John 1:43-51 (Lectionary Translation)
43 The next day Jesus decided to go to Galilee. He found Philip and said to him, ‘Follow me.’ 44 Now Philip was from Bethsaida, the city of Andrew and Peter. 45 Philip found Nathanael and said to him, ‘We have found him about whom Moses in the law and also the prophets wrote, Jesus son of Joseph from Nazareth.’ 46 Nathanael said to him, ‘Can anything good come out of Nazareth?’ Philip said to him, ‘Come and see.’
47 When Jesus saw Nathanael coming towards him, he said of him, ‘Here is truly an Israelite in whom there is no deceit!’ 48 Nathanael asked him, ‘Where did you come to know me?’ Jesus answered, ‘I saw you under the fig tree before Philip called you.’ 49 Nathanael replied, ‘Rabbi, you are the Son of God! You are the King of Israel!’ 50 Jesus answered, ‘Do you believe because I told you that I saw you under the fig tree? You will see greater things than these.’
51 And he said to him, ‘Very truly, I tell you, you will see heaven opened and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man.’
DISCIPLES AND ANGELS
In this passage, earth meets heaven, and the Jesus of History meets the Christ of Faith. As always in the Gospel of John, the focus is on the divinity of Christ more than on the humanity. Remember, it’s in John that we find the “I Am” sayings, where Jesus speaks of himself using the Divine Name revealed in the Burning Bush. Here, then, at the beginning of the Gospel of John, we aren’t surprised that Jesus is proclaimed not only “the one,” and “King of Israel,” but, even, “Son of God.”
So it is all the more striking to find earthy details here, too. Jesus is introduced as “the son of Joseph” – a very rare Gospel reference to a human father for Jesus! And he is “from Nazareth” – using the name of a city (yes, Nazareth was in fact a real city at that time, not a tiny hamlet!) that was anything but impressive – at least to Nathanael! Perhaps the earthiest detail is that fig tree Nathanael was sitting under. What is that all about? It can be pointed out that the fig tree may represent the study of Torah in Jewish tradition; maybe Jesus is saying that Nathanael is a pious religious student in need of a bit of a mystical surprise in his life! But it may also be that a fig tree is just an earthy fig tree.
Jesus is nothing if not observant: noticing a guy sitting alone in the shade of a tree, noticing what is said and what is not said, noting all the mannerisms and performances and cover-ups that every one of us shows to the world every day, although we think that we are being very private and discreet. Noticing humanity.
Disciples are not angels. They exhibit all the quirks that make us all endearing and sometimes annoying. Why on earth does a Divine Teacher need, or even put up with, such earth-bound groupies? That is the real question of the Gospel of John, where the Christ is so sublime, and the rest of the characters are in general pretty disappointing. Angels would make more dependable disciples. And yet, even in the most divine of Gospels, the work of the Kingdom of Heaven is entrusted to disciples who are flawed and fairly un-teachable earthlings.
Perhaps this is what Jesus is saying, when he tells Nathanael – and us too – that there is something “greater” than meeting the Son of God and the King of Israel. What could be greater than that?
A simple ladder, two lengths of rail and a set of rungs, rough-hewn of wood from a fig tree perhaps: a ladder stretching, usefully, from earth to heaven - and back. That is the strange image that Jesus pulls out of his biblical memory. An image from the Book of Genesis (28:12) – where Jacob dreams of a ladder, its foot on the earth, its top in heaven, and “angels of God … ascending and descending on it.” For Jesus, this is the image of his vocation, and his disciples’ vocation too.
There is a calling greater than perfect divinity and royal power. It is a greater calling to become, to really become, a “Human Being” – as Jesus says: a “Son of Man” (ben-‘adam). Only a real Human Being can stand like this, rough and ready, feet on earth and mind in heaven: a road for angels.
Let the angels come and go. Let them use our feet, our hands, our shoulders, our earth-bound selves, as their ladders. Let the angels of heaven, on their immortal missions of compassion here, find in our true humanity a sure and solid footing.
Henry Ralph Carse