Come and See
Psalm 139:1-6, 13-18 and John 1:43-51
Allen Huff
Jonesborough Presbyterian Church
1/14/24
O Lord, you have searched me and known me.
2 You know when I sit down and when I rise up;
you discern my thoughts from far away.
3 You search out my path and my lying down
and are acquainted with all my ways.
4 Even before a word is on my tongue,
O Lord, you know it completely.
5 You hem me in, behind and before,
and lay your hand upon me.
6 Such knowledge is too wonderful for me;
it is so high that I cannot attain it.
13For it was you who formed my inward parts;
you knit me together in my mother’s womb.
14 I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.
Wonderful are your works;
that I know very well.
15 My frame was not hidden from you,
when I was being made in secret,
intricately woven in the depths of the earth.
16 Your eyes beheld my unformed substance.
In your book were written
all the days that were formed for me,
when none of them as yet existed.
17 How weighty to me are your thoughts, O God!
How vast is the sum of them!
18 I try to count them—they are more than the sand;
I come to the end—I am still with you. (NRSV)
The next day Jesus decided to go to Galilee. He found Philip and said to him, “Follow me.”
44Now Philip was from Bethsaida, the city of Andrew and Peter. 45Philip found Nathanael and said to him, “We have found him about whom Moses in the Law and also the Prophets wrote, Jesus son of Joseph from Nazareth.”
46Nathanael said to him, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?”
Philip said to him, “Come and see.”
47When Jesus saw Nathanael coming toward him, he said of him, “Here is truly an Israelite in whom there is no deceit!”
48Nathanael asked him, “Where did you get to know me?”
Jesus answered, “I saw you under the fig tree before Philip called you.”
49Nathanael replied, “Rabbi, you are the Son of God! You are the King of Israel!”
50Jesus answered, “Do you believe because I told you that I saw you under the fig tree? You will see greater things than these.” 51And he said to him, “Very truly, I tell you, you will see heaven opened and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man.” (NRSV)
Tony was a member of my first congregation in Mebane, NC. He was a kind and soft-spoken outdoorsman who especially loved fishing. When the stripers were running in Jordan Lake near Chapel Hill, Tony would go to work with his boat in tow. At quitting time he’d drive down to the lake and catch ten or fifteen big fish before dark.
The next Sunday, an excited Tony would tell me about it and invite me to come join him. If I were available, I’d meet him at the plant where he worked and throw my stuff in his truck. At the lake, we’d launch his boat, and Tony would set two lines that trolled way behind the boat and two downriggers to run deep beneath it. With the fish-finder sweeping the depths, we’d chug slowly around the lake, watching, waiting, talking, and eating junk food while the afternoon sun shattered into glitter on the surface of the lake.
In all the times I went fishing with Tony, I caught exactly one fish. Every other time a pole bent or a downrigger popped up—which was exactly two times—I hauled in a three-pound chunk of waterlogged wood. To make things worse, when Tony took me along, even he caught nothing. Then, a few days later, he’d go back by himself and catch another mess of fish.
I don’t know why my fishing luck has been mostly bad luck, but I do know this: When Tony invited me to join him, he went out of his way to share with me the excitement and the peace he found in fishing.
There’s the thing. Fishing was the only guarantee. Catching was never more than a possibility.
Maybe God prefers that I enjoy the Creation on foot with a camera in hand, or on a motorcycle with a full tank of gas. And that’s fine…unless I’m fishing.
We’re currently in the liturgical season of Epiphany, a word which means revelation. Fred Craddock said that “Revelation is never open and obvious to everyone, regardless of their current state of interest or belief. There is always about [revelation] a kind of radiant obscurity, a concealing that requires faith to grasp the revealing.”*
“There is always a…radiant obscurity” to the revealing of holiness. Maybe it’s sort of like dropping a hook into the water and knowing that whether or not a fish strikes, there are fish present. The radiance is in the gratitude of being where fish are.
It seems appropriate that the first disciples Jesus calls are fishermen. Who better to have a sense of the holiness of the possibility of encountering holiness than fishermen who have been caught by the excitement of the possibility of the excitement of catching? (How’s that for radiant obscurity?!)
In today’s story, Philip offers to Nathanael the Johannine invitation: “Come and see.” Jesus spoke those words earlier to John and his disciples. Appearing in several places throughout the fourth Gospel, “Come and see” are words of witness. They’re a kind of Johannine mantra, and a call to the possibility of encountering the radiant obscurity of God’s presence. And while witness is tied intimately to revelation, the two are distinct. Witness is the casting of lines and nets; and that’s our work. Revelation is the opening of the heart; and that is the work of the Holy Spirit. Through our witness of doing justice, loving kindness, and walking humbly with God, all we can do is create situations and conditions conducive to recognizing God’s ongoing revelatory work.
There are times, however, when we experience God as something more obscure than radiant. Times when we are consumed by things internal and external—challenges, fears, and the inevitable uncertainties of faith. Or maybe times when it seems that all we’re doing is fishing, and never catching.
A sophisticated storyteller, John introduces us to individuals that the synoptics do not. And he uses these folks with creative intention. In John, just as the Son is always deflecting attention toward the Father, these characters represent entities beyond themselves. Nathanael is a good example.
In John’s imaginative hands, Nathanael represents all of Israel, past and present. Crouched beneath that fig tree, Nathanael reminds us of Adam and Eve trying to hide their nakedness after having eaten the forbidden fruit, or King Saul hiding in the luggage, or Peter hiding behind his certainty that his militant messianic expectations and God’s Messiah will match perfectly.
Beneath that fig tree, Nathanael is no more hidden from Jesus than Adam and Eve are hidden from God. And Jesus not only sees Nathanael, he sees through him to the “Israelite in whom there is no deceit.” Seeing Nathanael through the eyes of love, through the depth-finder of grace, Jesus isn’t dissuaded by Nathanael’s sarcastic question, Can anything good come out of Nazareth? Jesus sees straight into the holiness of God’s image within Nathanael. In that moment of revelation, Nathanael, affirmed and loved, immediately dives into the waters of faith. His confession happens much quicker than Peter’s confession. Even Jesus seems surprised.
You’re on board already? Well, hang on, because you haven’t seen anything yet.
In verse 51, John switches the pronoun “you” from the singular to the plural. So, he’s addressing not just Nathanael, but all of us, and the image Jesus uses, the image of “angels…ascending and descending [on] the Son of Man,” recalls Jacob’s dream at Bethel.
In that story in Genesis, Jacob, on the run from Esau, sleeps with a rock for a pillow. During a dream, he sees that, through him, God will continue the covenant of blessing God made with Abraham. Jacob and his family, imperfect as they are, live Come and See lives, lives of witness to God’s revelation and faithfulness.
Jesus calls Nathanael, and us, to the same witness—a witness to God’s vision which sees more than the future. God’s vision sees the transcendent possibilities of today by seeing through the selfishness of the Adams, Eves, Jacobs, and Nathanaels within us. The Christ, however, who is also within us, is the fish beneath the surface of the lake. The Christ within us and within the Creation around us is our glimpse of God’s realm of radiant obscurity.
We are called, then, to live new lives, lives of witness and vision. Come and See lives shaped by the dynamic and tension-wrought threshold where the Creation and God’s realm of grace meet.
So, we’re like fishermen living on the shore where the heights of the firmament and the depths of the waters meet. This liminal place is a place of joyful witness because it’s a place of relentless possibility, profound risk, and trustworthy hope.
I make no promises, but does anyone want to go fishing?
*While I always footnote quotations, this one was in a previous sermon and did not include a citation. I only know that it is Fred Craddock’s wisdom.
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