April 6 - You Will See Greater Things

April 6 – You Will See Greater Things

The next day Jesus decided to leave for Galilee. Finding Philip, he said to him, “Follow me.”  Philip, like Andrew and Peter, was from the town of Bethsaida. Philip found Nathanael and told him, “We have found the one Moses wrote about in the Law, and about whom the prophets also wrote—Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph.”

“Nazareth! Can anything good come from there?” Nathanael asked. “Come and see,” said Philip. When Jesus saw Nathanael approaching, he said of him, “Here truly is an Israelite in whom there is no deceit.”  “How do you know me?” Nathanael asked. Jesus answered, “I saw you while you were still under the fig tree before Philip called you.” Then Nathanael declared, “Rabbi, you are the Son of God; you are the king of Israel.”

Jesus said, “You believe because I told you I saw you under the fig tree. You will see greater things than that.” He then added, “Very truly I tell you, you will see ‘heaven open, and the angels of God ascending and descending on’ the Son of Man.” (John 1:43-51)

One of the greatest things we can do as Christians is to tell others about Jesus. We might think that it is important to go to church on Sundays or do good deeds or be a good person or be extra holy so that people will see Jesus in our lives, but that’s not it.  The first thing that Andrew did was to find his brother and tell him about the Messiah.  The first thing Philip did was to find his friend Nathanael and tell him about Jesus.

We probably take it for granted that people already know about Jesus and have made their decision whether or not to be a Christian.  Sometimes that’s true, but it doesn’t eliminate our responsibility.

You might be surprised at those who have no concept of who Jesus is!  One Saturday several years ago, I had stopped at a florist to pick up palm branches for the next morning’s Palm Sunday worship service.  They were in my trunk when I went to Baker’s to get groceries.  A high school kid pushed my cart to the car and when I opened the trunk, he asked me what those were.  I simply said, “Palm branches for church tomorrow” thinking that would explain everything.

I was in central Omaha … the kids who worked at this particular Bakers (it’s closed now) pretty much lived in an upper middle class neighborhood.  He looked at me dumbfounded.  He had absolutely no clue what I was talking about.  This is one of the major Christian holidays in the church and he had never heard of it.  How do you get to be 17 years old and not hear of Palm Sunday?  I explained in as few words as possible and watched his eyes glaze over – he’d obviously asked too much and didn’t want to know any more from me.

I walked away from that encounter with a fresh look at my assumptions.  I could no longer blindly assume that people knew who Jesus Christ was.  That day was profound in my growth as a Christian.

Jesus calls Nathanael by name, a pretty impressive thing when they had never met before.  That little miracle was enough for Nathanael to join the twelve and Jesus knew it.  Jesus promised him though, that he would see more amazing things than that during the rest of his lifetime because he had met Jesus. 

That same promise is made to us.  Maybe we are more aware of the astounding things that happen around us because of our awareness of God’s activity in the world.  Maybe we look for the miracles that occur because we are open to believing in them.  But, the truth of the matter is … when you know Jesus Christ personally … astounding things happen both great and small.