St. Bartholomew, 2025

Text: John 1:43-51

Title: Jesus knows

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We don’t know much about Bartholomew.  He’s not like Peter or Paul or James or John. His name only appears a couple of times in the Bible as one of Jesus’ disciples.

He’s in the lists in Matthew, Mark, Luke, and Acts, and we assume that he’s the same person that John calls Nathanael, but that’s just an educated guess using the process of elimination.

According to legend, Bartholomew was a martyr.  He died by flaying, that is, his skin was cut off with a knife.  So, often in artwork, Bartholomew is pictured holding a knife.  If you go to the Sistine Chapel and you can pick Bartholomew out from the crowd of saints, you’ll see him holding a knife in one hand, and his skin in the other.  As Dr. Nagel would say, “He’s going to be needing that later” in the resurrection.  Check out the picture by the mailboxes on your way out.

We don’t know that much about Bartholomew or Nathanael, but Jesus does.

And that’s the point of today’s gospel.

Nathanael has one of the most dramatic conversion stories in all of Scripture.  He goes from a skeptic to a believer in an incredibly short amount of time. 

When his friend, Philip, tells him about Jesus, Nathanael can’t believe that Jesus is the Messiah.

“Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” he asks?

Nazareth was a small town just down the road. Perhaps they were rivals with Bethsaida, playing each other in football each fall.

But Nazareth was not a big, important city. No one famous had ever come from Nazareth. 

You’d expect the Messiah to come from a town like Jerusalem, the capital city, the site of the temple, the place where King David and King Solomon and all the others after them had reigned.

But Nazareth?  No way.

Nathanael doesn’t just reject Jesus as the Messiah, but he calls Him “no good.”

And yet, there must have been something about Philip’s voice or his face, or just the working of the Holy Spirit that drew Nathanel out from under his siesta under the fig tree to see for himself this Jesus who had Philip all worked up.

And in the space of a few verses, Nathanel goes from calling Jesus “no good,” to calling Him the “Son of God.”

What was it that changed Nathanael’s mind?

It was the fact that Jesus knew him.  Jesus knew Nathanael in a surprising and unsuspecting way.

Jesus calls him a true Israelite without deceit (always good to add a few compliments) and then He told Nathanael that He saw him when he was still under the fig tree.

And that was enough to change Nathanael’s mind, the fact that Jesus knew him so well.

How about you?

Have you ever had the experience when you are surprised because someone knows you, knows things about you that you don’t expect?

About a week ago, I received an email from someone whom I barely know.  And he addressed it to me with my first, middle, and last name.

Now, I rarely use my middle name for anything. I’m sure if you search long enough online you can probably find it, but it doesn’t come up in a quick Google search.

Has that ever happened to you?  Someone knows something surprising about you?

If so, you might feel a little uncomfortable, like someone is stalking you.

We are cautious with our personal information, because we are afraid that someone might steal our identity or use it to harm us.

We give out our personal information slowly, cautiously, and only to the people we trust. 

You don’t give out your social security number to the spam caller over the phone, but you might give it out to your lawyer or your accountant when it comes time to file your taxes.

You don’t reveal your personal secrets to your next door neighbor, but you might tell your best friend.

You don’t tell your most fervent hopes and dreams to your coworker, but you might tell them to your husband or wife.

What about Jesus?

What do you tell Him about yourself?

When you go to Jesus in prayer, are you open and honest with Him?  Do you bare your soul to Him?  Or do you keep everything on the surface?

When you go to Jesus in confession, do you lay all your sins before Him?  Even the deep, dark, secret, embarrassing ones?  Or do you just stick with the little sins that everyone does?

Just as Jesus knew Nathanael, Jesus knows you. He is true God and He knows all things.

Near the beginning of the Private Confession rite, you say, “Let us begin in the name of God, to whom all hearts are open, and from whom no secrets are hid.”

Jesus knows everything about you.  He knows you better than you know yourself.  He knew you even before you were born.

From Psalm 13,

O Lord, you have searched me and known me!
2 You know when I sit down and when I rise up;
    you discern my thoughts from afar.
3 You search out my path and my lying down
    and are acquainted with all my ways.
4 Even before a word is on my tongue,
    behold, O Lord, you know it altogether. 

For you formed my inward parts;
    you knitted me together in my mother's womb.
14 I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.
Wonderful are your works;
    my soul knows it very well.
15 My frame was not hidden from you,
when I was being made in secret,
    intricately woven in the depths of the earth.
16 Your eyes saw my unformed substance;
in your book were written, every one of them,
    the days that were formed for me,
    when as yet there was none of them.

Jesus knows you.  Not in a Santa Claus sort of way, “He knows you when you’re sleeping. He knows when you’re awake.  He knows if you’ve been bad or good, so…   … be good for goodness sake.”

The fact that Jesus knows you is not merely to scare you into being good.

Jesus knows you when you’re bad.  But He still loves you.

Jesus knew that Nathanael would one day abandon Him, run away in fear along with the other disciples.

And yet He still went to the cross.

Jesus promised Nathanael that He would see the angels ascending and descending on the Son of Man.

That’s a reference to His crucifixion.

In His death, Jesus becomes the ladder to heaven. His cross is the means by which God’s angels, God’s messengers bring good news to earth.  The angels were there at the tomb to announce Jesus’ resurrection.  And the angels return up to heaven bearing the prayers of God’s people (for more on that, see Revelation chapter 8).

Jesus knew Nathanael, He knew you, too.  He knew that you could not reconnect with the Father on your own, and so He gave His life for you.

There’s one more place that Nathanael shows up in the book of John.  It takes a little bit of detective work to find him, but he’s there, if you look for him.

That first Easter evening, all the disciples were together, except for Thomas, and for Judas, of course.

And Jesus appears to them, even though they are hiding in fear with the doors locked.

And Jesus speaks words of peace and forgiveness to them.  And He breathes on them and fills them with the Holy Spirit, and gives them the authority to forgive sins in His Name.

That’s Nathanael.  That’s Bartholomew.  He’s there as a witness to the risen Christ.  He’s there as one forgiven by those sacred wounds.  He’s there as one who is sent by Jesus to preach and forgive.

After Pentecost, we don’t know for sure what happened to Nathanael or Bartholomew.

But Jesus knows.  He knew that day in Bethsaida.

What will happen next for you when you walk out that door?

I don’t know.  You don’t know for sure, either.

But Jesus knows.  He knows every moment of your lifetime.

Not as a creepy stalker.  Not as one who’s just watching for you to mess up so He can punish you.

But Jesus knows you as a friend, as a brother, as a bridegroom, and as your Savior.