Epiphany 2: Nathanael... & Jacob

Genesis 28: 10-22 (not the lectionary reading!); John 1: 43-51

I love the Sundays of Epiphany – starting with the visit of the Magi (which we celebrated last week) and then moving on to other stories of God’s presence on earth being revealed to people.

I think what I most love is the idea that we don’t just pack away the Christmas decorations and forget about God’s love being incarnate in Jesus, but we allow the story of Jesus’ coming to earth to open our eyes to other ways in which God’s love is present to us.

 

What can be better to start the new year than a series of reminders that God is with us and that we can expect to meet with God in 2024.

 

Today we heard two very related Biblical stories of God’s presence.

 

The first is the vision given to Jacob, when he saw angels going up and down a ladder between earth and heaven. 

 

You might think that Jacob is a specially holy person to be given this vision: nothing could be further from the truth. Jacob is the twin who was born holding onto the heel of his brother, Esau. He seemed to like tripping people up – he tricked Esau of what should have been his as the older brother not once, but twice; and then made the most of his father’s blindness to trick him into blessing Jacob instead of Esau. He has to flee from his family, and in the darkness and loneliness of the desert he sees a vision of angels and hears God's voice.

 

This epiphany of God’s presence doesn’t happen because Jacob is a good and Godly man who is expecting God to be revealed in his life: it happens because God is good and gracious and chooses to use even a cheat like Jacob to show his love to humankind. Jacob himself is left open-eyed with wonder ‘Surely the Lord is in this place and I did not know it’.

How strange that what opens Jacob’s eyes is a dream. In his exhaustion and loneliness and panic to get away from his mistakes, he has stopped and realised that no matter what he has done God is with him.

 

I wonder how our 2024 will be different if we can remind ourselves sometimes to stop and say ‘Surely the Lord is in this place’. 

 

Coming forward 2,000 years or so from the story of Jacob, our Gospel reading tells us how Jesus has appeared in the desert with John the Baptist.

 

Andrew has been shown Jesus by John the Baptist, who has said ‘this is God’s chosen one’; Andrew has fetched Simon Peter, his brother; and then Jesus has said to Philip ‘follow me’.

Philip goes to find Nathanael and says ‘we have found the Messiah -  Jesus, son of Joseph, from Nazareth’. 

Nathanael is not a bit impressed ‘can anything good come from Nazareth?’ but when Philip says ‘come and see’ Nathanael goes with him to meet Jesus.

And it seems that the story of Jacob – who is later to change his name to Israel, is very much in Jesus’ mind.

As Jesus sees Nathanael he says “Here is an Israelite worthy of the name: there is nothing false in him”. 

In other words, here is a descendant of Jacob (Israel) who is unlike his ancestor. Jacob was known to be a trickster – Nathanael is the exact opposite – someone without guile.

 

Nathanael is surprised by this greeting and asks Jesus ‘how do you know me?”. When Jesus says he saw him under the fig tree, Nathanael immediately declares that Jesus is the Son of God and the King of Israel. Jesus answers ‘Do you believe this because I say I saw you under the fig tree? You will see greater things than that.. you will see heaven wide open and God’s angels ascending and descending on the Son of man.’

 

In other words, you will see another enactment of Jacob’s dream of angels, God’s messengers moving between heaven and earth – and where Jacob saw a ladder, this time what joins earth and heaven will be a person – Jesus – God’s love in a human person, born on earth.

 

So here is another epiphany of God’s presence: this time to someone who was looking for God’s Messiah, but was looking in the wrong places and was surprised when he found this Jesus from (of all places) Nazareth.

 

Nathanael’s name only appears once more in the Gospel of John – he is not named again among the disciples until the very end of John’s gospel (ch 21) when after Jesus death and resurrection, Jesus appears to the disciples as they are fishing on Lake Galilee. It’s the story where they have been fishing all night without a catch and the risen Jesus appears on the shore and tells them to cast the nets on the other side – and they catch a huge amount.

 

I love that Nathanael is named again here – having found Jesus at the beginning of his ministry, coming from the unexpected place of Nazareth, he finds the risen Jesus right at the end of the gospel, and Jesus shows him to find fish in an unexpected place. Maybe from that point on Nathanael decided he would spend his life looking for Jesus in unexpected places.. I hope so.

 

Returning to 2024, I hope we can be more like Nathanael – finding ourselves surprised by Jesus turning up in the most unusual places, suddenly noticing a little epiphany, a glimpse of the presence of God, shining in our lives.

 

Maybe it’s the long nights that makes me look harder for signs of light and hope, but just this last week there have been real moments of sparkling joy when I have been surprised to find God’s presence with me.

  

The first epiphany was simply the snowdrops in our garden. Our new-build blank lawn in slowly coming to life – firstly with some trees we’ve planted and then with some snowdrop bulbs, which the lovely plantsman in St Ishmael’s garden centre assured us would grow. His promise was good – we have been delighted to see snowdrops coming up where we had almost forgotten we had planted them – brave little splashes of white in a rather damp garden, signs of life and hope and newness, a reminder that God has given us seasons of winter, spring, summer & autumn – each with their touches of wonder.

 

The second epiphany was in a conversation with a friend on zoom where I was talking about all the joys and activities of Christmas, and she commented ‘you seem so content, so at home’. And I realised she was right: God’s call has brought me to a place I love among people I am learning to love. Surely the Lord is in this place…

 

Traditionally in the United Reformed Church we don’t have a very ‘high’ view of communion (we don’t have conventions about reverently consuming all the bread and wine, for example) but we could think of each communion as an epiphany: a bright moment to remember the presence of Jesus here, with us, in our hands.

 

I pray that this year we will find God with us, in hoped-for and unexpected ways and places – and that his love will shine in our lives and fill our hearts and even make us able, like Philip to Nathanael, to say to others ‘come and see’. God is here!

Amen.