“You Ain’t Seen Nothing Yet”
Rev. Shawn Hyska
First Presbyterian Church in Kensington
January 25th, 2015
“The next day Jesus decided to go to Galilee. He found Philip and said to him, ‘Follow me.’ Now Philip was from
Bethsaida, the city of Andrew and Peter. Philip found Nathanael and said to him, ‘We have found him about
whom Moses in the law and also the prophets wrote, Jesus son of Joseph from Nazareth.’ Nathanael said to
him, ‘Can anything good come out of Nazareth?’ Philip said to him, ‘Come and see.’ When Jesus saw Nathanael
coming towards him, he said of him, ‘Here is truly an Israelite in whom there is no deceit!’ Nathanael asked
him, ‘Where did you come to know me?’ Jesus answered, ‘I saw you under the fig tree before Philip called you.’
Nathanael replied, ‘Rabbi, you are the Son of God! You are the King of Israel!’ Jesus answered, ‘Do you believe
because I told you that I saw you under the fig tree? You will see greater things than these.’ And he said to him,
‘Very truly, I tell you, you will see heaven opened and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the
Son of Man.’” John 1:43-56
If I were to ask you what the common theme is between a 1974 hit song, a 1996 commercial for Toyota trucks
and a fall 2014 advertisement for Sprint cell phone service – would you have any clue? The answer is that the
1974 hit song was used in the two commercials.
I think many of you might be familiar with the chorus to a song that reached #1 on the Billboard charts in 1974
by the Bachman Turner Overdrive. The chorus goes something like this, “You ain’t seen nothing yet, b-b-b
baby you just ain’t seen nothing yet; Here’s something that you’re never going to forget, b-b-b baby you just
ain’t seen n-n-nothing yet.” This song has been used in many commercials, movies, etc – and it’s used in a
way for people to imagine that what they are seeing is only a small glimpse of what is to come. What is
completely ironic about this song is that it starts off with the lead singer stating that he met a “devil woman”
who stole his heart and loved him, and looked at him with big brown eyes and said, “you ain’t seen nothing
yet.” This was originally a love/rock song. We’re going to leave the love verses out of it and just stick with the
chorus’ image that a greater image or sight awaits us, “you just ain’t seen nothing yet.”
---------------------------------------------------------------Last week we read and focused our attention on Jesus’ baptism, of the heavens opening up, and the voice of
God claiming Jesus as God’s beloved, with whom God is well pleased. Jesus is ready to begin his phase one of
his ministry – his earthly ministry of bringing the kingdom of heaven to earth. Before he calls his first disciples
he’s led into the desert and tempted by the devil for 40 days --- which is a theme we’ll address on Ash
Wednesday next month. But for now, we want to focus on Jesus’ calling of his early disciples. If Jesus is going
to make an impact and pass on the message of salvation of God, it is only fitting that he needs disciples to
impart his wisdom, God’s wisdom to, in order to train them to pass the message on to others, which is exactly
what we find in the passage we just read from the Gospel of John.
In the story we read there are three main characters we should focus on – Jesus (he’s important, which goes
without saying), Philip and Nathaniel. After calling Andrew and Simon (who became Peter) as his first disciples
(John 1:35-42), Jesus decides to head towards Galilee. Somewhere along that journey towards Galilee, he finds
Philip, who like Andrew and Peter is a resident of Bethsaida – a town on the Northeastern corner of the Sea of
Galilee, and upon seeing Philip Jesus calls him to follow him. The Gospel writer mentions nothing of Philip’s
response but we are to assume that he did in fact accept Jesus’ invitation to follow because of what Philip
does next – he goes forward ahead of Jesus to find Nathaniel (who could be just a friend, or maybe a very
close friend, a fellow town member – who knows), all we know is that Nathaniel and Philip have some type of
relationship and Philip wanted to share the Good News with Nathaniel that they (Philip and others) have
found the one who is the savior that Moses and the prophets of old talked about – Jesus of Nazareth.
Now Nazareth was a nothing town with only a few hundred residents. It would barely register on any maps,
nothing of any importance would ever come out of Nazareth – especially the savior of the Israelites. Isn’t that
savior supposed to come from Bethlehem? Little did Nathaniel know was that this Jesus was from both
Nazareth and Bethlehem.
So of course, knowing that Nazareth could never produce such a person, Nathaniel responds with honest
doubt, but Philip persists, not with clever theology, not with a long discourse on the merits of following Jesus,
but rather with a simple invitation, “Come and see.” Philip’s invitation of “Come and See” is his way of saying
to Nathaniel, you may be correct in stating that nothing good could conceivably or rationally come out of
Nazareth, but come and see, you ain’t seen nothing yet until you see Jesus.
So Nathaniel comes, and Jesus greets him by name, a fact that Nathaniel is amazed at. No, Nathaniel was not
mistakenly wearing a name tag that said, “Hello my name is Nathaniel” – Jesus saw Nathaniel from a distance.
How? That’s the power of Jesus, the power of God to see and know people before meeting them. Nathaniel
is so taken aback by this that he throws away his doubt and proclaims Jesus to be the Son of God, the King of
Israel.
Of course Jesus knows that Nathaniel’s faith proclamation is only because he stated that he could see
Nathaniel, but that shouldn’t be anything to diminish what Nathaniel has found and now believes; it’s rather
just a small glimpse of what is to come. Nathaniel will see heaven open and the angels of God ascending and
descending on the Son of Man – this is a clear reference to Jacob’s Ladder, that we read from Genesis.
Jesus tells Nathaniel, if you are wowed by the fact that I could see you and know you from a distance, you just
ain’t seen nothing yet.
I think this is true for all of us, as we all answer Jesus’ call to be his disciples. When we answer the call to
follow and commit our lives to live for Christ and his glory, his love, and his peace, our eyes are opened to the
ways in which God is moving in our world. If we take a moment to reflect upon and imagine for a minute all
the ways in which God has impacted our lives, all the ways in which God has brought love into our loves, all
the ways in which we’ve been inspired, all the ways in which we’ve been encouraged, all the ways in which
we’ve been cared for, think about the volumes upon volumes of books we could write sharing our stories of
our joyous relationships with God….friends, we just ain’t seen nothing yet. That is mere chump change to the
glory that awaits us. And this hopefully brings you, because it certainly brings me, immense hope and
excitement. It provides me that extra boost and energy to keep on keeping on each day, to continue living my
life for God, continuing to follow this radical rabbi and his ways of bringing justice into a broken world. It’s
Christ’s glory, our Father’s glory that I want you to continue to long for, to strive for, to make your marks in
this world for. Amen.