Daily Lesson for January 16, 2014

Today's Lesson is from John 1:47-48:

47 Jesus saw Nathanael coming toward him and said of him, “Behold, an Israelite indeed, in whom there is no deceit!” 48 Nathanael said to him, “How do you know me?” Jesus answered him, “Before Philip called you, when you were under the fig tree, I saw you.

When I was a boy I had a big, two-story fort in my back yard. It was my hideout. Whenever I was lonely, or wounded, or afraid, and especially when I was in trouble, I always climbed the ladder to my fort. It was my place of hiding and shame.

Whenever I read the Scripture for today I wonder if Nathanael's tree wasn't a lot like my fort - his place of hiding. The thing that made me think of that was when I realized that it is not just any old generic tree. It is a fig tree - the same kind of tree from which Adam and Eve plucked leaves to hide their nakedness after eating from the forbidden fruit. It was among the fig trees that Adam and Eve hid themselves from God as He came walking toward them in the cool of the evening.

The Lesson for today is one for those in hiding from God and the world. It is for those who are living (or dying) in the guilt of what they have done and the shame of who they are. It is for those beneath fig trees or in forts or wherever else it is that they can hide. And the message is this: Jesus sees us already. He already knows us. He knows what we have done. And he knows where we are hiding. 

He sees us and he knows us and he accepts us - unconditionally. He calls us to step out of the darkness of our guilt and our shame and into the light of his embrace. He sees us and he knows us and he loves us and he wants us to come out of hiding.