Jon 1:47-51 The Child Under Every Fig Tree

Feast of Saints Michael, Gabriel and St. Raphael, Archangels

(Click here for readings)

By KATIE GROSS

Jesus saw Nathanael coming toward him and said of him,
“Here is a true child of Israel.
There is no duplicity in him.”
Nathanael said to him, “How do you know me?”
Jesus answered and said to him,
“Before Philip called you, I saw you under the fig tree.”
Nathanael answered him,
“Rabbi, you are the Son of God; you are the King of Israel.”
Jesus answered and said to him,
“Do you believe
because I told you that I saw you under the fig tree?
You will see greater things than this.”
And he said to him, “Amen, amen, I say to you,
you will see heaven opened
and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man.”

 To me, Nathanael represents the perfect picture of childlike faith. If any of you have children or have spent time with children, you know that they are amazed by everything. They haven’t lost that sense of wonder that often fades away with age.

Every once in a while, my family and I pull out a box of old video cassette tapes (if that is even what they are called) and watch old home videos. My favorite video is from my older brother’s first Christmas in ‘91. Besides being able to see my mother with a perm and my dad with ridiculous glasses, the funniest part is when my brother comes downstairs to see his present in the morning. My mom was so psyched about what she got him-- a plastic basketball hoop. She was sure that my brother would be so excited. But of course, my brother completely ignored the basketball hoop. The first thing that caught his attention was the cardboard box it came in. He was instantly absorbed by the box.

Or when my cousins were young, they used to come over and sit beside my piano bench while I played. I would play some ridiculous little song like chopsticks, and their eyes would light up, and they would get excited and bang on the piano with me. They didn’t want to hear some elaborate classical piece I had been working on. Chopsticks was the most incredible thing they had ever heard!

This is what I imagine our faith to be like. We get only little glimpses of the full glory of God, but yet we are consumed by them. What God is actually capable of—what God actually has in store for us—is beyond what we could ever imagine. When we encounter glimpses of God on earth, we are like little kids overjoyed with a cardboard box or a simple tune.

“You will see greater things than this.” How could there be something greater than what Jesus told Nathanael? Jesus, in essence, revealed to Nathanael that He miraculously had knowledge of his whereabouts. To Nathanael, that was clearly evidence that Jesus was God. That was all he needed. Of course, we know that Jesus had much more in store. Besides being all-knowing, He raised the dead, healed the sick, gave sight to the blind, and even defeated death. How could Nathanael have known?

“Amen, amen, I say to you, you will see heaven opened and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man.” I think sometimes we have heard Scripture so much that we forget just how absurd some of it must have sounded to the people Jesus spoke to. Imagine having no knowledge of Christianity, and having somebody come up and say this to you. Heaven opened? Angels of God ascending and descending? What does that even mean???

Saint Augustine says in his Confessions, “What matters it to me if someone does not understand this? Let him too rejoice and say, ‘What is this?’ Let him rejoice even at this, and let him love to find you while not finding it out, rather than, while finding it out, not to find you.” We should rejoice in the fact that God’s ways are so high above our understanding.  It is because of this that we can find peace in the midst of chaos, and joy even when we do not understand a single thing happening in our lives.

God is a mystery.