Jesus is Heavy!

Here's today's online worship from the people of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio. Here, we celebrate the Transfiguration of Our Lord, the final Sunday in the Epiphany season. Below the video, you can find the complete prepared text of my message for the day. Have a good week!

Mark 9:2-9

Throughout this Epiphany Season, of which this is the last Sunday, we’ve considered incidents from Jesus’ earthly ministry that reveal Him to be both the anointed earthly King--the Messiah--God had long promised to His people AND God the Son. 

Many, at the beginning of Jesus' ministry, had heard God the Father tell Jesus at the Jordan River: “You are my Son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased.” (Mark 1:11) 

And the evidence for Who Jesus is became so overwhelming for those who followed Him day after day that Simon Peter tells Jesus six days before the incident in today’s gospel lesson, “You are the Messiah.” (Mark 8:29)

But as the Lutheran preacher of the last century, Bo Giertz points out, no one who had witnessed any or all of the epiphanies we’ve considered this Epiphany Season, had yet seen Jesus in all His glory. 

The word we translate into English as glory is, in the Greek in which all the New Testament writers composed their works, doxa, which in turn translates a word commonly used in the Hebrew of the Old Testament to describe what God is like, kavod. 

The root meaning of kavod is heavy or weighty. God has glory because He is greater and weightier than any or all of us, His thoughts are beyond our comprehension, as are His grace and love and power. In Isaiah 55:8, God tells His people: “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways.” 

God’s glory is weighty stuff! 

Ultimately, to borrow a phrase from another Lutheran theologian, Paul Tillich, God is “wholly other,” totally different from you and me. 

God’s glory is such that, even when He enters the world as a human being in Jesus, He’s not like us: He’s not into Himself; He isn’t obsessed with going along to get along; He’s satisfied with His daily bread; He has a servant’s heart that overflows with love for the very people society hates or marginalizes; His love is more than just words on a Valentine's Day card: He daily lives out His love for us and He dies for it.

Now, up to the point in Jesus’ ministry that today’s gospel lesson, Mark 9:2-9, describes, nobody had seen Jesus, God the Son, in all His glory. They had seen Jesus teach, preach, and perform many signs and miracles. But they hadn’t seen Jesus in the full glory of His deity, the glory of God that 1500 years earlier had caused the people of ancient Israel to tell Moses, “You be the one to look at God face to face for us.”

One verse before today’s gospel lesson, Jesus told His disciples, “Truly I tell you, some who are standing here will not taste death before they see that the kingdom of God has come with power.” (Mark 9:1) 

Then comes Mark’s description of what happened next. “After six days Jesus took Peter, James and John with him and led them up a high mountain, where they were all alone. There he was transfigured before them. His clothes became dazzling white, whiter than anyone in the world could bleach them. And there appeared before them Elijah and Moses, who were talking with Jesus.” (Mark 9:2-4)

If you had been Peter, James, and John at that moment, how might you have felt? I think I have some idea how I would have felt.

In my thirties, I experienced severe stomach pain that went on for a few weeks. I finally saw my doctor. He ordered tests. As I awaited the results, I became convinced I had cancer, incurable cancer. 

When I went to the doctor’s office to learn the test results, I was literally shaking. In the examination room, waiting for the doctor to show up, I steeled myself by listing all the reasons I could think of for the symptoms I was going through. You see, I was trying to bargain with the death I was certain was imminent. 

By the time the doctor walked in the door, I was so terrified that I practically spewed my diagnosis and what treatment he needed to prescribe. I don’t even remember what I said. I was desperate to drown out the words I dreaded. So I went on for some time. 

My doctor just laughed and said, “That’s fine. You have an ulcer and here’s what we need to do to treat it.”

For human beings to come into the presence of God in all His glory is a terrifying thing. 

To do so is to see the enormous chasm between God’s righteousness, sinlessness, perfection, immortality, and endless power, on the one hand, and our unrighteousness, sinfulness, imperfection, mortality, and weakness, on the other. 

That’s what has Peter acting like me in Dr. Flora’s examination room thirty years ago as in our lesson. He babbles and tries to take control of things on the Mount of Transfiguration. Verse 5: “Peter said to Jesus, ‘Rabbi, it is good for us to be here. Let us put up three shelters—one for you, one for Moses and one for Elijah.’ (He did not know what to say, they were so frightened.)” (Mark 9:5-6) 

Coming into the presence of God’s glory will remind us, as it did Peter, that we are sinners. 

But we can’t bargain or negotiate away that truth. 

Building shelters, cathedrals, great reputations, or good works won’t alter the fact that God is “wholly other.” 

To get a glimpse of God’s glorious perfection and power is to see that there is nothing we can do and nothing we ever could do to earn a place in His presence for a fraction of a second, let alone eternity.

That’s why what’s next in our gospel lesson is so important. 

Verse 7: “Then a cloud appeared and covered them, and a voice came from the cloud: ‘This is my Son, whom I love. Listen to him!’” 

My place in the Kingdom of the God we know in the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit doesn’t depend on my religious fervor, my good works, my moral perfection. If it did, I would be damned for all eternity. 

My place in God’s everlasting Kingdom depends solely on the Gospel Word--the good news Word--that Jesus Christ speaks to us not only in His preaching, teaching, and miracles, but also in the good news Word He does for us in His death for us on the cross, the place where I bore our sins and punishment, and from the empty tomb, from which He tore open eternity for all who repent and believe in Him. 

God the Father says to have life with Him, we need to listen to Jesus, both when He speaks and when He acts. 

“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest,” Jesus tells us (Matthew 11:28). 

He says, “I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me will live, even though they die;  and whoever lives by believing in me will never die.” (John 11:25-26)

When we come into the presence of God’s glory, we can’t help but feel terrified! 

But, the Father says, listen to the Son. 

Listen to the charity I have for sinners. 

Listen to the forgiveness and new life I give to those who repent and believe in Jesus. 

God saves us from sin and death as we listen to Jesus and the Holy Spirit gives us faith in Jesus. 

But even that’s not the most glorious thing about the God we listen to in Jesus. 

In our second lesson, the apostle Paul, who knew something of the terror of seeing Jesus in all His glory, tells us: “And we all, who with unveiled faces contemplate[a] the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his image with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.” (2 Corinthians 3:18)

Conscious of your own sins and imperfections as you live with Jesus each day, you may not see this happening in your life. 

But bank on it, as you turn to Jesus each day and listen to Him with repentance and faith, God is transforming you into the very image of the Savior that Peter, James, and John saw at the Mount of Transfiguration. 

God is in the business of turning believers in Jesus into people who look like our Lord for all eternity. 

And that’s the most glorious thing I can imagine! Amen

The Gospel of Luke, Chapter 6:39-49

Remembering the Humanity of "The Other"

For your consideration: When, on Twitter, I posted a version of today's prayer update on a thirty-seven-year-old who has been hospitalized with COVID-19 and its effects for seventeen weeks, the first one to respond was a reporter for who covers the White House for a major news outlet.

I know her to be a faithful Christian with whom I interact fairly regularly.

I've had similar ongoing interactions for nearly two decades with one of her male colleagues who works for another major news outlet and also covers the White House. He too is a believer.

So too, is the veteran Ohio political reporter who has been praying regularly for Brian.

Christian friends and others: If we're tempted to smear everyone in "the media" the way some people smear everyone who is in "the Church," we should remember that broad generalizations do great injustice to particular people. 

Those particular people are human beings, children of God made in the image of God, and people for whom Jesus Christ died and rose. 

Just because they may report truths we don't want to believe or even if they may occasionally get particular facts wrong doesn't justify the venomous hatred I sometimes see and hear "Christians" display toward "the media."

Our call as Christians to love God and to love our neighbor also entails asking God to help us to refrain from lumping people in categories. 

People are not "the other" who we can vilify, dismiss, marginalize, or hate just because we're too lazy to do unto others as we would have them do unto us.

The better course is, I think, for us to repent for the ways in which we actively or passively hate others and to ask the Holy Spirit to help us share with others the same undeserved grace and love we receive through faith in Jesus.

The Gospel of Luke, Chapter 6:17-38

The Gospel of Luke, Chapters 5:33-6:16

The Gospel of Luke, Chapter 5:12-32

The Gospel of Luke, Chapters 4:31-5:11

Jesus: Still in the Healing Business

Below you'll find, first, video of yesterday's online worship from Living Water Lutheran Church, and then, the text of my message for the day. Have a good week and God bless you!

Mark 1:29-39

Some people may hear the Gospel lesson for this morning and say, “That’s nice. Jesus healed Simon Peter’s mother-in-law and others. Why doesn’t He heal people today?”

The answer, of course, is that He does.

 

In an October 25, 1999 article of The Archives of Internal Medicine,  seven physicians, a hospital chaplain, a social worker, and a scholar associated with leading hospitals from around the country, presented the findings of their research on the connection between intercessory prayer—that is, prayer offered on behalf of others--and the recovery of coronary patients. The researchers set up what’s known as a “double-blind” experiment on those recovering from heart problems. There were 990 patients in the study. Prayers were said for some of them. Prayers were not offered for the others. The doctors treating the patients didn’t know who was chosen to be prayed for and the subjects of the prayers didn’t know either. A list of first names was given to people in local churches who prayed for those on the list each day. 

 

And what happened? Those for whom prayers were said recovered more quickly. As the researchers put it in the conclusion of their abstract, “This result suggests that prayer may be an effective adjunct to standard medical care.” (1) 

 

If this were an isolated study, it wouldn’t mean much. But in recent decades, literally hundreds of objective scientific studies, conducted at major hospitals and universities, have been done looking into the connection between things like faith, prayer, and worship attendance on the one hand and healing and health on the other. The results are stunning.

 

One example: A 1972 study of 91,909 people in Washington County, Maryland “found that those who attended church once or more a week had significantly lower death rates from…coronary-artery disease (50 percent reduction), emphysema (56 percent reduction), cirrhosis of the liver (74 percent reduction), suicide (53 percent reduction).” I could cite more studies, but you get the picture.

 

Many of you listening to me today would affirm that the God we know in Jesus Christ is still in the healing business. Certainly, God uses doctors, nurses, and other health care professionals to bring His healing. But, as study after study has confirmed, their efforts are enhanced by prayer. 

 

In my years as a pastor, I’ve learned that many health care professionals know this. Some surgeons ask me when I will be joining the patient they’re operating on for prayer before surgery. They want to be part of the prayer team and they want me to pray for them as well.

 

In his book, The Faith Factor, Dr. Dale A. Matthews tells the true story of Barbara, who suffered from cancer. Barbara was in worship one Sunday at the Anglican church she attended when the priest read the Gospel of Mark’s account of the woman who had been hemorrhaging for twelve years. You remember that in that account, the woman thought to herself that if she simply touched the hem of Jesus’ garment, she could be healed...and was.

As Barbara prepared to receive Holy Communion, she thought, “I could be like her.” She looked at her priest who was, she thought, “standing in” for Jesus as He presided over the Eucharist. “She decided that she would touch the priest’s robe when he gave her the communion wafer.” As Barbara tells it: “I touched his robe, and he couldn’t have known that I did, though he did know about my cancer. He did something in that moment that I had never seen him do before: he put down the paten with the communion wafers and came over to me; laying both hands on my head, he prayed for my healing.”

Barbara wasn’t healed instantly. But she knew then that God was healing her. As she explains it, though at that point her healing wasn’t physical, her heart was healed. “I had complete trust in God and his love, something [God] knew I needed far more than any other kind of healing at the moment.”

 

Of course, you and I know that not everyone for whom we pray is healed. And even more than that, Pastor Mark Dahle, a Lutheran pastor who has written and spoken about his California congregation’s healing ministry, reminds us, everybody for whom we pray will eventually die. We live in a fallen and imperfect world. Death comes, as does suffering of all kinds. Faith in Jesus is no insurance policy against the reality of living in a dying world. So, why did Jesus heal Simon’s mother-in-law and the others our Gospel lesson tells us He healed? Why does Jesus heal today?

 

We get at least one answer to that question from an interchange that happens between Simon and Jesus before dawn, the day after Jesus healed Simon’s mother-in-law, and after Jesus has spent time in prayer.

 

To set the scene: The previous day had been a busy Sabbath for Jesus. After worshiping and teaching in the synagogue at Capernaum, where He had cast out a demon, He’d gone to the house of Simon and Andrew for dinner, healed Simon’s mother-in-law, cured many who were sick, cast out demons, and then before sun-up, rose early and prayed. While Jesus was praying, Simon and the others hunted the Lord down. They clearly wanted Jesus to go back to the scene of so much triumph and success.

Instead, Jesus tells them, “Let us go somewhere else—to the nearby villages—so I can preach there also. That is why I have come.”

 

For Jesus, healing was never an end. It was only a means. John’s Gospel constantly refers to Jesus’ healings and other miracles as signs. Signs point to something more significant, more meaningful than themselves. The miracles of Jesus point us to the simple, powerful fact that Jesus has power over life, death, suffering, disease, sin, the devil, our sinful selves, and every other one of our enemies. 

 

What Jesus came to do during His time on earth was share a plain message, what we know as the gospel, the good news.

Jesus shares the gospel in Mark 1:15. “The time has come,” he said. “The kingdom of God has come near. Repent and believe the good news!” Jesus speaks this same message to us today: “Turn from sin—repent—and trust in Me to give you life forever—fuller life today and totally new, restored life forever with God.”

 

Jesus once asked an important question. “What good will it be for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul?” [Matthew 16:26] In today’s lesson, I think, He asks a similar question: “What good is it to have perfect health, but not have life with God?”

 

Jesus Christ heals.

And, by the power of His death and resurrection, the ultimate healing, the healing that matters for all eternity, is the healing of our broken relationships with God, with others, and with ourselves, the healing that kills the power of sin over our lives, the healing that cancels death and condemnation for all who believe.

The healing Christ brings to those who repent and believe in Him will be our joy for all eternity.

It can also be our comfort, our strength, and our hope even now. Amen

The Gospel of Luke, Chapters 3:23-4:30

The Gospel of Luke, Chapter 3:1-22

As part of my ministry with the people of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio, I do a weeknight Bible study live on Facebook. Right now, we're looking at the Gospel of Luke. Here's the Wednesday evening session. I hope you find it helpful. 

The Gospel of Luke, Chapter 2:36-52

The Gospel of Luke, Chapter 2:22-35

Gospel of Luke, Chapter 2:1-21

The Gospel of Luke, Chapter 1:39-80

The Gospel of Luke, Chapter 1:1-38

 This is the second installment of our Facebook Live study of the Gospel of Luke. The first was an introduction to the Gospel. Here, we tackle the first part of the lengthy first chapter.

Remembering Those Killed by COVID-19

The Anglican cathedral in Norwich, England has a simple, moving memorial to all in Norfolk County who have lost their lives to COVID-19. This video includes a poem by Malcolm Guite in memory of those felled by this disease.

Continue to pray for the comfort of Jesus' resurrection for the many thousands mourning the loss of loved ones to the disease; for the healing of those afflicted with it and its after-effects; for protection for healthcare workers and their families; for elected officials and public health officials as they lead us in combatting COVID-19; and for each of us that we will not grow weary in doing those things we can do and need to do to stem the spread of the virus and its variants.

The Gospel of Luke, Part 1

 We began a Facebook Live study of the Gospel of Luke tonight with a bit of an introduction to the book.

The Most Powerful Word

Below is the video of today's online worship from Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio. Further down the page, you'll find the text of the message shared today. Have a blessed week!

Mark 1:14-20

Words are powerful. 

They can build up. They can tear down. 

They can soothe bitterness and antagonism. They can create feuds that last lifetimes. 

Words can tell stories. 

Words from the right people can build cities, feed millions, heal thousands.

But if the words of mere human beings have power, the Word of God has infinitely more. 

By His Word, God created the universe. 

God’s Word, the Gospel of John tells us, is not just with God, the Word of God is God, God the Son, Jesus. 

By His life, death, and resurrection, Jesus the Word speaks the message of God’s truth, love, and redemption to you and me. 

Merely calling on the name of Jesus in faith covers us with God’s Word of everlasting salvation. God’s Word tells us, “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.” (Romans 10:13; Acts 2:21; Joel 2:32) 

The Word of God--whether in the crucified and risen Jesus, in the words of the Bible: taught, preached, shared, sung, read, memorized, or recited, in love and service rendered in Jesus’ name, or in the sacraments of Holy Baptism or Holy Communion--comes to us with three messages. Only three. And all three are seen in today’s gospel lesson, Mark 1:14-20.

Mark begins by telling us: “After John [the Baptizer] was put in prison, Jesus went into Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God. ‘The time has come,’ he said. ‘The kingdom of God has come near.’” (Mark 1:14-15a)

Here we see the first way God’s Word speaks to us. He speaks Gospel or good news to us. When Jesus begins His ministry here, the first Word He speaks breaks through the darkness and hopelessness many must have felt on hearing that John had been arrested. Jesus’ message is that God and His kingdom aren’t removed from us. In Jesus, God immerses Himself in our pain and grief, bringing God’s eternal reign of love that will only be finally fulfilled beyond the gates of death into our world. Through His death on the cross for our sin, Jesus brings God’s love, forgiveness, grace, and new life even here and now.

And what did we have to do to receive all of these blessings? Nothing! Romans 5:8 reminds us, “God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Therefore, since we have now been justified by His blood, how much more shall we be saved from wrath through Him!” (Romans 5:8-9) Jesus comes into our lives, then bears the appropriate punishment for our sin--death, damnation, and separation from God--so that, by God’s grace through our faith in Jesus, we don’t have to bear those consequences. We give Jesus our sin and death; He gives us His righteousness and life with God. This the powerful Gospel Word that Jesus speaks to us, although none of us deserve it.

At the end of verse 15, Jesus tells us how this Gospel Word is activated in our lives, how it becomes good news for us: “Repent and believe the good news!” This is the second way God’s Word speaks to us; it tells us to repent and believe in the Good News, the gospel, that Jesus is for us. To repent, of course, is to turn to Jesus with the honest understanding that, without Him, we are defeated by sin, death, and darkness, powerless to overcome them.

Through the prophet Ezekiel, God told His ancient people Israel: “Turn! Turn from your evil ways! Why will you die, people of Israel?'” (Ezekiel 33:11) In Jesus Christ, God the Son, God makes the same plea now to all people: Turn from sin, death, and darkness! Don’t delude yourself that you’re good enough for God without surrender to Jesus.

We mustn’t delude ourselves that just because God claimed us in our Baptisms and we have had some tingly religious feelings at some point in our lives that we’ve had enough of God. You’ve heard me ask you to consider the scenario of a couple who get married with the understanding that they will only see each other for one hour a week if they feel like it. You wouldn’t expect that relationship to work. Our faith relationship with Jesus--and the confidence, peace, and hope that go with it even in life’s hard times--is nurtured when we come back in repentance and faith in Jesus every day. Our call as sinners prone to go our own ways and forget the good Gospel Word is to daily repent and daily believe in Jesus. “I need to hear the Gospel every day,” Martin Luther said, “because I forget it every day.” The call to repentance and belief in the gift and the Giver. This is the second main way God’s Word speaks to us.

In verses 16-20, we see the third main way God’s Word speaks to us. There, Jesus calls two sets of brothers--Andrew and Simon (later nicknamed Peter) and John and James--to leave their family businesses, communities, circle of friends, and traditions to follow Him. “Come, follow me,” Jesus tells Andrew and Simon, “and I will send you out to fish for people.” (Mark 1:17) The third way God’s Word speaks to us is in calling us to follow Jesus. This is the call to obedience, the call of discipleship. There are many things in this world that promise us great benefits if we’ll follow them. They include our egos, our countries, our families, money, sex, power, status, success, the acceptance of others. Each of these things can exert powerful influences over our lives. But, here’s the deal. None of them will survive the death of this universe. Only the God we know in Jesus and the Kingdom He graciously gives to those who turn to Him as He empowers us to repent and believe His good news will survive. “I am the way and the truth and the life,” Jesus tells us. “No one comes to the Father except through me.” (John 14:6)

Does following Jesus sound daunting to you? If it doesn’t, it should. I often feel like the man who, as many of you will remember, asked Jesus to heal his son, “if you can.” Jesus upbraided the man, basically asking him, “Whaddya mean, if?,” telling the man that with faith in Him--in Jesus--anything was possible. I imagine that Jesus’ heart exploded with love when he told Jesus: “I do believe; help me overcome my unbelief!" (Mark 9:24)

People who seek to follow Jesus, to be His disciples, pray some version of that prayer a lot. I know I do. “I will follow You, Jesus, if You will give me the faith, the strength, the desire to do it.” If You help me, I will follow You, Lord...though life gets painful...though I don’t understand the plan...though I’m grieving...though I think I have a better idea...though I can’t see how this will turn out.

And guess what? The God Who speaks a Gospel Word though we don’t deserve it, Who speaks a Law Word that tells us to repent, Who speaks an assuring Word that we simply need to turn to Jesus and the Gospel is ours, will also speak His powerful love to us day-in and day-out as we follow where He leads. He assures those who follow Jesus, “I am with you always, even to the end of the age” (Matthew 28:20). And “the one who stands firm [in faith] to the end will be saved” (Matthew 24:13). And, “Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you” (Hebrews 13:5).

God’s Word speaks to us in three ways. 

It gives us a Gospel so good that no human mind could imagine it. 

It gives us a call to repent and believe so gracious no human being could ever offer it. 

It gives us a way of life that, in freeing us from the imprisonment of a fallen world, frees us to live with Christ forever. 

There is no other word so powerful and no other word we need so much. 

May we listen to it each day. Amen

The Next Facebook Live Study: The Gospel of Luke

I've decided to delay the start of our next Facebook Live Bible study until Monday, January 25. As usual, the weeknight study will begin at 9:00 PM EST. 

We'll be looking at the Gospel of Luke. 

I hope that you can join us. 

Please invite your friends to watch as well. 

And remember that if you can't be with us while we're doing the study live, you can always find them among my Facebook videos or on my blog (markdaniels.blogspot.com ). 

The Facebook address for the studies is 

https://www.facebook.com/mark.daniels.161

.

Biblical Background, 'The Augsburg Confession,' Part 38

Biblical Background, 'The Augsburg Confession,' Part 37

Biblical Background, 'The Augsburg Confession,' Part 36

Needed: Fools!

For Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, this rendition of 'Fool on the Hill' from Paul McCartney's 1989-90 world tour.

To a world mired in death, the gospel message of new and everlasting life through faith in Jesus Christ, the belief that animated King's vision, is foolishness.

To a world mired in hate and self-interest, King's vision of "the beloved community" in which all God's children participate is threatening foolishness.

But, as a fool for Christ, I still believe in King's dream.

We need that dream and we need Jesus Christ now, today, more than ever!

Under the Fig Tree?

Good Sunday to you, friends!

Below, you'll find the video of today's online worship from Living Water Lutheran Church of Centerville, Ohio. Further down the page, there the text of the message I shared during worship. I hope that you find it helpful and that it gives you deep appreciation of how much God loves you. Have a good week!



John 1:43-51
A few years ago, after a visit with my dad in Columbus, I decided to take a walk at a Metropark. It has lots of walking paths, some of them deep into wooded areas. For a person with a poor sense of direction, like me, the walkways can be daunting. 

You can guess what happened. As the sun began to go down, I got lost. 

For several hours, I walked along paths I thought I wanted to be on, only to hit dead-ends, forced to start all over again. 

Eventually, I found a way to a parking lot where I was sure I’d find my car. It turned out to be the wrong parking lot! 

As the darkness gathered, I came upon the home of a park ranger who was just about to do his last patrol of the day. He let me ride with him from parking lot to parking lot until at last, I found my car. 

As I got on the road, the fact that I was finally safe and on my way home seemed almost too good to be true. 

In today’s gospel lesson, John 1:43-51, a man has an encounter that defies all his previous expectations--it seems too good to be true, yet brings him relief beyond his greatest and most fervent imaginings. 

The man is Nathanael. Shortly after hearing John the Baptizer point to Jesus as “the Lamb of God” Who takes away the power of sin and death over those who follow Him (John 1:29, 36), a Greek-speaking Jew named Philip responds to Jesus’ invitation: “Follow Me.” (John 1:43) 

Having seen and experienced Jesus for himself, Philip, our gospel lesson says, then tells Nathanael that in Jesus “[w]e have found the one Moses wrote about in the Law, and about whom the prophets also wrote—Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph.” (John 1:45)

A lot has been made of Nathanael’s response to Philip’s assertion that Jesus was the long-promised Messiah. Nathanael asks: “Nazareth! Can anything good come from there?” (John 1:46) In preaching and teaching about this text, I’ve made much of it myself, talking about how Nazareth was a podunk town of no consequence, which it was. 

But I’m beginning to realize that Nathanael’s initial skepticism about Jesus being the Messiah had little to do with the deficiencies of Nazareth as a tourist destination. 

It had even less to do with Nathanael being some world-weary sophisticate like the apostle Thomas who found it hard to believe the promises of God. 

Nathanael, it turns out, was a man of childlike faith who was even more desperate with anticipation for the Messiah than I was to find my car that day in the park! 

After Philip invites Nathanael to come and see Jesus for himself, Nathanael follows Philip. As the two approach Jesus, Jesus says of Nathanael, “Here truly is an Israelite in whom there is no deceit.” (John 1:47) 

Now, by the time Jesus walked on the earth in the first century AD, nobody was really called an “Israelite.” People were Judeans, Samaritans, Galileeans, and so on. Israelite was an old-fashioned, passe term. Nonetheless, Jesus, I think uses the term deliberately. 

The first of God’s people to be called Israel, a term that means, one who wrestles with God, was Jacob.  Jacob, son of Isaac, grandson of Abraham, was, as you know, most of his life a deceiver and a schemer. But Jesus says that Nathanael, "an Israelite," is a man of God with no deceit about him: honest, open.

Natahanel is baffled by how Jesus describes him. He’s never met Jesus. “How do you know me?” he asks Jesus (John 1:48). 

Of course, the short answer Jesus could have given would have been, “Because I’m the Word made flesh, God among you. I know everything!” (John 1:14). 

But Jesus’ reply demonstrates that in Him, we meet a God Who knows each and every one of us as individual people, knows us, in fact, intimately and well from the moments of our conceptions (Psalm 139:13). Jesus tells Nathanael: “I saw you while you were still under the fig tree before Philip called you.” (John 1:48).

Jesus knows Nathanael was under a fig tree. What on earth does that mean? 

And what has it got to do with you and me? 

I think it’s significant in several ways. 

First, some of the ancient rabbis believed that the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, the fruit of which Adam and Eve were told not to eat but which they did eat, bringing humanity’s fall into sin, was a fig tree. This, they explained, is why, some of the rabbis said, God sewed clothing made of fig leaves for Adam and Eve. 

There’s a sense then in which every human being is “under the fig tree.” We’re born under the condemnation of sin and death, in need of the salvation gives to those who repent and believe in the crucified and risen Jesus. 

Jesus sees in each of us sinners in need of His saving work. That’s what He saw in Nathanael too.

But there’s another way in which Nathanael could be "under a fig tree." Take a look at these pictures of fig trees. 

Fig trees, you see, they can become large and sheltering. Their roots often explode out of the ground. 

In ancient times, the roots of fig trees were often used by rabbis as shady classrooms for digging into God’s promises. Among those promises is one God gave through the prophet Zechariah about the kingdom of God to be brought to believers by the Messiah, the Christ: “‘In that day each of you will invite your neighbor to sit under your vine and fig tree,’ declares the Lord Almighty.”(Zechariah 3:10) 

Nathanael was one of those students of God who, with the faith of a child, anticipated the day when the Messiah would embrace all who believe in Him into the Kingdom of God. 

That’s why Nathanael, on hearing that Jesus had seen him under a fig tree, understood that Jesus knew everything about him and loved him anyway. And so, he burst into a confession of faith: “Rabbi, you are the Son of God; you are the king of Israel.” (John 1:49) 

Nathanael, who had known himself lost and looking for his Savior for years, now knew that he had been found by the One he had longed for all his life!

Jesus marvels at this Israelite’s simple faith. “You believe[ because I told you I saw you under the fig tree. You will see greater things than that…[and then, alluding once more to the old deceiver Jacob, who once wrestled with God while angels ascended and descended a ladder between heaven and earth, Jesus promises] “Very truly I tell you, you will see ‘heaven open, and the angels of God ascending and descending on’ the Son of Man.” (John 1:50-51)

So, what’s the point of it all, friends? 

Just this. 

We’re born into this world under the shadow of the fig tree--under the shadow of sin and death. Left to our own devices, we will remain under that shadow eternally. 

But Jesus has come to bring us forgiveness and new life. 

In Him, heaven itself is opened to us, God is present for us here and now, and God gives us eternity with Him. 

Do you doubt it? 

Come and see. Tomorrow, as you begin your day, turn to God, confess your sins and receive forgiveness in Jesus’ name, consider God’s Word, and then know that you can trust that you live in the shelter of Jesus all day long. 

Later this morning, receive His body and blood, His presence with you, and His forgiveness for you through the sacrament. 

By these means--Word and Sacrament, Jesus invites you to come and see His love and grace for you and all who trust in Him, and He will show you again that no matter how lost you may sometimes feel, heaven is yours and you belong to God forever. Amen