From the ancient dream to the embodied relationship
(Jn 1:45-51)
People are convinced by meeting, seeing and experiencing, not by imposing. However, the Eternal’s plan baffles us.
Witness and sharing lead persons to Christ, but they are not enough - because his plan is not as people imagine or propose, as they await and desires it to be.
To the enthusiastic announcement, Nathanael responds with a preconceived skepticism that represents us: what good can come out of the most insignificant suburbs (v.46)?
Why doesn't the solution to our expectations come from predictable places [Judaea]?
Personal encounter with Jesus and listening to his Word go beyond every obstacle, up to an explicit and convinced profession of Faith.
And like Nathanael, whoever consecrates his life to the study of the Scriptures finds in them Christ himself (vv.45.48-49).
At first perhaps we too approached the Son of God imagining that he had the attributes of King of a chosen people (v.49).
Then the custom with the Person and the vital experience [«Come and see»: sense of the basic Semitic expression of v.46] showed us a much broader Relationship with Heaven (vv.50-51).
In walking the Way that the unexpected Messiah proposes, we perceive the convergence of God’s movement towards men and our longing for him.
It is the realization (and overcoming) of Jacob’s ancient dream.
Those who pursue preconceptions remain to take the cool under a fig tree (cf.v.48), ie he remains linked to the ancient religion [the rabbis taught the ancient Scriptures sitting under the trees; the fig tree was symbol of Israel].
«Israelite without deceit» (v.47): each one is so when, after sifting, he knows how to get rid of common opinions and teachings; when he realizes that they do not coincide with the Father’s plan.
Salvation history aims at «greater things» (v.50) than those already wanted; normal, expected, invoked, calculated, longed for.
From religiosity we will move on to Faith: the best of God’s Dream in us must come. «Greater things» than clichés.
Jesus is Jacob’s authentic Dream, which heralded to a vast lineage; further unfolded (Gen 28:10-22) and become reality.
But no one would have expected that the Messiah could identify himself with the «Son of Man» (v.51), the One who creates abundance where it’s not there, and that before did not seem licit it could expand.
The new bond between God and human beings is in the Brother who becomes ‘next of kin’: which creates an atmosphere of humanization with wide outlines - not at all discriminating.
‘True, successful Son’ is the one who, having reached the maximum of human fullness, comes to reflect the divine condition and radiates it in a widespread way - not selective as expected.
It’s the flowering and humanization of the people: the peaceful, true and full development of the divine plan on humanity.
«Son of Man» is therefore not a stowed, cautious, controlled and reserved title, but an opportunity for all those who adhere to the Lord’s proposal, and reinterpret life in a creative personal way.
They go beyond the firm boundaries, making room for the Gift; welcoming from the Grace fullness of being, in its new unrepeatable tracks.
[St. Bartholomew, Apostle. August 24, 2024]
