Read: John 1:43-51 NRSV
The next day Jesus decided to go to Galilee. He found Philip and said to him, ‘Follow me.’ Now Philip was from Bethsaida, the city of Andrew and Peter. Philip found Nathanael and said to him, ‘We have found him about whom Moses in the law and also the prophets wrote, Jesus son of Joseph from Nazareth.’ Nathanael said to him, ‘Can anything good come out of Nazareth?’ Philip said to him, ‘Come and see.’ When Jesus saw Nathanael coming towards him, he said of him, ‘Here is truly an Israelite in whom there is no deceit!’ Nathanael asked him, ‘Where did you come to know me?’ Jesus answered, ‘I saw you under the fig tree before Philip called you.’ Nathanael replied, ‘Rabbi, you are the Son of God! You are the King of Israel!’ Jesus answered, ‘Do you believe because I told you that I saw you under the fig tree? You will see greater things than these.’ And he said to him, ‘Very truly, I tell you, you will see heaven opened and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man.’
ACT I, SCENE IV
Along the road to Galilee, the following day. Enter DISCIPLES AND MYSTERIOUS STRANGER, masked.
As we discovered yesterday, nobody was able to accurately pin down Jesus’ true identity because he fulfilled so many archetypes that we would normally divide into many characters. There aren’t many stories where the King is also the champion and the servant and the priest. The Jews, including the twelve disciples who are being gathered in this passage, were hoping for the Messiah to emerge and free them from the rule of the pagans, in this case the Romans. Nathanael is able to correctly identify Jesus as the King of Israel because the anointed one was prophesied to free the people, and, as one would logically conclude, reestablish the Davidic line by overthrowing Roman rule and taking back the promised land. What Nathanael and the Jewish people got wrong is the assumption that Jesus would be just another man. Sure, they knew the Messiah would be special, maybe a “man after God’s heart,” like David, but their expectation of Jesus as a King like Josiah or David or Hezekiah was too narrow.
In our play, this scene would be a masterful example of dramatic irony: we in the audience know something more than the characters on the stage. As Nathanael is declaring Jesus to be the prophesied King, he is missing the other characteristics that Jesus reveals in his actions. As we near the end of act I, Jesus is calling the twelve tribes of Israel back to God in the establishment of his twelve chosen disciples. The children of Israel, scattered and enslaved and distant from God, are doing more than coming under the rule of their King, they are also returning to the God of the covenant at the command of the Word himself. When Nathanael calls Jesus “Son of God,” he doesn’t realize that the term is more than the political moniker, but also the title for the divine representative in front of him.
Exeunt DISCIPLES AND MYSTERIOUS STRANGER.
