1-10-18 - Known

To be fully known and fully accepted: is there any richer human experience? That is a gift God offers to us. Sometimes it is the way God gets our attention. That’s certainly how it happened when Nathanael met Jesus.

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!”

Nathanael’s friend Philip had just told him about Jesus, and he had responded with a big dollop of skepticism, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” But here is Jesus, speaking as though he already knows him, affirming his integrity. Might Jesus also be getting in a gentle dig, knowing what Nathanael had said about his home town, backhandedly commending him for holding nothing back, even sarcasm?

He surely gets Nathanael’s attention: “How do you know me?” Jesus replies, “I saw you under the fig tree before Philip called you.” Now, Nathanael had been alone and Jesus nowhere close by. Jesus could not have known this by natural means. As miracles go, it’s small – but it snags Nathanael and opens his heart to seeing who Jesus is. And boy, does he see – he sees the whole truth! “‘Rabbi, you are the Son of God! You are the King of Israel!’”

It takes months and years for most of Jesus’ followers to comprehend his messianic identity, and here, Nathanael gets it in the first five minutes. Jesus opened Nathanael’s heart by showing that he knew him, and then he made himself known to that open heart.

Who knows you best in the world? And how fully does that person know you? Do they accept you for all of who you are, the good, the bad and the ugly? Have you been able to receive that gift? And have you given it to another?

Have you experienced being known by God? I will sometimes receive a word in prayer that reveals a deep truth about myself, something I may dimly know but haven’t fully recognized. And often I sense from God a loving acceptance of who I am, much more profound than I am able to offer myself. Allowing ourselves to be known by God helps us with the endless journey of coming to know ourselves.

In Jesus, God made the unknowable knowable, so that we might know God, at least to the extent our limited perceptions allow. And in coming into human life, human time, human experience, Jesus also made a way for us to feel what it’s like to be known by God. My prayer today, for you and for me, is that we will let that knowing love take root deep inside. Then we too will be without guile, without shadow, transparent as glass.

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