Saturday 29 September 2012

Background

In the second half of this chapter five people become followersof Jesus, generally through the testimony of others. Nathanael isthe last of these. The name is found only here and in John21:2, and is commonly assumed to be a personal name ofBartholomew (a surname) who is one of the twelve Apostles in theother Gospels (eg Matthew 10:3), each time linked with Philip,his friend in this story.

Nathanael is sceptical when Philip tells him they've met thelong-promised Messiah, because Jesus's home-town of Nazareth haslittle reputation with other Galileans, but is prepared to go andsee. Jesus supernaturally perceives the kind of person Nathanaelis, and his take on Nathanael's scepticism is to describe him as"an Israelite in whom there is no deceit" (v. 47), a very differentcharacter from Jacob (later called Israel) whose story (Genesis 28:10-22 - see below) provides thereference in verse 51.

Nathanael accepts the accuracy of his character profile as onewho 'says it as he sees it' and asks Jesus how he knows him. "Underthe fig tree" (v. 48) was both a Jewish symbol for "home", and arespected place for people to sit quietly to pray, but Jesus'sstatement that he saw him there before Philip spoke to him simplysweeps away Nathanael's scepticism as he calls Jesus "rabbi" (orteacher) (v. 49) and accords him two popular messianic titles. "Sonof God" does not here refer to Jesus's divinity, as he comes to useit later in this Gospel, but is the honorific title given toIsrael's kings of old.

Despite Nathanael's enthusiasm, Jesus knows that faith foundedon his supernatural power is deficient (eg John4:48) and promises Nathanael and all of them (for "you" isplural) that they will see greater things. For the first time Jesususes the term "Very truly" (literally, "Amen, amen") to underlinethe statement about seeing angels ascending and descending upon theSon of Man, the term that Jesus uses for himself in preference topopular messianic titles.

The saying is based on Jacob's dream of a stairway to heaven inGenesis 28:12. Angels are messengers betweenGod and humans. Although Jacob's dream is often interpreted tosuggest the angels were "on it" (the stairway), the equallyaccurate translation 'on him' better serves both the originalcontext of Jacob needing reassurance of God's presence, and moreparticularly the purpose of Jesus here. Jacob was subsequentlynamed Israel; Jesus is the true Israel; he is the one who is God'strue messenger.

To ponder

• If Jesus were to summarise your character in a sentence whatwould it be?

• Would you like Jesus to be able to say of you, 'Here is truly aChristian in whom there is no deceit!'? What do you need to dotoday to move towards that?

• Parts of the Church celebrate today as the festival of Michaeland all angels. Have you, like Jacob in a dream, or in some otherway encountered an angel? What was the context and how did you knowit was happening? How did it affect you?