Who Is This?
John 1:43-51[1]
I think it’s hard to
ever really get to know another person. We are such complex creatures, and we
constantly grow and change. Even when you spend a lifetime with the one you
love, there are aspects of that person you may never know. Unfortunately,
romantic relationships are prime situations for this problem. Most of us have
an image of the “ideal” person we’d like to meet. And when we “fall” for
someone, it’s because we have decided that s/he fits that ideal. But the
unfortunate part is that our starry-eyed infatuation is usually fueled by our own
imagination. When you actually live with someone, you learn sooner or later
that nobody can live up to any “ideal.” Hopefully, that’s when real love
begins: learning to accept another person.
One of the dynamics
that you find in the Gospels is that people are constantly misunderstanding who
Jesus is. Part of the reason is their own pre-conceived notions about him based
on what they may have heard or seen. In the Jewish culture there were lots of
expectations about what a “Messiah” would be like and what he would do for
their people. Those expectations were quite varied—all the way from being a
true high priest who would cleanse the temple to leading the Jewish army on a
stallion to rout their Roman masters in battle.
This is the context
for our Gospel lesson for today. Following Jesus’ baptism, John the Baptist
directs two of his own disciples toward Jesus. One of them, Andrew, found his
brother Simon (also known as Peter), and told him, “We have found the Messiah”
(John 1:41). Something similar happens in our lesson when Philip sought out
Nathanael. Philip told him, “We have found him about whom Moses in the law and
also the prophets wrote” (John 1:45). Initially, Nathanael is skeptical about
Jesus. But later when he meets Jesus, he exclaims, “Rabbi, you are the Son of
God! You are the King of Israel!” (John 1:49).
All of this probably sounds very natural to
us. But I’m pretty sure Andrew and
Nathanael didn’t fully understand what they were saying when they called him
“Messiah,” “Son of God,” and “King of Israel.” I would say that their
expectations were too high, while at the same time they were too low. They were
too high in that it seems like they expected Jesus to miraculously deliver them
from their enemies, and re-establish the Kingdom of David. Jesus has to tell
his own closest friends over and over that wasn’t his mission. At the same
time, their expectations were too low. They were looking for a human deliverer;
mighty in battle and wise as a ruler but nevertheless human. And the kingdom
they imagined pales in comparison to the kingdom that Jesus intended to bring:
the kingdom of God.
There’s an interesting
exchange that happens between Jesus and the people who acclaim him. They call
him “Son of God” and by that they mean he is the extraordinary human being
chosen by God to lead the people of Israel to their former glory. But Jesus
responds in a strange way. He doesn’t exactly deny it, but he also doesn’t
exactly confirm their expectations. They constantly come to him calling him
“Son of God,” and he responds by referring to himself as the “Son of Man.”
That’s what happens in our lesson for today. Jesus tells Nathanael and the
others that they will see greater thing, including “heaven opened and the
angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man” (John 1:51).
This may seem strange
to us, I think we have to understand the background of the “Son of Man”. It
comes from Daniel 7, where at the end of his vision of all the man-made kingdoms
of the earth brought to an end by God’s kingdom, one like a “Son of Man” comes
“with the clouds of heaven” and appears before God, as if he were equal to God
(Dan. 7:13)! And what is said of him should sound familiar to us: “To him was
given dominion and glory and kingship, that all peoples, nations, and languages
should serve him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion that shall not pass
away, and his kingship is one that shall never be destroyed” (Dan. 7:14). With
that background in mind, I would say that Jesus refers to himself as the “Son
of Man” in order to indicate that he was much, much more than people imagined
when they called him “Messiah” and “Son of God.” He had not come simply to
restore Israel, he had come to rule over a kingdom that would encompass all the
peoples of the world!
Much of what Jesus said and
did left his own disciples scratching their heads and asking, “Who is this?” Throughout
the centuries, people have been asking the same question, “Who is this?” And
the same is true for us. We may wonder whether Jesus is the one who will make our
hopes come true. Or we may wonder whether Jesus really makes any difference in
our lives at all. I’m afraid that the way we approach Jesus may be similar to
his first disciples: our expectations are too high and too low at the same
time. Jesus is the one who definitively shows us who God is. Jesus is the one
who gave up his life for us all. And he is the one who even now rules at the
right hand of God over not just the nations of the world but the whole cosmos.
I think that means that he is much more than our expectations can ever define.
If we truly grasp who Jesus is, it should leave us all asking, “who is this?”
[1]
©2018 Alan Brehm. A sermon delivered by Rev. Dr. Alan Brehm on 1/14/2018 at
Hickman Presbyterian Church, Hickman, NE.
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