If we are to know God, neither rationalism nor irrational mysticism will suffice … God chose to make himself known, finally and ultimately, in a real, historical man …”

The next day Jesus decided to go to Galilee. He found Philip and said to him, “Come, follow me.” 44 Philip was from Bethsaida, Andrew and Peter’s hometown.

45 Philip went to look for Nathanael and told him, “We have found the very person Moses and the prophets wrote about! His name is Jesus, the son of Joseph from Nazareth.”

46 “Nazareth!” exclaimed Nathanael. “Can anything good come from Nazareth?”

“Come and see for yourself,” Philip replied.

47 As they approached, Jesus said, “Now here is a genuine son of Israel—a man of complete integrity.”

48 “How do you know about me?” Nathanael asked.

Jesus replied, “I could see you under the fig tree before Philip found you.”

49 Then Nathanael exclaimed, “Rabbi, you are the Son of God—the King of Israel!”

50 Jesus asked him, “Do you believe this just because I told you I had seen you under the fig tree? You will see greater things than this.” 51 Then he said, “I tell you the truth, you will all see heaven open and the angels of God going up and down on the Son of Man, the one who is the stairway between heaven and earth.”

God has not given us a watertight argument to prove Christianity is true; he has given us a watertight person, not an abstract argument.

A watertight person is the compelling proof that the God of the Bible and Christianity are true. This is not anti-rational when I say that. To say Jesus Christ is a watertight person and that’s the compelling proof we’re given rather than a watertight argument is to say you have to look at Jesus. You have to look at the accounts about Jesus’ life. You have to look at his claims. You have to look at his teaching, and then you have to compare that to the way he behaved.

Philip responded with the only satisfactory response possible: Come and see. ‘Honest inquiry is a sovereign cure for prejudice. Nazareth might be all that Nathanael thought, but there is an exception to prove every rule; and what an exception these young men had found!’ (Bruce, p. 60). But as in v. 39, not only are these words a challenge to the person in the narrative, but an invitation to the reader.

Nathanael may have been blunt in his criticism of Nazareth, but he was an Israelite without duplicitous motives who was willing to examine for himself the claims being made about Jesus.

What a dark passage. Why even bring it up? I’ll tell you why. Because it’s in the Bible. If it’s in the Bible, Matthew wanted to get something across to us about the gospel, about Christmas, about Christianity. So the story of the flight, the slaughter, and the return to Egypt tell us some things. It has a number of lessons. Let’s just look at them while we have the time. The first lesson, the first thing this tells us is …

When Herod the Great dies in verse 21, “So he got up, took the child and his mother and went to the land of Israel. But when he heard that Archelaus [Herod’s son] was reigning in Judea in place of his father …” He went to Israel to Judea, but when he heard Herod’s son was there, he got nervous and “… was afraid to go there. Having been warned in a dream, he [went back] to Galilee and [settled in Nazareth where they were from].”

Now why was it that he was trying to go to Judea and he didn’t want to go to Nazareth or Galilee? The answer you can find in John 1, where Philip has met Jesus and is very impressed with him. He goes to his friend, Nathanael, and says to Nathanael, “Nathanael, I think we may have found the Messiah.” Nathanael says, “Where is he from?” Philip says, “From Nazareth.” Nathanael says, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?”

So people inside Galilee, in parts of Galilee, looked down their noses at people who were not in other parts of Galilee. So people like Nathanael, who actually lived in Cana, looked down upon anyone from Nazareth. Now I have no idea why, but the point was Nazareth was the most backwoods, the most backwater, the most Nowhereville place of all. That’s how God works.

Over and over and over again, God says, “I will choose Nazareth, not Jerusalem. I will choose the girl nobody wants. I will choose the boy everybody has forgotten.” Why? Is it just that God likes underdogs? How moving. Isn’t that moving? No. He is telling us something about salvation itself.

Every other religion, every other moral philosophy … You’re going to see a whole lot of books now by agnostics and atheists saying, “Even if we don’t believe in God, we still need to have some way of bringing people together and giving them moral values and all that stuff.” Every philosophy, every religion is going to say, “Here’s how we can be saved,” however they define salvation. “Here’s how we can be saved. Summon up all of your strength, and live like this.”

Jesus Christ comes and says, “You’ll never do it. You’ll never do that. I have come not to show you how to summon up your strength so you can find God; I have come as God to find you. Therefore, I’m going to save you. I’m going to save you through what I do, not what you do. I’m going to save you by grace.”

This means all other religions appeal to the strong, the people who can pull it together, the people who can summon up the blood. Only in Christianity Jesus says, “I’ve come for the weak. I’ve come for those who admit they’re weak.” Therefore, it’s not nuts. That’s what Christmas is all about, you know.

Seek not in courts or palaces;

Nor royal curtains draw;

But search the stable, see your God

Extended on the straw.

First, God works through the lowly, not the powerful. I don’t care who you are. I don’t care what you’ve done. I don’t care what your background is. I don’t care what deep, dark secrets are in your past. I don’t care what shameful things you may have ever done. In New York City, just to be mediocre is considered to be a failure. I don’t care how you feel.

God saves and works through anybodies and even nobodies rather than somebodies. What that means is there’s hope. It’s freeing. We’re all sinners saved by grace. It doesn’t matter who you are or what you’ve done. Jesus’ arms are open wide. He went to Nazareth to say that. There are a lot of other ways he says it.

Secondly, our worldly status should be left out of Christian community. We do live in New York City, and therefore, there are a lot of people of influence, a lot of smart people, a lot of talented people. We have to be very careful, really careful, because not only this text but all through the Bible, we’re being told race, pedigree, wealth, status … When you come in the doors and we come together, we come together in the Christian community in the church, we have to leave things outside as markers.

In here, it’s your identity in Christ, the fruit of the Spirit, and your service to him. You have to leave those things outside. They should not rule us. Those distinctions out in the world mean everything. Everything. That’s where all the hubris comes from, all the disdain, all the sarcasm … Wildwood, New Jersey. A face any woman could have. That has to be in every way left out of our community.