Who do you follow, and who follows you? Twenty years ago, we might have been dumbfounded by the question: “following” someone implied serious devotion to them. 

 

Today most of us would have a ready answer, because we’d probably frame the question in terms of who we follow on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram, as well as who follows us. Social media has given the word “follow” a new meaning. [DD]

 

Following someone on social media doesn’t mean that we follow their lead on everything, though it does suggest we are interested in their views or entertained by their posts, and possibly open to being influenced by them. 

 

Today’s Bible study concerns following on an entirely different level: the kind of following that can change and shape our lives. We’re talking about following Jesus. 

 

 

 

Today is the second Sunday of Epiphany, when the lectionary gospel texts focus on witnesses to Jesus as the ultimate manifestation of God. [DD] Our text for the day follows the call of Peter and Andrew in John 1:31-42. 

 

As usual, the author of John tells the story differently from the other three gospels. Matthew, Mark, and Luke depict Jesus calling Andrew and Peter near their home on the north shore of the Sea of Galilee. The Fourth Gospel, however, holds that Jesus had already connected with them in the southern territory of Judea, where they had come to hear John the Baptizer. The gospel of John identifies Andrew as a disciple of John (1:40). 

 

From the perspective of John’s gospel, Jesus decided to go to Galilee after connecting with Andrew and Peter, apparently headed north toward their hometown, which John identifies as Bethsaida. [DD]

 

At some point, Jesus met Philip, who also was from Bethsaida (v. 44). The author describes their meeting by saying that Jesus “found” Philip. We don’t know exactly what this means. Does it suggest that Jesus already knew Philip, and that he travelled to Bethsaida to find him again? Or, should we imagine that some manner of divine intelligence or revelation led him to Philip? 

 

We can’t say, but John tells us clearly the outcome of the meeting: Jesus said, “Follow me,” and Philip followed. What is surprising, once we think about it, is that in the context of the story, Jesus has yet to preach any sermons or perform any miraculous signs. The only evidence that Jesus was special – the “Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world” – is the baptizer’s testimony (John 1:29-36), and we don’t know if Philip knew of that. 

 

Yet, something about Jesus’ demeanor, charisma, or words convinced Philip to follow him. The challenge to “follow me” implied far more than physically trailing after Jesus in his travels. It was an invitation to observe what Jesus did, to hear Jesus teach, to converse with Jesus directly – in short, to become Jesus’ disciple.

 

 

 

Philip responded not only by following Jesus, but by bringing others to him. In the text, v. 44 interrupts the action long enough to identify Bethsaida, but not long enough to detract from the immediacy of Philip’s next action: as Jesus had found Philip (v. 43), Philip promptly went and found Nathanael in order to tell him about Jesus (v. 45).

 

This outgoing behavior has led some to call Phillip “the great introducer,” a model evangelist who often brought others to Jesus. [DD] Once he had located Nathanael, Philip said “We have found him about whom Moses in the law and also the prophets wrote – Jesus son of Joseph from Nazareth” (v. 45). This suggests to us that Nathanael and Philip were among those who had actively longed for the arrival of a Messiah, believing that his coming had been foretold in scripture. Philip was convinced that Jesus was the long-awaited one, and he was anxious to share the news with his friend. [DD]

 

Nathanael’s response reveals a greater degree of skepticism. Nathanael was reportedly from Cana (John 21:2), about nine miles north of Nazareth. Reflecting a local prejudice against Jesus’ home village – a place so tiny that it is never mentioned in the Old Testament or any early Jewish writings – Nathanael responded with incredulity: “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” Later in John, a similar cynicism is expressed when others doubted that the Messiah could possibly come from anywhere in all of Galilee (7:40-41).

 

Philip responded to Nathanael’s dubiety by inviting him to replace prejudice with experience: “Come and see.” [DD]

 

This is how evangelism works: not just by what we hear, but what we see. Philip did not try to convince his friend Nathanael with fancy apologetics or even scriptural evidence. Instead, he invited him to come and see Jesus: to experience his presence, to hear his words, to observe his actions. It was an invitation to encounter.

 

If we should be so bold as to encourage our friends to trust in Jesus as Lord, they might react with similar skepticism. We can’t offer them an opportunity to come and see Jesus in the same way that Philip did, but we can invite them to come and experience a community of faith made of people who are committed to Jesus.

 

That raises the issue, of course, of whether we dare to do so. Would a seeker see true evidence of Jesus in our lives, or in our church? Would he or she experience the love and grace and power of God at work?

 

If not, perhaps we need to spend more time “coming and seeing” in our own lives, experiencing the kind of transformative relationship with Jesus that others can observe as evidence of Christ’s presence. 

 

 

 

Nathanael was curious enough to accept Philip’s invitation to come to meet Jesus, who greeted him with a surprising display of prescience: “Here is truly an Israelite in whom there is no deceit!” (v. 47). 

 

What does Jesus mean by this? Did Jesus intend it purely as a compliment, indicating that Nathanael was always truthful? Was he saying that Nathanael was not deceitful like Jacob, for whom the Israelites were named? Or was Jesus indicating knowledge of Nathanael’s disparaging comment about Nazareth, and making a joking remark that Nathanael kept no thought unspoken? [DD]

 

Whatever Jesus’ intent, his remarks intrigued Nathanael, who wondered where or how Jesus had come to know anything about him. John, more than the other gospels, attributes a measure of precognition to Jesus, and this is reflected in Jesus’ response that he had seen Nathanael sitting under a fig tree just before Philip had arrived. 

 

Amazed by Jesus’ powers of perception, Nathanael quickly changed his tune: “Rabbi, you are the Son of God! You are the King of Israel!” (v. 49). Philip had invited Nathanael to come and see – now he had come and believed.

 

Jesus acknowledged Nathanael’s newfound belief, indicating that he would see far more impressive things (v. 50). He did not criticize him for his skeptical approach prior to witnessing a sign. There is some ambiguity about the relationship between signs and faith in John’s gospel, which usually speaks more highly of faith that requires no signs and wonders (4:48, 20:29). 

 

The grammar of Jesus’ comment in v. 51 has engendered considerable head scratching. Although Jesus had been in conversation with Nathanael alone, and the sentence begins with “And he said to him,” the pronoun for “you” and the verb for “you will see” are both in the plural. Perhaps we are to imagine that Jesus stopped, looked around, and addressed his comment about angels ascending and descending upon the Son of Man to all who were gathered there.

It is more likely, many scholars think, that the saying in v. 51 was originally an independent saying transposed to this story and left in the plural because it was so familiar. 

 

But what did Jesus mean by it? What is the significance of Jesus saying: “You will see heaven opened and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man”?

 

The verse is an apparent reference to the familiar vision of Jacob in Genesis 28. As Jacob fled from his brother Esau and traveled toward Haran, he stopped near Bethel to spend the night. As he slept, he saw a vision of a ladder or stairway reaching from the earth to the heavens, with angels ascending and descending upon it. In the dream, God appeared and promised to establish a covenant with him (Gen. 28:10-17). 

 

Jacob celebrated the event by erecting a stone pillar to mark the spot, believing that he had discovered the gateway between heaven and earth. Jesus did not speak of a structure between heaven and earth, but he said the angels would be “ascending and descending upon the Son of Man.” [DD] Thus, Jesus appears to identify himself as the connecting gateway between heaven and earth, between the finite and the infinite, between God and humankind. 

 

Perhaps this metaphor can help us to appreciate Jesus’ mission as God incarnate, deigning to surrender heavenly privileges for a season in order to show humankind the depth of God’s love and the way to relationship with the divine. 

 

What remains to be seen is whether we will follow him.