A Journey of Faith
John 1:43-51
Introduction
If someone asked you to share your faith journey, how would you respond? Where would you begin? Would it be a simple story or a long and winding story? For some people, their story is that they grew up in the church, always believed, came to the point that they wanted to be baptized, and continued to grow in their faith while serving in the church. Others had no church connection and no conscious beliefs about God, someone told them about Jesus, they believed, and they had a radical change in their life. Then there are others whose faith journey has gone up and down, backward and forward, and does not seem to fit a nice neat pattern.
When someone asks me to share my faith journey, I need to make decisions based on the time available and the perceived level of interest. Do I start when I was a child attending church or my late teens as an atheist or my early 20s as someone believing in God but not bound to any particular religion? What do I share as my turning point? When I started reading the Bible or when I had my first dramatic answer to prayer or when the gospel made sense after watching Billy Graham on television? Do I end it when I prayed a prayer or when I responded to an altar call or when I was baptized or in the development in my faith years later?
My story is not your story and your story is not my story. One of the things that I love about the Bible is that it does not share just one pattern that everyone follows. Peter’s story is not the same as Paul’s story and they are both different from James’ story.
What we are going to do is look at part of Nathanael’s story, a disciple much less known than those others I have mentioned. His is not one that we must map our own story onto but it may help give language to our stories and remember the different paths that we have taken.
Reflecting on the Journey
The section that we are looking at is sometimes titled the calling of Philip and Nathanael. The first thing I want you to notice is the difference in the experience of these two men. Jesus says to Philip, “Follow me” and Philip follows Jesus. That is just about it. There would have been other events in Philip’s faith experience but according to John, this is all we need to know. Nathanael had a different experience.
What we see here is that Nathanael’s journey seems to begin with a conversation with Philip. Philip shares his understanding of Jesus and invites Nathanael to consider Jesus. This is what Christians often call witnessing. Notice that it is not high pressure, nor is it forcing something on Nathanael. Who were the people who introduced you to Jesus? Parents, Sunday school teachers, friends? Perhaps you have been a Philip to others. Most often, God uses people to pass on the message of Jesus. When you think of the people who spoke to you of Jesus, were they helpful or unhelpful?
How did Nathanael respond? He responded with skepticism. Now this skepticism was expressed in terms of doubts about anything good coming from Nazareth. Nazareth was a time, unimpressive town that did not have a good reputation. There is no way that a messiah was coming from Nazareth. Skepticism is not wrong. Yes there are people who are told about Jesus and they wholeheartedly embrace Jesus with no questions asked. But others are filled with the questions of “what about?” and need the freedom to ask those questions. There is no shame in skepticism. Do you still have questions that you wish you had answers for? Keep asking those questions.
I love how Philip responds. He does not argue with Nathanael about why Nazareth is not such a bad place or that even though Jesus grew up in Nazareth, he was born in Bethlehem, where King David had been born. Philip says, “Come and see.” Basically instead of trying to answer all the questions, Philip invites Nathanael to give Jesus a chance. I have been involved in Christian apologetics, which is the defence of the Christian faith. I am happy address questions, but my ultimate goal is always just to get people close to Jesus. It really takes a lot of pressure off. Part of this is not pressuring to make a commitment but just to consider Jesus.
Nathanael approaches Jesus with what I call cautious interaction. Jesus is interesting enough to consider but there is still a lot of uncertainty. Have you ever been at this point? Have you felt drawn to Jesus but embracing the whole belief system seems to be one step too far? Some Christians think of this as a bad thing. The truth is that it can be an important stop on the journey.
The next part is rather humorous, depending on how you read it. Jesus says: “I saw you sitting under the fig tree” and Nathanael responds with: “Whoa, you are the Son of God and the King of Israel!” Do you feel like you are missing something here? If someone saw me sitting somewhere, I would not necessarily think of them as the Son of God. There are a couple of things going on here. Part of it was that Jesus was not physically present when Nathanael was sitting there and so his knowledge of it reflects something supernatural. But there still seems to be something missing. Perhaps Nathanael was praying a specific prayer at that time and this was confirmation that God heard him. We do not know. The point is that something clicked at that moment and we don’t need to fully understand it. This type of experience, similar in principle but different in detail, continues even today. I can remember a specific event in which I had a dramatic answer to prayer and I knew that God was real and aware of who I was. What this looks like for every person is different and some people cannot even pinpoint a moment when things became real. This is the difference between a dimmer switch on lights and a flick switch. They both do the same thing but manifest differently.
You might think that would be the end of the story but Jesus shares the “But wait, there’s more!” Jesus informs Nathanael that if he believes because of that experience, just wait until he sees what is coming. Jesus then draws on the Old Testament story of Jacob who had a vision of a ladder going to heaven with angels ascending descending. This is describing a deep spiritual relationship, one which will now be found in a relationship with Jesus. The point is that there is still room for growth even after a powerful encounter with Jesus. Jesus is looking for more than just a conversion experience, Jesus wants to have an ongoing relationship, one in which we will continually grow.
Conclusion
What we have looked at is not everyone’s story. It is not my story. But it is Nathanael’s story. Do you find some overlap with his story? Or do you identify more with Phillip and when Jesus said “Come”, you followed Jesus without question and never looked back?
What John shares for us in the story of Nathanael is not a pattern that we can devise into a universal stages of faith. It really is a snap shot of one man’s faith journey that can give insight into our own faith journey. It also invites us to have some grace for those who have a different journey that ours. Sometimes our own experience feels so special that we cannot imagine God working in a different way in someone else’s life. But God does work in a multitude of ways. Ultimately, the one unifying factor is about meeting Jesus. How that happens and how that develops is going to be different. In our own sharing of faith, let us focus on the message of Phillip, who said to his friend, “Come and see.”
