Sermon (March 9) – “Who Were the Twelve Disciples of Jesus?
Bartholomew & Simon”
John 1:43-51
Why would we choose this scripture passage that talks about
Nathaniel and Phillip instead of a passage that is about Bartholomew or Simon
which is the focus of the sermon? There are no specific stories about a
disciple named, Bartholomew even though he appears in all three lists that name
the twelve disciples. Bartholomew and Nathaniel were probably the same person.
There are no scriptural stories regarding the disciple Simon.
Phillip, who is already a disciple, invites his friend,
Nathaniel to meet Jesus. He does a simple thing but it becomes a life-transforming
thing for Nathaniel who ends up becoming one of the twelve disciples. How can
we introduce people to Jesus?
This scripture is about how Jesus called Nathaniel
(Bartholomew) to be his disciple. It’s one of the more humorous stories in the
Bible because there’s a sense that both Nathaniel and Jesus took turns at
jabbing each other with some 1st century humor. Nathaniel refers to
Jesus’ hometown of Nazareth in a sarcastic way and Jesus gives Nathaniel a dose
of his own medicine by claiming that he is perfect and without any sin.
The highlight of this story is what Jesus tells Nathaniel
toward the end of the passage. “You will see greater things than this.” Jesus
was referring to how he was able to see Nathaniel under the tree before he had
even met him. The thinking is that if you thought that was incredible, you
haven’t seen anything yet! The greatest thing that Nathaniel ended up seeing
was Jesus after his resurrection. It doesn’t get any more impressive than that!
Jesus’ reference to God’s angels going up and down is a
reference to the Jacob story from the Old Testament when Jacob who was running
away from Esau had a dream one night where a ladder was set up between heaven
and earth for God’s angels. What a dream that was. That place where the dream
took place ended up being named as Bethel where it was known for a central
place of worship in Israel. Bethel became a symbol of God’s presence in the
world. In a similar way, Jesus has become the presence of God in our world.
What do we learn from this scripture? Jesus meets us at the
level of where we are in our faith journey just as he did with Nathaniel. We
also learn to anticipate the great things that God is doing in the world
through Jesus Christ. And finally, like Phillip, all we need to do is invite
people to come and meet Jesus. Those encounters can lead someone to experience transformation
and salvation.
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