Acts 5:12

A PROPHECY FULFILLED

‘By the hands of the apostles were many signs and wonders wrought among the people (… and believers were the more added to the Lord, multitudes both of men and women.)’

Acts 5:12; Acts 5:14

Nathanael and St. Bartholomew are one and the same person. Some think that Nathanael under the fig tree had been meditating on the story of Jacob’s ladder, and that our Lord now tells him that the true ladder is being set up between heaven and earth, even Himself. What a vision this was! And what a long time the faithful, guileless Nathanael would have to wait before he saw the ‘greater things’ realised. But he did not give way. That day marked the turning-point in his life as a religious man. He gave himself to Christ. He had overcome his prejudice, he had believed and surrendered.

I. Then there came to him a time of testing. For two or three years he followed our Lord in His ministry with the others. He learned the lesson of true life from Christ. He found it hard, as they all did, hardest of all when he had to face the Passion and Cross. Probably he was one of those who forsook Him and fled. But the Easter victory renewed his hope and faith, and on that morning on the lake, as we read in John, when he saw with his companions the same dear Master Who had found him under the fig tree, now risen in His glory and sat down on the shore to eat the humble meal He had prepared for them, he once more committed himself in faith and love to Him Who would never leave him.

II. At last we see him working signs and wonders among the people, filled with the Holy Ghost and power. At last the promise of our Lord is completely fulfilled. He sees greater things. The ladder is set up. The Cross has been lifted up. Christ has triumphed and opened the gate of heaven. Angels ascend and descend. Power comes down to heal the people. The praises of forgiven men and women, washed in the blood of the Lamb, rise up to heaven. God and man are reconciled, and all through Him Who had first spied him out under the fig tree and called him.

III. Let us once more renew our faith in Jesus.—He knows us every one as we sit here in church under our fig tree. He knows us in our ordinary everyday life. He wants us. Shall we be prejudiced and keep away, or shall we come and see? Shall we not come to Him, and seek Him where He is to be found in prayer and sacrament?

—Rev. the Hon. J. Adderley.