his mother laid him under a fig tree, when the infants were slain, i.e. at Bethlehem; which, if it could be depended upon, must be to Nathanael a surprising and undeniable proof of the deity of Christ, and of his being the true Messiah; since, at that time, he was an infant of days himself, and was the person Herod was seeking to destroy, as the Messiah, and king of the Jews. . .
If this is true, Jesus connected himself with Nathanael in a way that absolutely assured Nathanael that Jesus was the real deal. It was also common in those days for students of the Torah and Jewish apprentices to sit underneath the shade of trees to ponder the written words of Moses and prophets. Maybe, Jesus is saying that he saw Nathanael during one of his moments of meditation. We are not exactly sure.
Nathanael had the opportunity to be told that Jesus had seen him. And he was right. Nathanael knew exactly what Jesus was talking about. He had probably been under that fig tree many times throughout his life, maybe even every day, pondering and meditating and figuring out how to live out the scriptures. Jesus validated his efforts.
I think that if a man who people called Jesus showed up at the restaurant I work at, and said, "Long before you ever got this job, I saw you on the porch," I would freak out just like Nathanael did. I want to be validated by Jesus, to know that he sees me in my alone times. I want to know that he's paying attention. Is he?
The days of Lent can be very tricky. We want to grow stronger in our faiths, but at the same time there is that constantly chirping voice in my head that says, "Dude, you're so awesome. You should brag about what you're doing." There's a part of me that constantly wonders, What's the point of it all? Is Jesus even on board with this, or is this just another way I'm trying to set standards up for myself that I can't meet?
Wouldn't it be nice to hear Jesus say, right now, "I saw you turn down that chocolate bar the other day. . .I saw you throw your guts up at CrossFit the other night. . .I watched you pray the rosary the other morning. . . I saw you make that salad last night, even when you really wanted a bacon cheeseburger."
If Jesus were to actually say these things to us, we would probably accept him 100%, no questions asked. Instead, "we haven't seen nothing yet".
So, the action we can take from this is to believe that Jesus does validate us and watches us as we struggle through these things. Do we believe that although we don't hear Jesus affirming us, he is affirming us and sticking with us through it all?
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