“A lifetime of discovery” (St. Luke’s: Friday, January 5th, 2018; 1 Jn. 3.11-21; Ps. 100; Jn. 1.43-51)

Not what we expected.  Job interviews can be harrowing experiences; this was especially true, I imagine, during the time before social media became so popular.  Before the days of Facebook, Twitter, and all the rest, most people looking to hire a new employee would have had no idea, prior to the interview, regarding the physical appearance of the candidate.  I remember applying for a summer job 11 years ago; as I entered the spacious and mostly empty room which served as an office for the gentleman who would conduct the interview, he rose from his seat and shook my hand.  He looked me over and then repeated my name with a questioning tone, as if he wanted to confirm my identity.  I replied that I was indeed me; however, he continued to stare at me with a confused look on his face.  “I thought you’d be taller”, he said, and then proceeded to make a gesture that seemed to imply that he had assumed that I would also be more muscular (the job involved working with homeless men – yes, I got it).  Face-to-face encounters can take us aback and surprise us, even to the point of shattering our expectations about the other person.

What does God look like?  In the Gospel of St. John, one of the main questions being raised is “What does God look like?”  At the end of the “prologue” to his Gospel (1.1-18), John says: “No one has ever seen God. It is God the only Son …who has made him known” (1.18).  Many people in the Old Testament desired to look upon the face of Yahweh.  Among these biblical mystics was Moses, the prophet with whom God spoke “face to face” (cf. Ex. 33.11; Gn. 32.30).  At one point, Moses dares to ask Yahweh, “Show me your glory”.  Yahweh replied that no one could see his face and survive the experience (cf. Ex. 33.17-23).  And yet, St. John, in his prologue, describes Jesus in the five ways that the Hebrew Scriptures describe how Yahweh interacts with his creation – John describes Jesus as being God’s Word, God’s Wisdom, God’s Law (given to Moses), God’s Dwelling-place (“tent”, i.e. tabernacle) and… God’s Glory.  “…the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son…” (1.14).

Zoom lens.  The Word through which the universe was created became flesh.  John the Evangelist begins his Gospel with this satellite view of the Creating and Redeeming God of the Scriptures; then he adjusts the lens and zooms in on the strange figure of John the Baptist, who is denying that he is anyone special and insisting that he is simply a “voice in the wilderness”, preparing the way for someone else.  As we saw yesterday, once John the Baptist identifies Jesus as “the lamb of God”, two of his disciples leave him and begin to – literally – follow Jesus as he makes his way home at the end of the day (cf. 1.35-39).  This encounter convinces Andrew that Jesus is indeed the long-awaited Messiah.  What happens next is what happens every time we receive some big news – either bad or good; Andrew goes and “finds” his brother Simon and tells him, “We found him!”, and then proceeds to bring Simon to Jesus.  In today’s reading, continuing on from yesterday, Jesus goes into Galilee and “finds” Philip.  “Follow me”, Jesus says.  So what does Philip do?  He runs off and “finds” Nathanael and tells him, “We have found him about whom Moses in the law and also the prophets wrote”.  In the space of 5 verses (1.41-45), the word “found” has been repeated 5 times!  Everyone’s being found!  Jesus is finding people, and people are finding him!  It’s like the question people address to new couples: “How did you two find each other?”  Of course, nowadays, the answer may very well involve the internet… 

We thought you’d be more… well, more.  So here’s the thing.  St. John is extremely well aware of the fact that none of the cosmic claims he is making about Jesus of Nazareth seem very plausible at first glance.  He knows that many of his readers will share Nathanael’s skepticism: “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” (1.46).  It’s like the gentleman from the job interview – “you don’t look like the kind of person we’re looking for…”  Philip’s response to Nathanael is also John’s challenge to all those who read/hear his Gospel: “Come and see”.  Take a look for yourself.  All throughout his Gospel, St. John is making a case, he is presenting us with his “testimony” about Jesus (cf. 21.24).  The word “testimony” is a legal term used in a court of law.  A witness, an eyewitness, will offer testimony during a trial in support of the case of either the prosecution or the defense.  St. John is telling us, “Here’s the evidence.  Take a look.  Come to your own conclusion.”  Of course, when John tells us, his readers, to “come and see”, he is inviting us to experience an epiphany – a revelation of God.  He is inviting us to have the experience that was denied to Moses – that of seeing the glorious face of the Father.  Interestingly enough, it is Philip, at the Last Supper, who says to Jesus “Lord, show us the Father, and we will be satisfied”.  Jesus turns to Philip and – I imagine – gives him a knowing look… (cf. Jn. 14.8-9).

The “way” to see.  This was quite the shock – even for those who “believed” in Jesus.  That the Word would become flesh – no one had expected that to happen.  And yet, those who first came to believe that Jesus of Nazareth was the Word-of-Yahweh-become-human were equally convinced that the epiphany they experienced with Jesus was indeed what “Moses in the law and also the prophets wrote [about]”!  God had shocked his people by doing something totally unexpected – just as he had always promised he would (cf. Is. 43.19).  Yahweh – the One God of Israel – turned out to be even stranger than expected; and if the Son, the living embodiment of the Father, himself receives the Holy Spirit… what then!?  The God revealed in Jesus is indeed a strange God; this God is most probably not what Andrew, Peter, Philip and Nathanael had had in mind prior to their encounter with the man from Nazareth.  To be sure, one encounter is hardly enough to even scratch the surface of this mysterious divinity.  In fact, there is only one way to “see” the depths and breadth of the God revealed in Jesus – one must “follow” him.  To follow Jesus is to enter “the gate of heaven”.  This brings us to the words of Jesus addressed to Nathanael at the end of today’s Gospel: “you will see heaven opened and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man”.  What “in the world” is Jesus talking about?  Jesus seems to be referring to a story from the life of Jacob, told in the book of Genesis.  In this story, Jacob is on the run from his brother Esau, who is a tad upset that Jacob had tricked their father Isaac into giving him the blessing that rightly belonged to Esau as the firstborn son.  As Jacob curls up beside the road one night, he dreams of a ladder that stretches from earth to heaven and upon which angels are going up and down.  When he awakes from his dream, Jacob names the place “Beth-el” – the “house of God” – and exclaims, “This is the gate of heaven” (cf. Gn. 28.17).  Jacob realized that he had fallen asleep in what the Celtic tradition refers to as a “thin place”, a place where the curtain that divides heaven (God’s space) from earth (our space) is transparent.  What Jesus is saying to Nathanael is “I am the place where heaven and earth meet.  I am the gate of heaven.”  Jesus is the way (cf. Jn. 14.6); Jesus is the door (10.7); Jesus is the Shepherd (10.11).  Our journey as disciples begins by being found by Jesus and continues forever as we discover more and more of this God-made-flesh.  Come and see.  Amen.