Israel's Son Sees David's Son

Commemoration of St. Nathanael Bartholomew

August 24, 2014

John 1:51

Israel's Son Sees David's Son

In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.

I.

Jacob was a twin. He had swindled his twin brother Esau out of a lot of property. Naturally Esau wanted revenge, so Jacob ran away from home. And on the way, he had a dream.

[Jacob] reached a certain place and spent the night there because the sun had set. He took one of the stones from the place, put it there at his head, and lay down in that place. And he dreamed: A stairway was set on the ground with its top reaching heaven, and God’s angels were going up and down on it.

Genesis 28:11-12

And the Lord promised Jacob, whom He would rename Israel, that He would always be with him.

The Lord was standing there beside him, saying, “ . . . All the peoples on earth will be blessed through you and your offspring. Look, I am with you and will watch over you wherever you go.”

Genesis 28:13-15

Jacob escaped and the Lord kept His promise and took care of Jacob, also known as Israel. He prospered and many years later returned home and reconciled with his twin brother Esau. And Israel had twelve sons, one of whom was named Judah. One thousand years later one of Judah's offspring ruled over the land of Israel as her king. His name was David. And one thousand years after David ruled the land, one of his offspring was born. His name is Jesus Christ.

II.

Jesus is David's son. St. Matthew's first words are

The historical record of Jesus Christ, the Son of David

Matthew 1:1

Matthew makes special note of this connection between David and Jesus because the Savior had to be from David's line.

The Lord swore an oath to David, a promise He will not abandon: “I will set one of your descendants on your throne."

Psalm 132:11

The prophet Jeremiah also called attention to where the Savior would come.

In those days and at that time I will cause a Righteous Branch to sprout up for David, and He will administer justice and righteousness in the land.

Jeremiah 33:15

III.

Jesus is David's Son. And Nathanael was a true Israelite. Being a true son of Israel meant that he was waiting for David's Son to appear and bring salvation to God's people.

Then Jesus saw Nathanael coming toward Him and said about him, “Here is a true Israelite; no deceit is in him.”

“How do You know me?” Nathanael asked.

“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!”

John 1:47-51

And when Nathanael, also known as Bartholomew, saw his Messiah, the Son of David, that he and his father and his grandfather had been waiting for, he confessed like a true Israelite: "Rabbi! Teacher! You are the Son of God! You are the King of Israel!"

It was a moment of discovery for Nathanael, when it just clicked. It was his eureka moment and in fact John used the Greek word that we call eureka three times at start of this exciting moment in Nathanael's life. First, Jesus found (eureka!) Philip. Then Philip found (eureka!) Nathanael and told him,

We have found (eureka!) the One Moses wrote about!

John 1:45

This One is the One. This is the One Moses wrote about,

The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among your own brothers. You must listen to Him.

Deuteronomy 18:15

IV.

Nathanael listened to Jesus. He listened to His preaching. He listened to His parables. He saw many things: water turned into wine, thousands fed with a few loaves of bread, walking on water, blindness healed, sins forgiven with finality, and the dead returning to life.

Unlike Peter, we don't hear much from Nathanael. He showed up in the beginning of John's Gospel and then turned up at the very end.

Simon Peter, Thomas (called “Twin”), Nathanael from Cana of Galilee, Zebedee’s sons, and two others of His disciples were together. “I’m going fishing,” Simon Peter said to them. “We’re coming with you,” they told him. They went out and got into the boat, but that night they caught nothing.

John 21:2-3

In the beginning Jesus found Nathanael sitting under a fig tree; He found him at the end fishing in a boat. It's fitting parallel to Nathanael's service in the kingdom of God. At first he is waiting for the Word of God to appear. And having seen Christ with his own eyes, he got to work. Our best guess is that Nathanael preached and administered Christ in India and Armenia. And in the end he was rewarded with a gruesome death: tradition says that he was martyred by being skinned alive.

In these evil days when the enemies of Christ are murdering His children, our prayers will always cling to the promise of David's Son, Jesus, to Israel's son, Nathanael: that one day soon, we also will see

. . . heaven opened and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man.

John 1:51

In the name of the Father

and of the † Son

and of the Holy Spirit.

Amen.