I suspect that Nathanael wasn’t the first person who had some doubts about Jesus the Christ. And he certainly wasn’t the last. We have plenty of records of people who, throughout history, have questioned the validity of Jesus’ role as Messiah. But even among people of faith, there are still times of when we deal with uncertainty about the role of Jesus in our lives and in the world around us.
Just look at the Apostle Paul, the greatest evangelist of the early church. Prior to his Christian conversion, Paul, like Nathanael, has been “zealous for the law,” working to experience God’s acceptance, but never feeling he had done quite enough. It was only after a very profound encounter with the risen Lord on the Road to Damascus that Paul came to understand, accept, and then articulate the truth of salvation by grace through faith. Paul was able to let go of his desperate attempt to win God’s favor, of the constant nagging doubt that he was doing enough, and he was able to receive the gift of God’s salvation in Christ Jesus.
Then there was Martin Luther, the father of the Reformation. For years, he experienced deep and terrifying spiritual struggles he called Anfechtungens, a German word which roughly translates to “trials” or “spiritual crises,” and could be described as “dark nights of the soul.” Like Paul, Luther was plagued by this doubt until one evening when he was reading Paul’s own letter to the Romans. In the first chapter, Paul speaks of the righteousness of God that is ours by faith. Suddenly, Luther “got it” and he began to trust God’s righteousness and acceptance. It was his newfound faith which spurred him to nail his “95 Theses” to the door of the Wittenberg Church.
After Luther, there was John Wesley, the founder of Methodism. Wesley was raised in the home of an Anglican priest. He went to Oxford to study theology, and then stayed on there to teach others, even as he himself became a priest of the Anglican Church. For decades, he immersed himself in studying scripture, praying, fasting, and worship. Then, in his early 30s, he answered a call to go to the new colony of Georgia and serve there in mission to the natives and the colonists. As I’ve shared with you before, Wesley’s work in Savannah was a complete failure, and he returned to England after only two years with his proverbial tail between his legs. He was ready to give it all up, when he sought out the guidance of some Moravian Christians he had come to know in his travels to America. Wesley shared with their leader, Peter Boehler, that he intended to give up preaching. To that Boehler responded, “Preach faith till you have it, and then, because you have it, you will preach faith.” So that’s what Wesley did. And just two short years later, as he sat in a Society meeting on Aldersgate Street in London, listening to a reading of Martin Luther’s preface to Paul’s letter to the Romans, Wesley recorded, “I felt my heart strangely warmed. I felt I did trust in Christ, Christ alone for my salvation; and an assurance was given to me that he had taken away my sins, even mine, and saved me from the law of sin and death.” For the next 50 years, Wesley would preach and teach about the gift of salvation and God’s great grace. We sit here today, in some way a product of his work.
More recently, you may have heard of Mother Teresa’s struggles. Even as she worked among the poor and outcaste, the “Untouchables” of Indian society, seeking to share God’s love with them, she wondered about God’s presence and love for her. She knelt in prayer multiple times a day everyday, and yet she reflected in her writings that more often than not, her prayers reached no further than the ceiling above her head. Still, she continued to serve her Lord faithfully.
Two-thousand years ago, Philip, the newest disciple of Jesus ran to find his friend, Nathanael. “We have found the one Moses wrote about in the Law and the Prophets: Jesus, Joseph’s son, from Nazareth.” I’m not sure how Philip could have been anymore clear, he identified the Messiah in about four different ways: “the one Moses wrote about in the Law and Prophets,” “Jesus,” “Joseph’s son,” “from Nazareth.” Now, just after this, Jesus identifies Nathanael as a genuine Israelite, so we can know that Philip’s words describing Jesus as “the one Moses wrote about in the Law and the Prophets” would have carried great weight with someone like Nathanael. And yet, Nathanael gets stuck on the very last and perhaps most insignificant fact that Philip draws out--“from Nazareth.” You can almost hear the gall in Nathanael’s response, “From Nazareth?!? Are you kidding me??? What a joke! Can anything good come from Nazareth?”
“Come and see,” Philip said.
So today, we are going to “come and see,” just as Philip directed. The truth of the matter is, we may not be skeptics in the way Nathanael was, but we’ve all dealt with at least a little doubt in our life of faith. We have had those moments when we’ve wondered if Jesus Christ really is who we have been taught he is. We wonder why there can be so much tragedy and suffering in the midst of a world that God created and called good. We doubt the promise of life in the face of death, and particularly tragic and untimely death. We feel sometimes as if we have completely failed in our efforts to find and to follow God. And at other times, we feel that even our most fervent of prayers have gone unanswered. So we wonder, along with Nathanael, “is this actually a good thing? Can anything good really come from this?”
“Come and see,” says Philip.
Despite Nathanael’s uncertainty, there was just enough in Philip’s words to spark some curiosity, so Nathanael follows Philip back to the place where Christ had called him. And before they even arrive where Jesus is standing, Jesus sees Nathanael coming toward him and he says, “Here is a genuine Israelite in whom there is no deceit.” Here is Nathanael, who has just questioned Jesus because of his humble origins, and as he approaches the Messiah for the first time, Christ calls Nathanael a “genuine Israelite.” But Nathanael, apparently still has his doubts. “How do you know me?”
“Before Philip called you, I saw you under the fig tree.” Jesus answered him.
And then, Nathanael knew. “Rabbi, you ARE God’s son. You are the king of Israel.” It was not so much that Jesus had seen him under the fig-tree that surprised Nathanael; it was the fact that Jesus had seen and known the thoughts of his inmost heart. We can almost imagine the thoughts running through Nathanael’s head when he encountered Christ for the first time. Here is the man who understands my dreams! Here is the man who knows my prayers! Here is the man who can discern those “sighs too deep for words.” This must be the one God has promised! Suddenly, there was no more reason for skepticism. Now, the doubt was pushed from Nathanael’s thoughts, and he surely felt the fullness of faith.
So what do we learn from this? What is it we need to “come and see”? Well first, I think we need to acknowledge that there will be times in our life of faith that we are confronted with doubt, skepticism, and uncertainty. We will experience things happening around us, and we will feel as if we are “walking through the valley of the shadow.” We will wonder if God really is good. And we will question everything that we believe in. But here’s the thing. It’s in those moments more than any other that we must recognize the possibility that there is something worth believing in, that there is someone good who has our very best interests in mind. Then, we must seek those opportunities to “come and see,” to encounter the risen Lord in new and unexpected ways. And that means celebrating even the very smallest of miracles at times.
There wasn’t anything particularly noteworthy about Nathanael’s first encounter with Christ. There was no flash of light and blaze of glory. The Holy Spirit did not come out of the sky like tongues of flame. He was not suddenly healed or offered forgiveness for his sins. Jesus simply saw him sitting under a fig tree and noted that he was a genuine Israelite. Jesus sees each of us, too, even in the midst of our questioning and uncertainty, even when it feels as if our faith is faltering. Jesus sees right into our hearts; he knows our longings, our deepest dreams, our fears and failures, our struggles to be “right,” all of our joy and hope. And Jesus speaks the truth of all that is good within us. He calls out of us the people God created us to be.
Are you listening for that call? Are you looking for the signs of God’s continuing work in this world? Are you celebrating the small miracles of Christ’s saving grace, even as you wonder at the injustice and horror we encounter everyday? Because if you are always searching and seeking, always ready to follow the beckoning of Christ in your life, then you will grow in your faith and your life as a disciple of Christ, even in the face of doubt. You will move from being Nathanael, sitting skeptically under the fig tree, to being Philip calling out to all his friends.
“Come and see!”
“Come and see.”
