Second Sunday after the Epiphany – January 18, 2009

John 1:43-51 - The next day Jesus decided to leave for Galilee. Finding Philip, he said to him, “Follow me.” Philip, like Andrew and Peter, was from the town of Bethsaida. Philip found Nathanael and told him, “We have found the one Moses wrote about in the Law, and about whom the prophets also wrote—Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph.” “Nazareth! Can anything good come from there?” Nathanael asked. “Come and see,” said Philip. When Jesus saw Nathanael approaching, he said of him, “Here is a true Israelite, in whom there is nothing false.” “How do you know me?” Nathanael asked. Jesus answered, “I saw you while you were still under the fig tree before Philip called you.” Then Nathanael declared, “Rabbi, you are the Son of God; you are the King of Israel. ” Jesus said, “You believe because I told you I saw you under the fig tree. You shall see greater things than that.” He then added, “(amen, amen) I tell you (plural) the truth, you shall see heaven open, and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man.”

God is good! We are fickle! Want an example? Temperatures have been frigid the last few days, yet none of us have had to sleep outside. The economy is bad, yet we haven’t had to go an entire day without food. Why? Because God is good to us. Still, we find ourselves worrying about the future, losing sleep over it, and wondering if God will really take care of us. Want another example? God sent his only Son to earth - to suffer for us, to die in our place, to endure our hell. With this sacrifice Jesus paid for our sin, guilt, and wretchedness. Through faith, the very faith he creates, God credits Jesus’ perfection, holiness, and innocence to us. But what do we do? We at times doubt it. We at times live like we don’t want it. We at times wonder if Jesus really is our Savior. We are fickle! God is good! That is why the Epiphany season, which we cannot allow to get lost between Christmas and Lent, is such a fantastic season for us. It shows us the goodness of God, because it shows us the Son of God. So, won’t you please this morning listen carefully, stay awake, and come and see the Son of God. 1) He’s the one who fulfills Scriptures 2) He’s the one who reads our hearts 3) He’s the one who opens heaven.

To be sure, it is a very engaging section of Scripture that lies before us this morning. Through the hand of the Holy Spirit we are given the privilege of seeing Jesus gather his disciples at the beginning of his public ministry. After John the Baptist had baptized Jesus, he continued his work of calling people to repentance and pointing them to Jesus as the promised Savior. On more than one occasion the Baptist pointed his own disciples, and anyone else who was willing to listen, to Jesus with the words, “Look, the Lamb of God” (John 1:35)! Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, took these words to heart and followed Jesus. Now, it was Philip’s turn. We read, “Finding Philip, he [Jesus] said to him, ‘Follow me.’”

It doesn’t seem like much at first, but notice how Philip responds. He doesn’t say to Jesus, “Oh, thanks for the invitation, I’ll be sure to do that when I get around to it.” He doesn’t say, “I’m kind of busy.” He doesn’t say, “Could you give me a few moments to finish up what I’m doing here?” No, he follows Jesus and then goes and invites his friend Nathanael to join him. When Nathanael responds skeptically to Philip’s invitation, Philip simply says, “Come and see.” But who is it that Philip invites Nathanael to come and see? Is it Jesus, the new talk of the town? Is it Jesus, some man John the Baptist said we should follow? Is it Jesus, simply a good man? No, it is Jesus, the Son of God. How can we be so sure? Philip says, “We have found the one Moses wrote about in the Law, and about whom the prophets also wrote.”

Yes, the entire Word of God, going all the way back to the book of Genesis, testifies to the fact that this Jesus who had invited Philip to follow him was indeed the promised Savior, the Son of God. It is those first five books of the Bible written by Moses, Genesis through Deuteronomy, that Philip makes reference to when he says “the one Moses wrote about in the Law.” Imagine that, 14 to 15 hundred years before Jesus even set foot upon this earth as the son of Mary, God had Moses write about him, the Messiah who would be the Son of God. In the Garden God said of Jesus, the seed of the woman, “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel” (Genesis 3:15). To Abraham, it was the descendant Jesus God promised, “All peoples on earth will be blessed through you” (Genesis 12:3). To Moses God was speaking of Jesus when he said, “I will raise up for them a prophet like you from among their brothers; I will put my words in his mouth, and he will tell them everything I command him” (Deuteronomy 18:18).

But it isn’t only in Moses’ books that the promise was given. It was also written by the prophets. Isaiah unmistakably points to Jesus, who is Immanuel, which means God with us, when he says, “Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign: The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel” (Isaiah 7:14). But are we right? Could we be mistaken? The New Testament answers those concerns for us when it says of Jesus, “And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he [Jesus] explained to them what was said in all the Scriptures concerning himself” (Luke 24:27).

God so carefully, so magnificently laid out his plan of salvation and ordered and directed the course of history so that the Old Testament people could look forward to the promised Christ with believing hearts. But not only that, God so carefully, so magnificently laid out his plan of salvation and ordered and directed the course of history so that when Jesus came people would be able to identify him as the promised Messiah and know he is the Son of God. And not only that, God so carefully, so magnificently laid out his plan of salvation and ordered and directed the course of history so that we today, when Jesus comes to us in the Word and invites us to follow him and trust him as our Savior, can know beyond a shadow of a doubt that he who invites us is indeed the Son of God, and worthy of our trust. And that is important, because we are so fickle.

It was on account of those Old Testament promises that Nathanael responded to Philip the way he did, “Nazareth! Can anything good come from there?” Nathanael was skeptical, but it wasn’t because he didn’t believe in the promised Messiah. It was that the Old Testament never mentioned Nazareth in connection with the Messiah. Everyone knew the Messiah was supposed to come from Bethlehem. Rather than argue with him, Philip simply said, “Come and see.” So Nathanael went with Philip, not knowing what to expect. But Jesus knew all about Nathanael and said of him, “Here is a true Israelite, in whom there is nothing false.” Jesus wasn’t being sarcastic. Even though Nathanael had his doubts, he was truly looking forward to the promised Savior.

But Jesus caught him off guard. Nathanael wondered how he knew him. Then Jesus blows him away, “I saw you while you were still under the fig tree before Philip called you.” Jesus knew where Philip found him. Jesus knew where he had been sitting. Jesus knew him without ever meeting him. How could this be? Nathanael could come to only one conclusion, and it was the right conclusion, “Rabbi, you are the Son of God.”

The omniscient Lord still looks into our minds and hearts today. There is nothing that we can hide from his all-seeing eyes. How does that make you feel? I don’t know about you, but for me, that can be a frightening thought. After all, I don’t want him to see the thoughts I have had toward those people he has told me to love. I don’t want him to know about those times I’ve questioned his goodness because things didn’t go the way I wanted. I don’t want him to know of the times sin has sounded so appealing. I don’t want him to know the times I have work-righteously thought, “As long as I act a certain way today, I can make up for the way I acted yesterday.” I don’t want him to know the times I have self-righteously thought, “Jesus, I’m really not that bad.” I don’t want him to know about those days, or afternoons, or hours when I didn’t really think about him. I don’t want him to see how many times I’ve confessed my faith in him, only to turn around and plan, yes, actually plan, to do something I knew didn’t match with that confession. I don’t want him to know of the times I’ve been tempted to respond to his invitation to follow with, “I’m too tired today Lord; it’s been a long week; things in my life are more important; I’ll catch you later.” I don’t want him to know the times I’ve been skeptical about him. I don’t want him to see those times when faith has become weak and doubts have risen.

And I know I sound a lot like you! After all, who of you can’t say those very same things? And the reason we don’t want Jesus to see the thoughts of our mind is because we know they are not in line with what he demands. The reason we don’t want him to take inventory of our hearts is because we know that what he will find there is a fickle human being. One who is so easily swayed by the teachings of this world and the cunnings of Satan; who so quickly falls under the weight of trial and temptation; and who so frequently doubts him, his goodness, his love, and his Holy Word. We don’t want him to see these things, because his Word says, and we know, that they too are disgusting, revolting, hideous sins against him and are worthy of nothing but eternity in hell!

Yet, it is because of who we are, sinful human beings deserving of nothing but hell, that Jesus has to be who he says he is. That is why we treasure the words of this magnificent text. They offer proof after proof of our Savior’s divinity. The truth that Jesus is the only Son of the Father, at once true God and true man, is central to our belief. It makes all the difference in the world, because only a divine Christ can erase, cancel, and forgive human sin. Only the Son of God can say, “You shall see greater things than that.” “I tell you the truth, you shall see heaven open, and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man.”

Jesus was talking about himself when he spoke these words to Nathanael, the other disciples gathered around him, and yes, to us. You see, in the English language the word “you” is the same whether you are talking to one or more people, but it isn’t that way in Greek. Here Jesus uses the plural form of “you”, “I tell you the truth.” He’s talking to you and me, too. And what he is telling us is sweet music to our ears.

His promise to Nathanael and us is that we will see greater things than this example of his omniscience. He says we will see heaven open, and angels of God ascending and descending. The picture that Jesus gives calls to mind Jacob’s dream recorded in the Old Testament. Remember that? Jacob had just tricked his brother and deceived his father. Now his brother wanted to kill him. So Jacob was forced to run away to a distant land with nothing more than a staff in his hand. As he lay down one night to rest, Jacob had a dream in which he saw a stairway to heaven; angels were ascending and descending upon it; and the LORD stood at the top. The purpose of the dream was to assure Jacob that in spite of his sin he stood in God’s favor and under his almighty protection.

Do you get what Jesus is saying to you and me then? The greater thing that we will see is heaven open. We stand in God’s favor because the separation between us and God is done away. Not because we have made amends for our sin! Not because God has simply forgotten or ignored them! But because of the Son of God! “You will see heaven open, and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man.” Jesus is talking about himself. He is saying that he is the mediator between God and man whom men need not fear, because he is man, and who God the Father cannot reject, because he is God and the only begotten Son of God. Therefore, as we hold to him in faith, heaven is ours. Jesus, the Son of God, has reopened heaven, which our sin had closed. On account of his payment for our sins with his death, and on account of his resurrection which destroyed death, we and God are at one once more.

Perhaps an illustration would help. Suppose that you are standing on one side of the Grand Canyon and God is standing on the other side. We want to be with God, but this huge canyon is in the way. It separates us from him. That canyon is our sin. We can try to jump from our side to His, but we fail and fall to our death. Our best efforts all come short. The only way we will get from our side to God’s is if he builds a bridge for us to cross. That bridge has been built, and that bridge is Jesus. He started the bridge when he came to earth as our substitute. He continued the work as he perfectly obeyed God’s law in our place. He finished that bridge when from the cross he victoriously said, “It is finished” (John 19:30). The work of our salvation is complete. He took our sins upon himself and allowed God’s just anger and holy wrath to be directly poured out against him. He rose from the grave on the third day and has ascended into heaven to declare to us, this bridge, it will hold you, it will not collapse, it is the sure thing, do not be afraid.

God is good. There is no reason to be fickle. There is no need to doubt. There is no need to be lured by the pleasures of the world. Rather, let us, day in, day out, come and see the Son of God in the Word. After all, he has said, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me” (John 14:6). Amen.