24 august: st. bartholomew

it is almost 7:00 a.m. and the sun is barely climbing the trees. st. bartholomew's day should remind me, if the bronze-tinged oak leaves in the rising sunlight do not, that holy cross day is coming.

the readings for morning prayer are psalm 86, genesis 28:10-22 and the gospel according to john 1:43-51.

so: when did nathaniel bartholomew apostle, "a true israelite in whom there is no deceipt," come to see "heaven open and the angels of god ascending and descending upon the son of man?" did this only occur as he was being flayed, as stephen saw the temple of the new jerusalem as he was being stoned? or did it happen sooner? the key to an answer is in the phrase, "son of man." nathaniel has just called jesus "the son of god," but jesus calls himself "the son of man.."

this insistence on the incarnation in the story of the call of nathaniel comes in john's gospel just before jesus' conversation with nicodemus, which contains the striking claim "no one has ascended into heaven except the one who descended from heaven, the son of man. and just as moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the son of man be lifted up." (3:13-14) we often read this passage hurrying towards what we usually consider the punch line in the sentence we pull out as verse sixteen. but john was not writing verses, he was writing a gospel, and these early passages will be the background for jesus' enigmatic statement to mary magdalene on the morning of the resurrection, "i have not yet ascended to the father" (20:17), and they are a clue to what we are to become after jesus or one of his apostles breathes on us and says, "receive the holy spirit."

here in the beginning of john's gospel is already a prophecy and an interpretation of the ascension and its importance. the word of god, the son of god, becomes flesh and dwells among us, no longer only the son of god, god the son, who he has been eternally, but now also the son of man, with a body in which he will be glorified and in which he will ascend to heaven.

jacob dreamed of a ladder on which he saw "angels of god . . . ascending and descending." he recognized the place as "none other than the house of god . . . the gate of heaven." this same jacob, in whom there was plenty of deceipt, must wrestle with god in order to become israel.

jesus had called nathaniel "truly an israelite in whom there is no deceipt, but nathaniel too will be involved in a struggle, a struggle greater than jacob's, as he comes to the time when he can see above the son of man the angels of god going up and coming down. for the true jacob's ladder is the cross, which jesus invites us to take up daily.

nathaniel bartholomew, apostle, gift of god, son of the furrows, sent forth, would pick up his cross and carry it and the gospel as far as ethiopia and egypt and then north to armenia where he would be martyred by flaying. it is a dangerous prayer we pray this day as we remember bartholomew:

almighty and everlasting god, you gave to your aostle bartholomew grace truly to believe and preach your word: grant that your church may love what he believed and preach what he taught; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the holy spirt, one god, for ever and ever. amen

bartholomew believed firmly enough to lose his life in order to gain. he allowed himself to become a stone in the building which is the church, the body of christ, in which dwells the holy spirit.