I love connections but I am often too dense to see them. My parish Priest drew the connection between what Christ says here and Jacob's Ladder in the Old Testament:
"Jesus answered and said unto him, Because I said unto thee, I saw thee under the fig tree, believest thou? thou shalt see greater things than these. And he saith unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Hereafter ye shall see heaven open, and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man."
In effect Jesus is telling Nathaniel that He is more than king of Israel but the means by which Israel came to be. St. John Chrysostom says that Christ is correcting Nathaniel's insufficient picture of who He is.
How often He needs to do this with me. I am willing to give Him a crown and "make Him a king" but it is all in my own fantasy where I am the ultimate authority. I believe C.S. Lewis once said something like: "I used to live in a very small world all my own, occasionally wondering whether there was room in my world for God. I now find myself in a much larger world wondering whether God can believe in me."
God help me.
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3 comments:
Awesome Lewis quote. Amen indeed.
/E.
Random comment on St. Nathanael:
In the recent film The Gospel of John, St. Nathanael is shown having some kind of mystical experience under a fig tree, in which he is praying and he sees a light playing with and around the leaves of the fig tree.
Copts explain the fig tree by relating that St. Nathanael escaped Herod's mass infanticide thereby. His parents, with faith like those of Moses, made him a small bed and placed him in the boughs of a fig tree, trusting in God to save him.
Others have suggested that St. Nathanael was under a fig tree when Jesus was speaking with his brother.
Personally, the last seems to me to be too weak a miracle to account for St. Nathanael's excited response.
And the first seems too hokey. I like the Coptic explanation - to me, it fits. It sounds right.
- V.
Thanks E
I know Lewis said very nearly this but I'd be very happy if someone had the exact words....anyone?
V, this is a great bit about the Coptic reading of the text. Very fitting indeed!
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