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 On Harmony of Thunder Orthodox podcast: What was it about Jesus Christ that made you follow Him, and believe in His name for your salvation? Did it take years of struggle or did it happen all at once? St. John Chrysostom addresses these kinds of questions in his twentieth sermon from his series on St. John’s gospel, in which he looks at the unique calls of Sts. Philip and Nathaniel. Join Fr. David as he explores the wonderful insights of this great preacher.
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Harmony of Thunder, program 21 : St. John Chrysostom St. John series, homily 20
What was it about Jesus Christ that made you follow Him, and believe in His name for your salvation? Did it take years of struggle or did it happen all at once? Did your parents make you go to church so that you more or less automatically believed, or did you have to come to know the Savior on your own after careful consideration? Perhaps it was a little of all of these.
St. John Chrysostom addresses these kinds of questions in his twentieth sermon from his series on St. John’s gospel. Here the great preacher looks at the call of Philip and Nathaniel, and specifically he begins with the text: “The next day He was about to leave for Galilee, and He found Philip. And Jesus said to him, ‘Follow me.’ Now Philip was from Bethsaida, the town of Andrew and Peter.”
Hi, welcome to Harmony of Thunder, where we explore and enjoy the rich tradition of Orthodox preaching. I’m your host, Fr. David Smith. Each week, Harmony of Thunder chooses a sermon from scripture or from the works of a saint and we spend our time together looking at the style, the illustrations, and the spiritual message of the preacher.
Lord Jesus Christ, through the prayers of Your Most Pure Mother and of all the saints, bless your Holy Orthodox Church with great preachers and people who want to hear them. Amen.
St. John Chrysostom wonders about the call of Philip, since it seemed that others of the disciples had such different calls to follow Jesus than he did: “…it occurs to me to wonder how it was that Philip followed after Christ.” Indeed, Andrew heard from John and Peter from Andrew. But Philip heard from no one except our Lord Himself, who seems to have simply said to him, “Follow me,” and he followed. In fact, he did more than follow Christ, Philip ran to Nathaniel to tell him that he should follow Christ as well: “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 said to him, ‘Come and see.’”
Nathaniel had listened to his friend’s exciting news about the Messiah, but since he knew the scriptures, his excitement turned to suspicion at the word “Nazareth.” It had been said in the scriptures that the Messiah would come out of Bethlehem, and from the information that Philip was giving Nathaniel, this was not the case.
But back to the original question: why did Philip follow Christ? St. John Chrysostom maintains that Philip must have heard something about Jesus before the events of the present gospel story: “I maintain that he heard about Him (Jesus) from Peter or from John. And John also mentioned his village in order that you might learn that ‘the weak things of the world God has chosen.’” The preacher is referring to the fact that we learn in this passage that Philip was from Bethsaida, as was also Andrew and Peter. This was considered to be a backwards village, from which no sophisticated or intelligent men would come. But I also have to wonder about Philip telling Nathaniel that Jesus was from Nazareth. How did Philip know what town Jesus was from based only on the words, “Follow me”?
At this point in the sermon, St. John Chrysostom uses a very unique preaching maneuver. He actually asks St. Philip direct questions as a way of putting the remarkable circumstances of his call in perspective: “And whence is it clear, Philip, that this is He? What evidence can you give us? It is not enough merely to say so. What sign do you see? What miracle? It is not without risk to believe unquestioningly in such matters. What proof have you?” These are great questions, and a great preaching technique. It really makes the sermon come alive. Plus, they shed light on the inner conversion that occurs when a person decides to follow Jesus. At the beginning, we all ask for proof. For some of us, the proof is philosophical. For some, historical. For many people, we want to go with what works, I mean, if you can show most people that Jesus is alive and active today, and that following Him carries clear benefits, they want to sign up right away. But then, when we’ve submitted to the call of God upon our lives to trust in Him for our salvation, we find that proof isn’t as important. St. John Chrysostom points to this in relation to Philip. What does Philip offer Nathaniel when it comes to proof? When it comes to miracles, or to revelatory consistency with the Hebrew scriptures? Only this: Come and see. And that’s often the best thing any of us can say. I can’t show you enough goodness to get you to love God because I’m such a sinner. And I can’t convince you that it all makes sense because I’m too stupid. All I can say is: Come and see. The preacher compares this scriptural passage to the one just before it, in which Andrew tells Peter about Jesus and the same thing occurs: “One of the two who heard John speak, and followed Him, was Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother. He first found his own brother Simon, and said to him, ‘We have found the Messiah’ (which is translated, the Christ). And he brought him to Jesus.”
This is an important pattern in the first chapter of St. John’s gospel, and it teaches us something very important. When you want someone to know Jesus as Savior, the best thing to do is to bring that person to Jesus, and let Him do all the convincing. I’ve had many times in my life when people have argued with me about this or that aspect of the Christian faith. Often, I’ve won the argument, but I haven’t won the person. I can’t, but God can.
After St. John Chrysostom analyzes the scripture, he uses the time honor words “so we also.” A good preacher will make every attempt to use the lessons found in the scriptures as vehicles by which we may learn about ourselves and about our own spiritual journeys. Now that we’ve seen how Philip and Nathaniel came to Christ, what does this mean for us? Listen to the words of St. John Chrysostom: “Do you not see, even in private homes, when a man is entertaining one of his loved ones, how he joyfully puts forth every effort, bustling about in all directions and, even if it should mean expending all his possessions, sparing nothing so as to please the visitor? But if a man, though he had invited a guest, should pay no attention to him and should neglect to do what would make him comfortable, even if he should say, times without number, that he welcomes his coming, he would never be believed by his guest; and rightly so, for this must be shown by deeds.”
This must be shown by deeds. This is the essential element of the phrase “come and see.” It’s not talk, it’s not intention, it’s not fake. It means we put ourselves where God is, where the Lord Jesus Christ is, in order to answer the same call that Philip and Nathaniel heard, “Follow me.”
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