JOHN081 - I Have No Idea What the Fig Tree Thing Was About, But It’s Exactly What Nathanael Needed to Hear

John 1:43-49

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Music by Jeff Foote

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:15

Sweet, merciful mercy. It is literally ninety-nine point one degrees in here. I went on a little vacation with my family. It was lovely, by the way. Thank you for asking. We found hundred dollar tickets to Los Angeles, California, which is a town in California. And we flew there from Denver, Colorado, which is in Colorado. Then we went to the La Brea tar pits. They got pits out there full of oil and tar. It smells like asphalt. And then all these animals back in the day, they were like, that doesn't look like that'd be a big problem. And they just walked right in there because they were stupid and guileless. And then they got caught in there to basically like a bajillion animals fell into the tar pits. And then the tar pits kind of belch and fart and they cycle everything. And then all of the it articulates all the skeletons. Well, it doesn't really articulate them, it just strips them down to bone and then it jumbles them all up, which I guess is like the exact opposite of the word I use. It's the exact opposite of articulating. So it's just a lovely time altogether. We had a great time. But let me tell you what, I left all of my temperature control devices off here at home. I just got home. It's boiling. It's insane. I'm dripping sweat down both. Let me, you know what? I don't think I can do the headphones today because it's just it's that hot. And I I got the AC running as hard as it can run, but I don't know. This is I'll let you know what the temperature is at when I conclude our conversation today. Remember last time around, we were talking about Nathaniel? He seemed like a rogue with a heart of gold type. I characterized him as someone played by John Stamos who sits in the back of the classroom and wears leather, and maybe has he's got long curly black hair, maybe a little bit of a perm. And he's too cool for class, but deep down, you know that guy cares about everybody. You know he's got a soft heart. Well, Nathaniel can't help himself but dish out a little bit of the snark here when he gets told that the Messiah has been found. Now, this is very exciting, by the way, here as we're getting well into week one of Jesus, because apparently these are young men who had some idea that the Messiah was going to show up. They maybe weren't the best at reading the Old Testament or what we call the Old Testament, but these young men they heard a rumor that something cool was happening with John the Baptist, same rumor the religious leaders heard earlier in John 1. And they come down to where John the Baptist is baptizing. Presumably they got baptized because they suspect that there's maybe something even bigger than John the Baptist in play. And it takes a couple of nudges from John the Baptist to get them to realize that Jesus, he is like you guys don't know it yet, gentlemen, but this is why you're here. It's for that guy right there. Look, the Lamb of God. And so initially, two of these disciples hear that and they're like, all right, we'll follow Jesus. We don't really know what to do. They have kind of a clumsy exchange, but they're like, all right, we'll follow along. It starts to make sense to them. They hear enough in a day or part of a day to be like, this is it. This is the Messiah. I don't know what they heard. I don't know what they saw. I don't know if John's testimony was enough, but whatever the case, Andrew and probably John, the author of this book, John, are like, okay, that's the Messiah. So they go running to Andrew's brother, Simon. And they're like, We found the Messiah, that is the Christ. And they bring Simon to Jesus, and Simon becomes Jesus' third disciple. And Jesus doesn't really say, like, now you're my disciple in this scene. We get a bigger picture of how Jesus calls Peter in other scenes. But here he's just like, Well, you were called Simon. Now you're going to be called Peter, Cephas. And we don't get any objection from Peter, which is unusual. So we got three members of the party in tow, guys who don't know anything about anything yet. They just know that they should have their antenna out. And as you look at this little cadre of dudes, it looks like a bunch of them are from the same neck of the woods, up by where Jesus is going to set up shop as his home base. They're from this little town of Beth Seda. As you look at this cadre of dudes, it kind of reminds me of what I imagine the scene was like in the early days of exploration when Prince Henry the Navigator was operating out of Portugal. A whole bunch of aspiring young navigators with the spirit of adventure could smell that something was on the air, things are about to change, and I want to be there for it. I'm going to Portugal, Mom. And they would all go to Portugal and they would study at this school, and they all went all over the world and discovered all kinds of amazing things. And they were right. There was something happening. You think about that, oh, what's the guy's name? It's not Bob Mackenzie. It's what's his name, McKenzie? He did that song that was in Forest Gump. If you're going to San Francisco, is it just called if you're going to San Francisco? But whatever the song is called, it's the same kind of idea. It's a song that's trying to capture that moment in the 60s where young people, for better or for worse, really thought change was in the air and something was happening. And I gotta go be a part of the scene in San Francisco, and I'm gonna put some flowers in my hair, and I'm gonna meet some gentle people there. There was a scene, there was a moment. Okay, I picture that kind of thing going on with Andrew and Simon and presumably John, the author of this gospel, and the next two guys who we meet, Philip and Nathaniel. I mean, why are they here? If any of those moments where there was a scene associated with a key personality or a key place, and you got young people attracted to it, if that rings a bell for you, I think that applies here. They all know what they're looking for. There's a code word, Messiah, and that's enough to perk all of these guys up, including Nathaniel, who's apparently been burned before. Maybe people have cried Messiah one too many times for him, and this is like the last he just can't be heard again. And so he's the guy now who sits in the back of the classroom wearing his black leather jacket as we discussed, but he's gonna give it a try anyway. Verse 44, we meet the fourth of the party, Philip. Philip, like Andrew and Peter, was from the town of Bethsaida. Philip found Nathaniel and told him, We've found the one Moses wrote about in the law and about whom the prophets also wrote. Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph. And then Nathaniel, who, you know, I'm speculating, has been hurt a lot. He's been burned by a lot of these messianic claims. He says, Nazareth, you can picture the kind of guy who's on the fringes of the scene, and maybe a little too cool for the scene, but also deep down, he's the true believer. Apparently that's Nathaniel. Come and see, said Philip, and that's good enough for Nathaniel. Verse 47. When Jesus saw Nathaniel approaching, he said of him, Here is a true Israelite in whom there is nothing false. How do you know me? Nathaniel asked. Jesus answered, I saw you while you were still under the fig tree before Philip called you. Now look, I do not understand what the significance of this fig tree was. I don't know how Nathaniel was lounging under there. I don't know what he was doing under there. I don't know if he was doing something he should have been doing under there or shouldn't have been doing under there. Or maybe it was the kind of thing where he was doing something underneath that tree that would make him look a little bit soft-hearted, a little too soft-hearted to his buddies, who maybe he had a tough guy reputation, a snark guy reputation to uphold. Who knows if he was engaged in some sort of religious rite or just reflecting? Or maybe Nathaniel was like, God, rumors going on that the Messiah is here. If the Messiah is here, would you make it such that when we meet, he says that he saw me offering this prayer right now? That would be a sure sign. I would follow you all the way to the end if you do that. I would follow you so far to the end that if someday this all turned out to be true, and even if I was the last man standing, and even if somebody was there with a flaying knife and they were going to cut off all my skin and make sure I stayed alive to feel all of it, to torture me for believing what you showed me here, I would still do it. I give that graphic horrible example because, well, that's how this guy died, or at least that's what tradition holds. That's pretty gross. We'll talk about more about these guys' career and what happened to them a little bit later on. Here, I don't know why what Jesus said worked or was exactly what Nathaniel needed to hear. It is a little bit reminiscent of what happens a few pages over in John 4 with the Samaritan woman at the well, where Jesus just he knows stuff about her life that he shouldn't be able to know. And she's like, Well, clearly you're a prophet. And he keeps knowing stuff. Ultimately, she's persuaded and she goes running back and she's like, Come see a man who told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Christ? And then that's enough. All the people she goes and grabs with the come and see invitation, they show up as well. So it feels like maybe there's a little bit of parallel going on here. Again, I've never really heard a great theory for why what Jesus said to Nathaniel is so convincing to him. But Nathaniel responds. It says, Then Nathaniel declared, Rabbi, you are the son of God, you are the king of Israel. Dang. I mean, okay, look, if you've ah, do we have time for this? It's just happening. I'm gonna tease this one little bit. If you've read through the other three Gospels, then you would have a sense at this point, reading through the Bible, of how careful Jesus is regarding his true identity. He's feeding them just a little bit at a time. At one point, demons are like, we know who you are. And Jesus is like, Yeah, shut up and die. And he defeats those, he destroys those wicked demons. But he's like, No, we're not gonna say that right now. At other points, Jesus is like, uh, you know, don't go tell anybody about this thing, but he still does this mercy or a miraculous mercy for somebody. If you've just got done reading the previous three gospels, reading straight through, and you get to John, and then you get that in John 1. It's like it almost feels like, oops, oh, that uh dude, don't sh shh shh whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Cut sign, cut sign. Easy, buddy. We uh we announce that a little later. But he says it loud and clear, Rabbi, you are the son of God, you are the king of Israel. Wow. Well, the Gospel of John is not messing around, is it? I am melting. It is still 91 degrees in this space, and I look like I just got done playing tennis. So I'm gonna go wring out my shirt, but I leave you with this. Nathaniel to me is a fascinating addition to the party. He's got some spice, he's got some character, he's got some snark. I sense in him a person who's been burned a little bit. But you know who we should listen to when it comes to people's first impressions of Nathaniel? Jesus, who knows everything. He drops that same behold word that John the Baptist used a few verses earlier when John the Baptist said of Jesus, behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. In the original language, behold, is what Jesus says when he sees Nathaniel. They haven't even talked yet. They don't even know anything about each other. Here is a true Israelite in whom there is nothing false. Oh man, you you got right through my armor, Jesus. Like you saw through the rogue stuff and right to the heart of gold stuff. How do you know me? I saw you while you're still under the fig tree before Philip called you. And that gets it done. Rabbi, you're the son of God. You're the king of Israel. How about that exchange? Okay, we got more that we gotta unpack. Seriously, I gotta go cool off. All right, that's good for now. I'm Matt. This is the 10-minute Bible hour podcast. Let's do this again soon.