Saint Bartholomew, Apostle 2024

Peter H. Davids

Saints Homilies • Sermon • Submitted a year ago • Presented a year ago

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Bartholomew/Nathanael simply responded to a request was confronted by Jesus’ grace and followed Jesus with the promise of “seeing greater things”. In Revelation we see the result where the bride/heavenly Jerusalem/Temple is the city fulfilling the promises of Genesis and the Prophets of the nations from every side coming into the city and finding a dwelling there/ becoming part of the Temple, but entering through the Jewish gates in continuity with the Israelite tribes with all of that built on the foundation of the good news proclaimed by the apostles among whom Bartholomew is an unnamed member. So all we have to do is respond to God’s grace sincerely the follow Jesus and we will go on to fuller revelations and a place in the heavenly Jerusalem. This is in continuity with the history of Israel, for God’s plan is one and comes to fulfillment in Jesus, spreading out to the whole world without losing the connection to Israel.

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Transcript

Title

Foundation of a People

Outline

When we hear the name “Bartholomew” we want to say, “Who?”

That is not what Nathanael would care about

He hears about Jesus as he whom “Moses wrote in the law, and also the prophets, Jesus son of Joseph, from Nazareth” and he is not impressed. “Nazareth? Can’t be true.” But he is willing to check it out.

Then, as an act of sheer grace, he receives Jesus’ call, for Jesus shows that he knows him, a true Israelite without duplicity, and that Jesus saw him before Philip got to him. And his lack of duplicity is seen in his straightforward response to Jesus, “Rabbi, you are the Son of God; you are the King of Israel.” That was more that Philip had said to him.

That graced faith calls down greater grace in a promise: “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.” This is a Jacob’s ladder vision of heaven.

And Nathanael/ Bartholomew starts to follow Jesus.

We fast forward to Revelation

The New Jerusalem does not have a Temple - it is a Temple. Here is Ezekiel’s Temple. But through its gates open in all directions stream the nations, which is a promise of Moses and the Prophets. The come there to dwell in the “many dwelling places” that the Father has for them, to be built into that Temple, but they come through one of the gates of the Twelve Tribes, for they are the renewed Israel, the full Israel.

Yet underneath are the new foundations of better stone than the wailing wall. They are the twelve apostles of the Lamb, and Bartholomew is there among the anonymous layers, seeing “Greater things than this.” The old Israel, the people of God, has expanded into the fulfilled Israel that includes the nations through the King of Israel and Son of God, Jesus, whose good news those apostles made the foundation of this new Temple-City, which is also a corporate person, the bride of Christ.

And Bartholomew plays his anonymous part.

What is here for us?

First, we learn that all we need to do is respond to the good news and God’s grace will bring us to the person of Jesus and enable us to respond to him in sincerity. We do not have to understand, we only have to commit and follow. That will bring us to fuller revelations.

Second, we see that Christ’s bride and city and Temple are not separated - they are all image for a reality that is unimaginable for this world language.

Finally, notice that in Christ God is fulling and old thing, not doing a totally new thing. And he is bringing us into that fulfillment of the old through out identification with it as we are founded on the teaching of the apostles. Anything that separates Israel from the Church, from greater Israel is a tearing of that foundation.

Let us think on these things and thereby draw closer to our Lord and our God.

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