Can anything good come from Nazareth?

1 Jn 3,11-21; Ps 99; Jn 1,43-51
5 JANUARY
Every man lives in a history, a culture and a specific doctrinal, scientific, theological, moral formation. Where is the error of many? It is in considering their mind and heart locked in what they are. While all revelation is an invitation to come out of what one is to acquire what one is not. If we read the Holy Scriptures starting from Genesis to finish to Revelation, the last canonical book of our sacred texts, we will notice that our God is he who day by day always leads from light to light, from truth to truth and from revelation to revelation. You come out of a knowledge of yesterday and you get into a knowledge of today. Each prophet adds what is missing to the other prophet and every Book completes what is missing to the other Book. But not even with the closure of public revelation, the path of truth has ended. The disciple of Jesus knows that the Holy Spirit will come and lead believers to the whole truth. Thus a Father of the Church adds to those who have preceded him and every Doctor completes what the Doctor has started before. The Church walks from understanding to understanding and never stopping. Every Saint also manifests a new, special and particular light of God.

Philip, called by Jesus to follow him, calls Nathanael in turn. He, being a man of vast scriptural culture and education, knows that the Messiah comes from Bethlehem, not from Nazareth. But he also knows that the prophets are without pre-established or prefixed origin by God. They can be born in every time, in every place and from any family. Despite being convinced, because of his culture, that the Messiah does not rise from Nazareth, he lets himself be persuaded by Philip to make his personal encounter with Christ Jesus. Seeing with his eyes and listening with his ears, he could have made an opinion or a personal judgment on the person of Jesus. This is the man. Discernment capacity. Acceptance of the discernment made. Change of thought and vision. Moving from an initial formation to a more perfect one, without ever stopping this process of walking from the imperfect truth to the perfect truth, from the initial truth to the mature one. Change is the essence of human nature, because it is a daily vocation to conform to the truth that comes from history. Whoever stops walking in the truth, also stops his journey towards his humanization.

The next day he decided to go to Galilee, and he found Philip. And Jesus said to him, “Follow me.” Now Philip was from Bethsaida, the town of Andrew and Peter. Philip found Nathanael and told him, “We have found the one about whom Moses wrote in the law, and also the prophets, Jesus, son of Joseph, from Nazareth.” But Nathanael said to him, “Can anything good come from Nazareth?” Philip said to him, “Come and see.” Jesus saw Nathanael coming toward him and said of him, “Here is a true Israelite. There is no duplicity in him.” Nathanael said to him, “How do you know me?” Jesus answered and said to him, “Before Philip called you, I saw you under the fig tree.” Nathanael answered him, “Rabbi, you are the Son of God; you are the King of Israel.” Jesus answered and said to him, “Do you believe because I told you that I saw you under the fig tree? You will see greater things than this.” And he said to him, “Amen, amen, I say to you, you will see the sky opened and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man.”

Nathaniel does not need great speeches and great signs to accept the truth of Jesus. It is enough for him to listen to one single word: “Here really is an Israelite in whom there is no falsehood”. This word of Jesus reveals to us that Nathanael is not closed to any truth. He is ready to put every light in his heart. But first, he wants to be sure it is truth. This is why we need either the comfort of Holy Scripture or of history. Faced with a historical truth, the whole of Scripture must be reinterpreted, reread and re-established. Nathanael knows that it is not enough to see a man to know his heart. Only God knows the heart and those to whom the Lord grants this grace. The confession on Jesus is born from this theological science of his: “Rabbi, you are the Son of God, you are the king of Israel”. The science of Scripture confirms the history of Jesus. The history of Jesus confirms the science that Nathanael has of the God of Scripture. History and Scripture are the two feet through which the fullness of truth enters the heart of man.

Mother of God, Angels and Saints, never allow us to close ourselves in the science of yesterday.