Elma United Methodist Church

The Gift of Thanks

Elma United Methodist Church

How Did You Know Me?

Dan Shelly

Elma United Methodist Church

January 15, 2006

(John 1:43-51, Psalm 139)

 

Last week we read about the baptism of Jesus and I kinda’ wished that this had been the lectionary verse for this week, since we were having three baptisms this morning.  But I love how our lectionary readings so often correspond to exactly what’s going on within our community life.  And that happened again when I read the verses for this week.  Our Gospel verse talks about Jesus calling Nathanael to be one of his disciples.  It seems that after encountering Jesus, Nathanael’s friend Phillip went off to find him and excitedly told Nathanael, “We’ve found the one spoken of by Moses and all the prophets.  You’ve got to come see this guy!”  To which Nathanael replied, “Can any good thing come out of Nazareth?”  That’s similar to someone in Seattle saying, “Can any good thing come out of Tacoma?”  Or perhaps someone in Elma saying, “Can anything good really come out of Monte?”  Obviously Nathanael was less than impressed, and only went along with Phillip to humor him.

 

But as he was coming near, this Jesus fellow looked up, pointed Nathanael out, and said, “Here is truly an Israelite in whom there is no deceit!”  Well Phillip was taken aback, he’d never met this Jesus person before and yet Jesus already claimed to know all about him.  So Nathanael asked him, “Where do you get off saying that about me?  Where did you come to know me?  We’ve never met before have we?”  And Jesus answered,  “I saw you sitting under the fig tree, before Phillip even showed up and told you about me.”  Before anyone ever told Nathanael about Jesus, Jesus already saw him and Jesus already knew him.  And that knowledge blew Nathanael away.  He declared, “Rabbi, you are the Son of God! You are the King of Israel!”

And Jesus asked him, is that really all it takes for you to believe and follow me?  This is just the beginning.  I’m glad you finally realized that I already knew you, but hang with me for a while Nathanael, cause there’s a whole lot more in store.

 

And that’s what Jesus tells all of us today.  When we finally hear the good news about Jesus.  When someone invites us to come and have a first hand encounter with the risen Son of God, it’s then that we’re surprised to find out that Jesus already knew and cared about us all along.  And Jesus promises that there’s a lot more to the story than this.  He tells us that as we stay in relationship, we too will experience the heavens opening before us and God’s angels, God’s heavenly messengers ascending and descending.  We will experience moments of Grace and moments of Blessing as we journey together with Jesus.

And that’s what I thought about as I thought about our baptisms today.  There are some people who are strongly opposed to an infant baptism because they say, “They can’t have had an encounter with the risen Christ yet.” But today’s Scripture declares for us that even before we ever encounter God, God already knows us and through baptism God publicly places the seal of the Holy Spirit upon our lives and declares to those gathered here and to the World, “This is my Beloved Child, in whom I am well pleased.”  And how soon does God know us?  Is it from the very moment we are born?  No it’s much earlier than that.  For as the Psalmist declares of God today.

 

You who formed my inward parts O God;
  you knit me together in my mother’s womb.
I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.
   Wonderful are your works;
   that I know very well.
My frame was not hidden from you,
   when I was being made in secret,
   intricately woven in the depths of the earth.
Your eyes beheld my unformed substance.
   In your book were written
   all the days that were formed for me,
   when none of them as yet existed.

 

Before we were even conceived, God beheld and loved our unformed substance, our Spirit.  And before they ever came into being all the days of our lives were already formed by God and written in God’s book.  Like a nurturing Mother, God knit together our very bones and ligaments within the womb, and throughout our lives God watches over us.  Within Scripture Jesus tells us, God knows you so intimately that God’s numbered the very hairs on your head.  This isn’t the description that we sometimes hear of God, God as a distant and majestic monarch, to be feared and worshipped from afar.  No this is the image of God that Jesus came to show us instead.  God intricately and intimately involved in each of our lives.  God as close as our very breath.

 

Last Sunday evening I went with our Youth group to watch “The Chronicles of Narnia,” and in one of the scenes the children are playing a game of hide-and-seek.  The youngest child, Lucy, decides to hide inside a great big old wardrobe and she ends up stepping into the land of Narnia.  This got me to thinking.  Imagine trying to play a game of hide-and-seek with God.  It would be pretty difficult, since wherever you ran to, wherever you tried to hide, God would be there.  The Psalmist told us today,

 

Where can I go from your spirit?
   Or where can I flee from your presence?
If I ascend to heaven, you are there;
   if I make my bed in Sheol, (early Israel’s understanding of the grave  where souls went after death) you are there.
If I take the wings of the morning
   and settle at the farthest limits of the sea,
even there your hand shall lead me,
   and your right hand shall hold me fast.
If I say, ‘Surely the darkness shall cover me,
   and the light around me become night’,
even the darkness is not dark to you;
   the night is as bright as the day,
   for darkness is as light to you.

 

There’s nowhere we can hide from God, but many of us still try.  Somehow we think we can keep things from God, or hide parts of our lives from God that we aren’t proud of, things in our past or thoughts and feelings that we think we shouldn’t have.  But the amazing thing is, God already knows all of it!  God knows you better than you know yourself and God loves you just the way you are, right here, right now.  God loves us “Warts and All” and wants to have a deep and lasting relationship with each of us. THAT’s what Jesus came to tell us, it was true then and it’s true now.  Each of us is indeed a beloved child of God.  Jesus came to point the way to God and restore our relationship with God.  Talk about Good News!  God, the Creator of the entire Universe loves and cares about you and declares to one and all, this is my Beloved Child, in whom I am well pleased.

 

What an amazing thing.  In spite of all we’ve said, in spite of all we’ve done in our lives, in spite of our turning and hiding from God, in spite of it all.  God still loves us with a love that will not end.  Through our baptism, God declares we are Beloved Children of God and God invites us to serve as angels and carry the Good News of God’s love to others.

 

It may seem like a daunting task.  But remember God knows you better than you know yourself and God declares - you’re my kid and you’re up to the task.