“Philip said to [Nathanael], ‘Come and see.’ … And Nathanael answered and said to Him, ‘Rabbi, you are the Son of God! You are the King of Israel!’”

Glory to Jesus Christ! Glory forever!

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

“Philip found Nathanael and said to him, ‘We have found him of whom Moses in the law, and also the Prophets, wrote—Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph.’ And Nathanael said to him, ‘Can anything good come out of Nazareth?’ Philip replied, ‘Come and see.’ … [Later] Nathanael said to Jesus, ‘Rabbi, you are the Son of God! You are the King of Israel!’ (John 1:45-46, 49).

“Friend, we have found him, the Messiah! We have found the Son of God, the Son of Man! … Come and see!” Brethren, what a preposterous proposition is made by St. Philip in today’s Gospel. “Come and see… the Son of God!” (repeat). Admittedly, this is the language first employed by the Apostle Nathanael (Bartholomew) in the text. I am sure he would want us to know that he made this assertion well before St. Peter made his: “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God!” (Matt 16:16), in the same manner that St. John wanted us to know that he beat St. Peter to Christ’s tomb (cf. John 20:4): a friendly, brotherly rivalry. In response to Christ’s vision of Nathanael under the fig tree, Nathanel is willing to assert something remarkable: “Rabbi, you are the Son of God!” This man, who stands before him, with olive skin, a comely beard, dark eyes, callous hands, this son of Mary; this son of Joseph, the carpenter, Jesus of Nazareth… is the Son of God. Long before the Apostle wrote in his Letter to the Colossians, “He is the image of the invisible God… for by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible… all things were created through him and for him” (Col 1:15-16), St. Bartholomew uttered these words, “You are the Son of God.” Nathanael saw the face of Jesus, the man, and recognized the Incarnate God.

            Today, brethren, the Church celebrates the Triumph of Orthodoxy, truly, the “triumph of Orthodox Christology,” the “triumph of incarnational theology.” Today the Church says with the disciples Philip and Nathanel, “We have seen the face of Jesus. We have seen the face of God,” and they invite us as they invited one another, “Are you looking for God? Good, come and see him.” Come and SEE him.

            Before Christ, God could not be seen. Before Christ, God could not be heard. He was perceived, but not by the physical senses of a man. In the Old Testament theophanies, in the Old Testament revelations of God to his Prophets, he is not seen; he is not heard. He appears, yes, but not in the flesh. He is heard, yes, but not as an utterance from a throat. How could he be? He has neither form nor voice. So the prohibition stands, “Make no graven image!” Why? Because God cannot be circumscribed, that is, until God is willing to circumscribe himself, by taking flesh of the Most Pure Virgin, by condescending to our form.

            And what a condescension this was, brethren! God who is beyond space and time—without circumscription, because of the infinite vastness of his Being—who is beyond all comprehension, who made the heavens and the earth and all things therein, who despite his grandeur is able to arrange the universe atomically, and despite this precision is beyond the breadth of all our imaginations. Larger, stronger, wiser… than the largest, strongest, wisest… anything. This God of whom Moses says adamantly, “Make no graven image!” (Exod 20:4) has condescended to our form. The infinite God, in the person of Jesus Christ, is now also rightly predicated of “5’10”, 165 lbs., brown hair, brown eyes, a preference for olives, and dates, and roasted lamb” (communicatio idiomatum). You may say, “You are overly humanizing him.” Brethren, that is the point of the incarnation: God became man. He became more man, more human even than you or I are. This is why he is called, definitively, the “Son of Man.” “Ecce homo,” in the words of Pilate, “Behold, the Man!” (John 19:5, italics mine).

            In Christ, the invisible God became visible. In Christ, the incomprehensible God becomes perceivable. The disciples were not fed by the hands of a man only (Luke 22:19); they were fed by the hands of God. The Beloved disciple did not recline upon the breast of a man only; he reclined upon the breast of God, his friend and Savior. Mary did not hold in her arms, and suckle at her breast, an infant male, child only, but she beheld in her arms her Creator and Redeemer. And we, when we kiss an icon of Christ our Lord, as St. John of Damascus teaches us, we

“… do not worship matter. [We] worship the God of matter, who became matter for [our] sakes and deigned to inhabit matter, who worked out [our] salvation through matter. [Therefore, we] will not cease from honoring that matter which works for [our] salvation” (“First Apology,” On the Divine Images).

            Because of these, our holy icons, brethren, and the incarnational reality to which they testify, we can say to visitors, inquirers, catechumens: “Come and see… God!” Christ has ascended to heaven as God! Christ has ascended to heaven as man! The incarnation does not cease upon his resurrection from the dead, upon his ascension into heaven. Christ is hypostatically God and man forever! The God who could not be described, who could not be circumscribed, is now forever circumscribed in the person of Jesus Christ. The face of Jesus of Nazareth will forever be the image (eikonos) of the invisible God.

            Today, we celebrate the triumph of Orthodox Christology. But today also, we celebrate the triumph of Orthodox soteriology in words and in images. God has deigned to be circumscribed for our sake, that through his incarnation, death, and resurrection he might “renew his fallen image, made corrupt in passion” (sticheron at the “Lord, I Call”, Tone 4). And in his ascension, that he might raise up the image of man to the heavenly places. God has condescended to be circumscribed in the image of man; so too he raises us up to be re-circumscribed in the image of God. This is our faith, and this is a great mystery, that we who “were but flesh” (Ps 78:39), should be made, says the Beloved Apostle,

“the sons of God, and it does not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he [Christ] shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is” (1 John 3:2).

We celebrate the incarnation in the icon of our Lord. And we celebrate our salvation in the icons of the saints, whose own images have been renewed in the image and likeness of God. There is a reason that—iconographically—the images of the saints and of our Lord look similarly. “God became man, that man might become God” (St. Athanasius, On the Incarnation). In Christ’s condescension, he became like us, and through his ascension (and through the grace of all the Holy Mysteries) we become like him. The icons of the saints bear witness to the future glory, beyond our present understanding, that awaits all the faithful transfigured in Christ.

“I did not see a temple in the city, because the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are its temple. The city does not need the sun or the moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light, and the Lamb is its lamp. … Nothing impure will ever enter it, nor will anyone who does what is shameful or deceitful, but only those whose names are written in the Lamb’s book of life. … The throne of God and Lamb will be in the city, and his servants will serve him, [and] they will see his face…” (Rev 21:22-23, 27; 22:3-4).

Through the prayers of our holy fathers, O Lord, Jesus Christ, our God, have mercy on us and save us. Amen.

Glory to Jesus Christ! Glory forever!