Sunday January 14th is formally known as the Second Sunday after Epiphany. In a way, the word “after”  diminishes this Sunday by implying that the only thing significant about it is that it follows Epiphany by seven days. But if we think of it as the Second Sunday of Epiphany our perspective shifts. We can look at this Sunday as part of a season of revelation of Emmanuel to the people of Israel and to the world.

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The Hebrew scripture readings for this day, (1 Sam 3:1-20 and Psalm 139 Ps 139:1-5, 12-17) each have the quality of a startling realization that something new has happened.

Here is part of 1 Samuel.

Samuel was … in the temple of the Lord, where the ark of God was. The Lord called, ‘Samuel! Samuel!’ and he said, ‘Here I am!’ and ran to Eli, and said, ‘Here I am, for you called me.’ But he said, ‘I did not call; ...’ So he went and lay down. The Lord called again, ‘Samuel!’ Samuel got up and went to Eli, and said, ‘Here I am, ….’ But he said, ‘I did not call, my son; lie down.’ …The Lord called Samuel again, a third time. And he got up and went to Eli, and said, ‘Here I am, for you called me.’

Then Eli perceived that the Lord was calling the boy. …Eli said …, ‘Go, lie down; and if he calls you, you shall say, “Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening.”’ So Samuel went and lay down … Now the Lord came and stood there, calling as before, ‘Samuel! Samuel!’ Samuel said, ‘Speak, your servant is listening.’ Then the Lord said to Samuel, ‘I am about to do something in Israel that will make both ears of anyone who hears of it tingle.’

This breakthrough of the Lord into Samuel’s consciousness was an “epiphany moment” for Samuel, and for Eli, too. Samuel’s life changed from this point forward and became oriented to God in a whole new way.

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Psalm 139 has a similar Epiphany character. One can read it as a startling awakening to awareness. It is as though the psalmist opened his eyes to a new reality. Here are a few lines of the psalm that show the ‘exclamation-mark’ quality of the insights.

O Lord, you have searched me and known me.

   You know when I sit down and when I rise up;

    you discern my thoughts from far away…

You search out my path and my lying down,

    and are acquainted with all my ways…

Even before a word is on my tongue,

    O Lord, you know it completely…

For it was you who formed my inward parts;

    you knit me together in my mother’s womb….

In your book were written

    all the days that were formed for me,

    when none of them as yet existed.

How weighty to me are your thoughts, O God!

    How vast is the sum of them!

In one sense nothing changed for the psalmist but in a different sense, he realized that he was intimately seen and known by God from the very beginning. This understanding of God’s insight overwhelmed him.

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Sunday’s gospel, which takes place on the second day after the Spirit had descended on Jesus at his baptism in the Jordan, turns the opening three lines of psalm 139 into a kind of prophecy.  It begins,

Jesus decided to go to Galilee. He found Philip and said, ‘Follow me.’ …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, ‘Can anything good come out of Nazareth?’ Philip said, ‘Come and see.’ When Jesus saw Nathanael coming …he said... ‘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… 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.’ … ‘Truly… you will see heaven opened and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man.

First, Nathanael dismissed the possibility of Jesus as the one about whom… the prophets wrote, when he asked Philip, ‘Can anything good come out of Nazareth?’ The reference to Nazareth as disreputable seems to have been something akin to references to ‘Scarberia’ or ‘Jane-Finch’ by other Torontonians, a classification of a place and its people.

Whether Jesus was aware of Nathaniel’s comments or not, he greeted Nathanael positively as one with no deceit. When Nathanael asked how Jesus knew him, Jesus said he saw him under the fig tree, which was presumably nowhere near any place that Jesus had been.  

This information startled Nathanael who replied ‘Rabbi, you are the Son of God… the King of Israel!’

Jesus' recognition of Nathanael’s character… an Israelite in which there is no deceit… was like saying that he was a person of integrity: a high compliment. Like the writer of psalm 139 in this morning’s reading, Nathanael had a strong sense that he was an ‘open book’ to Jesus. Not only that, but Jesus revealed to him his own power.

(At the beginning of the Anglican Eucharist, (P. 185 of the Book of Alternative Services) we say a prayer that resonates with the opening lines of Psalm 139. It reminds us that we are entering into a relationship with someone from whom nothing is unknown. It is our version of Nathanael’s epiphany moment. “Almighty God, to you all hearts are open, all desires known, and from you no secrets are hidden.”)

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At the same time as Jesus was speaking to Nathanael about where he had seen him and his character, he revealed something about himself. He had powers of vision and discernment.

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  • Consider your own “Epiphany moments”. How did they happen? What did God reveal about himself… and you?
  • Jesus' other new disciples, who had been following Jesus for only a day or two, observed this exchange and realized that Jesus had seen Nathanael. Was it an Epiphany moment for them too?
  • Have you experienced a time when someone perceived your innermost thoughts deeply and gently…as in psalm 139…

O Lord, you have searched me and known me.

   …you discern my thoughts from far away…

or as when Jesus addressed Nathanael about being without deceit?  How did that experience feel? Was it epiphany-like? Did it give you joy?

Peace

Michael