The Fig Tree and The Rabbi
Humans talk about the things they love. I’m certain that everyone who has found something good for them is convinced that it’s right for you. Have you ever experienced someone who uses essential oils, sells Mary Kay, goes to a CrossFit gym, or on the keto diet? Maybe it’s not those things; perhaps it’s something else that you feel people get a little obnoxious about? There are people in my life that tell me I have this problem. My wife, Amy calls it the “show-and-tell gene,” and unfortunately, I’ve passed that gene down to my children and it’s pretty entertaining to watch. I’ll be excited about something, and I’ll tell every person I make eye contact with about it until they are excited about it too or shake their head in agreement to get me to stop talking about it.
But we all do this, don’t we, or is it just me?
No, I think we all have this “show-and-tell gene.” It’s in our DNA. Whatever we love, we tell others about it. We do this to invite them into the experience that we had. We want to share experiences with others.
Humanity was created and designed to exalt Jesus Christ. As Christians, that’s why we tell others about Him and invite them to come to church, sing worship songs, and all these other things we have become accustomed to doing in the church. We do these things because we practice what we will be doing for all eternity as we exalt Christ Jesus.
Come and See – Jesus in the Gospel of John Chapter 1:43-51
The verses leading up to this text; VV. 35-42 tell us of John the Baptist (not John the author) and two of his disciples. v.36 “Behold the Lamb of God!” As a result of hearing this, two disciples left John’s leadership and began to follow Jesus. One of these disciples is Andrew; the other is unknown.
We know very little about Andrew except that he is Peter’s brother, and he leads Jesus to the little boy who shares his “Hebrew Happy Meal” with upwards of fifteen thousand people. Andrew plays a more behind-the-scenes role in Scripture. Robby Gallaty in his book, Growing Up, states that “The gospel came to you because it was headed to someone else.” I believe that quote to not only be relevant to Andrew’s life but the life of every professing believer of Jesus Christ.
In these first few verses, we see Andrew, likely the first person to stop everything he was doing and left everything he owned to follow Jesus. He becomes the conduit of grace that leads Peter to the Messiah. As you many of you already know, Peter, his brother, plays a significant part in God’s plan of building the church. Jesus gave him the name “Rock” because, on him, Jesus would build the church.
There are two important things we see in the text that demonstrate what a follower of Jesus is called to do: Followers of Jesus call others to come and see why they should follow as well and followers of Jesus go and tell the truth of the gospel.
1. Followers of Jesus call others to come and see why they should follow as well.
v. 43 Jesus now has three disciples (Andrew, Peter, and the other follower from John the Baptist). The text says that Jesus decided to leave for Galilee, and He found Philip and told him, “Follow me.”
v. 44 Philip is from the same hometown as Andrew and Peter, the town of Bethsaida. We can assume that these guys were old buddies growing up on the same block-shooting hoops or skipping rocks on the sea or whatever they did for fun back then. Either way, Jesus finds Philip, and he (Philip) follows Jesus.
v. 45 Philip is so excited he goes to find another buddy, Nathanael, and says, you need to come and check this guy out. “We have found the one Moses wrote about in the law (and so did the prophets): Jesus the son of Joseph, from Nazareth.”
PAUSE
As Christians, we have to remember that the Old Testament and the New Testament point to Jesus. Many Christians believe they don’t need to read the Old Testament because we now have the New Testament. There is clarity in the New Testament about Jesus, The Gospel, and the ministry that followed. The Old Testament is difficult to read and understand, why go back before Jesus? The New Testament should not be a crutch that obscures our vision through the Old Testament but acts as a magnifier that points to Jesus Christ. Every story points us to Him. We have to read the Bible and make the connections.
Take for example the story of Moses striking the rock so hard that water began to flow from it, and God’s people were provided for when they were thirsty. You see, God is a provider. If you stop there, you miss the point. No, Jesus was the rock that was struck for us to have the well-spring of life. It’s not that Jonah spent three days in the belly of a fish and survived; no, that situation is only a shadow of Jesus spending three days in the belly of the earth-dead and on that third day raised from that grave to save a people from the death they deserved. That’s where the power is in these stories from the Old Testament. We can’t read the first thirty-nine books of the Bible and not draw the connections to Jesus.
Take a few moments before you continue to read to answer this question,
What are some other Old Testament stories that you can draw the connection from what happened—to Jesus?
Nazareth?
As Nathanael is processing what he hears from Philip, wait, did you say Nazareth? The prophets didn’t say anything about Nazareth. You must be mistaken.
v. 46 “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” Nathanael asked him. “Come and see,” Philip answered.
What’s so bad about Nazareth? Nazareth was a podunk, backwoods, small town, a country place with accents like people from Polk City, where I grew up. We see that redneck jokes existed even back 2000 years ago. Nah, what we see is a cultural bias that still exists to this today. What if I modernized this account for you?
Say I come to you and tell you I found this great new up-and-coming philosopher. You might ask, where is he? I tell you, he lives on at the end of a dirt road, in a van down by the river. You might say where did he go to school? I answer. He didn’t. Well, what kind of family did he come from? And I tell you, he came from the poorest of the poor. You are probably thinking, what? Why would I want to follow this guy? This is the guy that is dripping with wisdom I must come and see.
My answer and probably your answer too is, “No, thank you; I’m going to pass. You do you, and I’ll continue to wait until a more suitable person to follow comes around.” Nathanael is telling, Philip, you sound crazy, and by the way, I was reading the Scriptures from the prophets this morning, and Nazareth was not in there.
The gospel was foolish to us until one day it wasn’t.
The gospel was foolish to all of us, and one day, it wasn’t anymore. (Reflective Question) How many people in your life are you robbing of the gospel; simply because of disobedience in not sharing because you might sound foolish?
v. 47 Then Jesus saw Nathanael coming toward him and said about him, “Here truly is an Israelite in whom there is no deceit.”
As a young Jewish boy, Nathanael would have studied the Torah. He is familiar with what Jesus is saying to him.
Where did the name Israel come from? What events took place before Jacob’s name was changed?
You see, Israel got its name from Jacob at Bethel in Genesis 32, after wrestling with the Angel of the Lord, quite possibly Jesus himself. Jacob was known as being deceitful as he stole his brother Esau’s birthright, not once, but twice. He says to Nathanael that he is a man of integrity and has a character that he wants in one of his followers.
v. 48-49 “How do you know me?” Nathanael asks. “Before Philip called you when you were under the fig tree, I saw you,” Jesus answered. “Rabbi,” Nathanael replied, “You are the Son of God; you are the King of Israel!”
Under the fig tree.
I don’t know, and scholars don’t know either what exactly happened under this fig tree. But, scholars know that it was a Jewish practice for young men to read the Scriptures hoping that they would one day be connected to a Rabbi for whom they could become a disciple. Nathanael is searching the Scriptures. He is looking for the Messiah and Jesus speaks to Nathanael, and the words He used made something supernatural happen in Nathanael at that moment.
If you have ever done a google search on fig trees, you’ll see large beautiful trees with giant leaves and roots that come out of the ground. They create almost these little pockets that the Jewish scholars would have used for small classrooms or study rooms to teach their disciples.
It’s entirely possible that Nathanael, under a fig tree, was alone. No Rabbi to teach him. No one to follow. He was sitting there pleading with God to send him a Rabbi-one worthy to follow. No one really knows exactly, but whatever it was, Jesus put his finger on that spot and it change Nathanael’s trajectory in life.
v. 50-51 Jesus responded to him, “Do you believe because I told you I saw you under the fig tree? You will see greater things than this.” Then he said, “Truly I tell you, you will see heaven opened and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man.”
Who is impressed by who?
Jesus is saying, Nathanael; you are impressed because I know who you are. Wait until you see who I am. Nathanael, I created you; I saw you before I put the foundations of the earth together. Nathanael, I’m going to give you an eyewitness account of heaven and earth colliding. This collision is going to happen to me and not just point you to the way. Nah, Nathanael, I am the Way. I am the only Way.
Sunday School Lesson from the OT
Do you see what Jesus is saying here in v. 51? Remember back when you were in Sunday School class, the story of Jacob’s Ladder in Genesis 28. Jacob is running from his brother-because well, he stole the birthright, we’ve talked about this already. Exhausted from running, Jacob grabs a rock for a pillow to rest his head? Have you ever used a stone for a pillow? You have to be in a pretty rough spot to use a rock as a pillow. I’ve actually had to use a rock as a pillow when my family and I were hiking out of the Grand Canyon. Not the most comfortable thing if you asked me.
Nevertheless, he lays down, closes his eyes, and God gives him a vision. This vision is angels ascending and descending on a ladder. It’s heaven coming to earth and earth going to heaven.
Jesus is pointing Nathanael to himself; He is pointing you and I to himself.
The sum of your life is not found in the totality of your failures.
Darren Goodrich
God looks at me and you and sees the perfect life of Jesus and the satisfaction for the justification for sin. We can search the Scriptures and know that Jesus came to this earth to live the life we were supposed to live (perfect free from sin) and died the death we were condemned to die. He took all the penalty for sins we committed and took it upon himself. Three days later, Jesus rose from the grave, extending his hand and offering eternal life. By the power of his resurrection, Jesus says, you will be united with me. My blood will cover your sins.
2. Our mission, go and tell others the truth of the gospel.
“Come and See” means inviting others to the body of Christ. That means we have to leverage our expression of the body of Christ and get the word out that God loves the people of this city. If you are not a believer, I want to assure you that this is not a notch on our belt, but we want to share the treasure we have found with everyone we face.
Believer, you don’t have to be the most talented person to say, “Come and See.” God has gifted each of us with different skills and talents with jobs of all shapes and sizes. We must leverage our spaces to exalt Jesus.
If you are not a believer, I’m going to call you to step over into this life and surrender to Jesus as the Way to God and not continue to follow your way. I pray you would believe this today. If you are wrestling with this, please speak with Ryan or me. We would love to go deeper in conversation with you about what it means to surrender your life to Jesus’ kingship.
Treasuring Christ personally leads to sharing Christ publicly.
Darren Goodrich
Questions for reflection
What did you learn about Jesus from this passage?
What next step has God asked you to take?
Are there any obstacles that are preventing you from moving forward in obedience to Christ in that next step?
Let’s continue the dialogue and leave a comment below.
