NOTES for Joh 1:46

The evangelist John's account of the calling of Nathanael is one of the most astonishing passages of the New Testament. The most important moments of this story concern not only Nathanael, but, to some degree, every person. When Philip told Nathanael that he and his friends had found the Messiah, Nathanael voiced doubt and answered with a common joke. But when Philip says to him, "come and see," we see that Nathanael gets up and goes to see. And this is an act that earned the approval of the Lord Jesus Himself, for He says of Nathanael: "Behold, truly an Israelite in whom there is no deceit." In every person's life there comes a moment when you must perform some action if you truly want to find God, to meet Him. For most modern people this means that one must get up and go to Church - after all, everyone knows that people who believe God and know Him gather there. And for most of us this means the need to free ourselves from our ideas that we will not find anything interesting there...

To Nathanael, who took this step toward God, the Lord says: "I saw you." Most Christian thinkers since patristic times have tended to think that "under the fig tree" Nathanael had some experience, unknown to us (and perhaps to the evangelist), of meeting God, of His mysterious touch. Perhaps at that moment he felt the love and care of the Creator... Perhaps he saw God's blessings and thanked Him for them... Or perhaps he simply felt how beautiful the world God created is... Every person can have such moments, when he senses that being is not limited to the frame of the visible. And when you understand that at that moment the One near you was precisely Jesus of Nazareth, you find the Source of life.