NOTES for Joh 1:46

Evangelist John's narration about the vocation of Nathanael is one of the most wonderful passages of the New Testament. The most important moments of this narrative concern not only Nathanael, but in some degree, to any person too. When Philip told Nathanael that he and his friends found the Messiah, Nathanael expresses doubt and answers by a widespread joke. But when Philip tells him: "come and see", - We see that Nathanael gets up and goes to see. And it is an act, which deserved the approval of the Lord Jesus, because He says of Nathanael: "Behold an Israelite indeed, in whom is no guile ". There is in the life of every man moment, when someone has to achieve a certain act, if he really wants to find God, to meet Him. This means for the majority of the modern persons that it is necessary to get up and go to Church - indeed all know that people believing in God and knowing Him gather in the Church. And this signifies for most of us the necessity of freeing ourselves from our ideas according to which we shall find nothing interesting in the Church.

The Lord says "I saw thee" to Nathanael, who made this step in order to meet with Him. Most Christian thinkers from the time of the patristics lean to believe that Nathanael had "under the fig tree" a certain experience unknown to us (and may be to the evangelist also) of meeting with God, His mysterious touch. Maybe Nathanael felt at that moment the love and the beneficence of the Creator... Maybe he has seen God's Bounty, and thanked for them... Or maybe he simply perceived, how beautiful the world, which God created is... Every person can have such moments, when he feels that "the being" doesn't limit itself in what one see. And when you understand that there was indeed Jesus of Nazareth near you at that moment - you find the Source of life.