John 1:43-51
1/18/09
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Angels are certainly impressive beings. Our
culture is enamored with them. The book of Hebrews calls them
“ministering spirits sent out to serve for the sake of those who
are to inherit salvation.” Psalm 91:11, 12 reads,
“For He will command His angels concerning you to guard you in
all your ways. On their hands they will bear you up, lest you
strike your foot against a stone.” And Jesus, speaking of
His little ones, says, “their angels always behold the face of my
Father who is in heaven.” From these verses alone many
books and works of art have been produced depicting and describing
these heavenly beings as our guardians, who protect us from harm and
danger as we make our way through the trials and troubles of this
life. (Just go over to West Coast Church Supplies sometime and
see how many things you can find there that have to do with
angels.) And yet, not sticking strictly with the Scriptures,
there has been a lot of misunderstanding on the part of many as to who
angels really are and what they’re supposed to do.
They’ve been described as having wings, which none but a very
select few have. Some have been depicted as babies, which no
cherub is. They’ve been pictured as females, although all
the angels in the Bible are referred to with masculine pronouns.
And they’ve been taken for these kind and gentle creatures who
wouldn’t hurt a fly, although most of the time in the Scriptures
whenever you come across an angel he’s carrying out God’s
judgment on someone. Those who get all excited about seeing
angels often fail to take these things into account.
But it’s true: angels are impressive
beings. Upon seeing one himself the prophet Daniel fainted at his
appearance, the glory was so intense. And the Apostle John in the
book of Revelation was so beside himself at one point at the sight of
an angel, that he fell down to worship the being, when the angel said,
“Don’t do that! I am a fellow servant with you and
your brothers the prophets, and with those who keep the words of this
book. Worship God.” Unfortunately, many people are
more interested in angels and worshipping them than they are in God and
the worship of Him.
But if you’re impressed by angels, it might
interest you to know what impresses them. Here in the text from
the Gospel according to St. John we are shown what that is, or rather
who that is, and it’s Jesus. Instead of wishing to draw
attention to themselves, the angels want to draw our attention to Jesus
Christ, their Creator and ours, for even they themselves long to look
into the things concerning Him. And that is what Jesus means when
He tells Nathaniel, who’s impressed by Jesus’ foreknowledge
of him, that he would see the greater things of angels ascending and
descending on the Son of Man. Nathaniel would see the things by
which even the angels themselves were captivated, and that is the
humiliation and exaltation of the Son of Man, as depicted by a ladder
going from heaven to earth. It’s a reference to an O.T.
account where Jacob had a dream in which he saw this very thing:
a ladder which was set up on the earth, whose top reached to heaven,
and upon which the angels of God were ascending and descending.
And the LORD stood above it. Back then, Jacob was given this
dream to assure him that God would keep His word, especially the word
about the coming promised Seed of Abraham, through whom all the nations
of the earth would be blessed.
Jesus is that Seed. Here in John’s
Gospel, Jesus is telling Nathaniel that He is this Ladder. He
descends from heaven to earth and then ascends back to heaven
again. It’s a picture of His humiliation and
exaltation. And this is what completely mesmerizes the
angels. They long to look into these things concerning Jesus, and
yet they can’t understand them. They can’t understand
how God, in all His glory, could possibly humble Himself in such a way
and descend to earth in human flesh in order to give His life on the
cross for such sorry fallen beings as ourselves. For them it is
beyond their comprehension that He who was “in the form of God
did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but made Himself
nothing, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of
men, and being found in human form, He humbled Himself by becoming
obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.”
This descending or humiliation of Christ the angels long to look into,
as it is a mystery to them. But they also long to look into His
exaltation, too. For them it’s also a mystery, that Jesus
in His human flesh is now highly exalted by the Father, who raised Him
from the dead, seated Him at His right hand, and gave Him the
“Name that is above every Name, so that at the Name of Jesus
every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and
every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the
Father.”
All this is what impresses the angels. Any
angel that directs you somewhere other than to Jesus is no angel of
God. The angels of God ascend and descend on the Son of
Man. And if Christ and His work is what impresses the angels,
shouldn’t that impress us as well? What happens, however,
is that we get carried away by impressive displays of power and
glory. This is what happened to Nathaniel. He was very
impressed by Jesus’ ability to read his thoughts and to tell
Nathaniel what he’d being doing just minutes earlier without even
having met him yet. But how many others were around that could
mimic the same thing? How many charlatans, magicians, and
psychics seem to be able to tell people secret things about themselves,
with the result that many are impressed and amazed by their ability and
then believe their lies? How easily Nathaniel could have been led
astray by anyone who had come along with just the right tricks.
Even the magicians of Egypt were able to mimic some of the signs that
Moses performed. So, too, we must be on the alert that we
aren’t so impressed by angels that we’re carried away by
the false doctrine that’s associated with them in so many books
and works of art that supposedly represent them. Again, the
angels of God are not going to draw attention to themselves; they are
going to draw attention to Jesus, His words, and His work, especially
His humiliation, suffering, death, resurrection, and exaltation for our
salvation.
These are the greater things that Jesus promised
Nathaniel that he would see. Impressive and miraculous as it was
that Jesus knew Nathaniel before he’d met Him, Nathaniel
hadn’t seen anything yet! John records that Nathaniel and
the other disciples traveled with Jesus and watched Him turn water into
wine at a wedding at Cana. They saw Him heal an official’s
son with His Word, and observed Him healing a lame man at the pool of
Bethesda. They not only watched but participated as He fed five
thousand with five loaves and two fish. They saw Him walk on
water, give sight to a man born blind, and raise Lazarus from the
dead. All very impressive and miraculous signs, given to show
that Jesus was the Son of God and the King of Israel, just as Nathaniel
had confessed Him to be. But the ultimate sign was His
crucifixion and resurrection, a sign that no one has ever nor will ever
be able to mimic, and the ultimate proof that Jesus is who He claimed
to be.
Nathaniel was certainly a true Israelite, one who
was looking for the One of whom Moses in the Law and also the prophets
wrote. That Jesus would come from Nazareth was a surprise to
him. That would be like saying today that the Messiah had come
from Oakland or Richmond. What good can come out of those places,
we might ask? But even more surprising was that this Messiah, the
Son of God and the King of Israel, had humbled Himself and was going to
the cross to atone for our sins. He was the Lamb of God, come to
take away the sin of the world. Not even the angels could
understand this, let alone the disciples. Peter rebuked Jesus for
saying such a thing. And when Jesus was arrested Peter tried to
stop them from taking Him by attacking the high priest’s servant
with his sword. But Jesus, telling him to put his sword away,
said, “Do you think that I cannot appeal to my Father, and He
will at once send me more than twelve legions of angels? But how
then should the Scriptures be fulfilled, that it must be
so?” When I read this, I can imagine the angels just
waiting for the command to come to Jesus’ rescue. And yet
they had to stand down and watch as Jesus did what His Father sent Him
to do. No one and nothing was going to keep Him from going to the
cross, not angels, nor demons, nor human beings. It was where His
love for you and for me required Him to go.
Today, having accomplished our salvation through His
suffering and death, and having been raised from the dead and seated at
the Father’s right hand in glory, we are led by the Spirit of God
to follow the angels as they ascend and descend on the Son of
Man. The way from earth to heaven is through the One who
descended from heaven to earth for you to open heaven to you. He
is the Way, the Truth, and the Life, the only Ladder by which you may
now enter into the Father’s presence. This Ladder is
anchored in God’s Word, Baptism, Holy Absolution, and the
Lord’ Supper. These are the things which lead you from this
world into God’s presence. Through these means the Lord
descends to you with His grace and mercy, cleansing you of all
unrighteousness, forgiving your sins, and feeding you on His body and
blood, so that you might ascend to Him, where angels, archangels, and
all the company of heaven laud and magnify His glorious Name.
Come and see, with Nathaniel and all the saints,
what impresses even the angels: Jesus Christ, crucified and risen
from the dead for your salvation. Where He is in His Word and His
Sacraments, there you too will see heaven opened and the angels of God
ascending and descending on the Son of Man. Amen.