Looking Beyond, Seeing Through

Wednesday of Week 21 in Ordinary Time
Feast of Saint Bartholomew, Apostle

John 1:45-51

The invitation: Come and see

The promise: You will see

Jesus is starting out.  The text gives us a day-by-day as Jesus calls Andrew and an un-named buddy of his, Peter, Philip, and now Nathanael.

Am I Nathanael? Do I see the surface and if it fits into my logic of the day…I simply stop there?  Yes.

Am I Philip? Do I hear the other stop at the surface and invite “No, no, no…not so fast.  Come and see.”  Yes…maybe…sometimes.

But it is Jesus I am called to model my life after.  Jesus sees 100% pure potential…no matter how heavily covered up it is.  He sees beyond all the built up bullshit that I armor myself with. 

“How do you know me?”  That’s how. You see through.

He sees straight through.  That is the death that sets us free.  All that protection and defensiveness that serves us so well in the world of modern honor and shame is fruitless and leads to death.  There is nothing in the game…even physical death…that can kill what Jesus sees.

Come and see

Really see

See like I see

See what I see

See who I see

See through

And you will be free

to live and love

Like I live and love

For the life of the world

John 1:45-51

Philip found Nathanael and told him,

“We have found the one about whom Moses wrote in the law,

and also the prophets, Jesus son of Joseph, from Nazareth.”

But Nathanael said to him,

“Can anything good come from Nazareth?”

Philip said to him, “Come and see.”

Jesus saw Nathanael coming toward him and said of him,

“Here is a true child of Israel.

There is no duplicity in him.”

Nathanael said to him, “How do you know me?”

Jesus answered and said to him,

“Before Philip called you, I saw you under the fig tree.”

Nathanael answered him,

“Rabbi, you are the Son of God; you are the King of Israel.”

Jesus answered and said to him,

“Do you believe

because I told you that I saw you under the fig tree?

You will see greater things than this.”

And he said to him, “Amen, amen, I say to you,

you will see heaven opened and the angels of God

ascending and descending on the Son of Man.”