Where Do You Live?

Excerpted and adapted from a chapter of the forthcoming book Jesus Among Other Gods by Ravi Zacharias, Word Publishing.

One of the most celebrated opportunities ever accorded to a member of our family took place when Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip visited India in the late 1950’s. My younger brother, who happened to be seven or eight years old, as the youngest member of the choir at the Delhi Cathedral was to be formally introduced to the Queen following a Sunday service. He certainly never lacked for counsel on how to prepare for this extraordinary meeting. We poured on the frequent reminders to address her as “Your Majesty” and not “Auntie,” the latter being a typical way of showing respect in India. The moment came and he passed with flying colors.

Unknown to us, his meeting with the Queen was carried on television back in England as part of a news clip, prompting calls to the television station to inquire whether “that cute little boy” was available for adoption. Since that day, at any hint of his misbehavior we siblings have never missed the opportunity to suggest that we should have taken the English up on their offer! Four decades have gone by since that wonderful memory of bowing before the Queen, and he never misses the opportunity to remind us of his greater privilege.

One can only imagine a conversation around the home of Andrew and Simon Peter, the earliest followers of Jesus, when Andrew first informed their family that he believed he had met the long-awaited Messiah. This redeemer figure was the only hope for a nation languishing under the scourge of successive foreign rulers. Any good Israelite had prayed for the coming of the one who would free His people. Some cynic at the evening meal probably choked on his food when the announcement was made by Andrew that he and Simon had just come back from meeting the prophesied deliverer. Many barbs were probably withstood while the brothers insisted they were not out of their minds. They had talked to Him, spent hours with Him and Andrew had even been given the opportunity to ask Him any question he desired.

Out of sheer curiosity one at the table may have muttered, “And what, perchance, did you ask Him?” “I asked Him where He lived,” came the confident reply. Can we not hear it? Silence around the table. “That was the best you could do, Andrew? To ask Him where He lived?”

Could there not have been a better question that would have put Jesus’ claim to the test? At least that is how we, in our time, might have remonstrated. Why did Andrew, face to face with He who claimed such unique status, not pose a greater challenge than a simple query, “Where do you live?” Malcolm Muggeridge, the English journalist, remarks in his autobiography on the opportunities he had to interview noted dignitaries around the world. Being an incurable cynic and iconoclast, and just for the sake of playing to the readership, he would ask a deliberately absurd and belittling question, for example, asking a bishop, at a most poignant moment and before a highly reverential audience, “Are bishops really necessary?” He did that, he conceded, because he leveraged his profession as a journalist to live off shock value, at the cost of substance.

A PROVOCATIVE INTRODUCTION

The setting of Andrew’s question is given to us in John’s Gospel, the first chapter. Immediately one is struck by the casualness with which Jesus made his entry. John the Baptizer was given the honor of making the unadorned announcement. John, himself, draped in strange attire and living off even stranger food, was gaining a huge following. In the eyes of the devout he was a prophet of supreme honor. And in truth, before his birth the angel had spoken of his privileged and purposeful God-given calling. His assigned place in history was to be the one who introduced Jesus to the world. Of all the fanfare that he could have mustered for his declaration, he chose instead a simple utterance. This was so bereft of regal accompaniment that no “king-maker” would have conceived such modesty for so world-changing an announcement. And especially, not in the East.

Yet, on a given day and at a divinely appointed moment, Jesus came to John to be baptized. Awe-stricken by this privilege, John stuttered out his own unworthiness of such an honor, declaring that he was not even fit to untie the shoes of his Lord. How could he dare to baptize Him? The scene is memorialized to this day by the dove that descended upon Jesus. As this heavenly affirmation was given, John looked at two of his own disciples and said, “Look, the Lamb of God.”

It is hard to resist the sobering portent behind the designation. The average Jewish family grew up with lambs and sacrifices. The temple probably reeked of animals and their slaughter, especially on the Day of Atonement. The exterior grandeur of the temple only housed a rather grim and messy looking altar. Every lamb sacrificed was from the possessions of the petitioner and was thus, a lamb of men offered to God. In fact, it was not even a representative from among men, an equal. It was a lamb owned by men, a dumb, unsuspecting animal brought into the temple, never to return.

Now, in this appointed moment in history, an offering came from God Himself and was given by God on behalf of humanity. This was the Lamb of God. But how could such a thing be? One born for the designed purpose of being sacrificed on the altar some day? Would not that have provoked a different question from those wanting to become His disciples, especially since that was the jolting introduction chosen by John?

One who was well versed in the Scriptures would have probably harked back immediately to the narrative in Genesis 22 in which Abraham was called upon to offer up his long-awaited son, Isaac. As father and son walked toward the mountain, Isaac asked the obvious question, “The fire and the wood are here, but where is the lamb?” As the story unfolds, Isaac himself was laid upon the altar and readied as a sacrifice.

At the last moment, as the blade in Abraham’s hand was descending upon Isaac, God exclaimed, “Stop! There is another I will provide.” God, who had planned this all along to test Abraham, providentially trapped a ram in the thicket to serve as a substitute for Isaac, even as it represented a different lamb that would come on a different day.

John’s announcement, in effect said, “Here He is—the Lamb of God who was promised long ago.” The day was approaching when there would be another hill and another altar, and this time the hand of the Father would not stop the slaying. The disciples of John who heard his pronouncement of Jesus turned from him to follow Jesus. The first question Jesus put to them had deliberate and reasoned bluntness: “What do you want?” They had no real understanding at this point that they were following one who was on a one-way journey that would ultimately end at an altar.

I wonder if any of us would have asked what they did in that momentous encounter. A better question might have been, “What does John mean when he calls you the Lamb of God? Are you headed for a gruesome end?” Instead, I suggest that they went for His beginning, by asking the astounding question, “Where do you live?” In the East the home is the defining cultural indicator. Everything that determines who you are and what your future bodes is tied into your heritage and your social standing. Absolutely everything.

Indeed, the first time I returned to speak in India after an eleven year absence, my wife (who is from Canada) witnessed first-hand the esteem conferred by one’s family. At a reception that was held in our honor in Bombay, her astonishment lay in the way I was introduced. The very long and formal introduction I was given was filled with superlatives. Yet, in its entirety absolutely nothing was said about me. Instead, it was a lavish description of my father’s credentials and accomplishments. It was one of those moments when you wanted to look around and identify this highly decorated individual. Then the last line was tagged on—“and this is his son who is to speak to us.” That was the only line that referred to me.

My immediate response was to laugh on the inside. But it suddenly dawned on me that I was representing somebody bigger than myself—my father. Because of him, I was given a hearing. I knew I was in the East. An introduction in the West, particularly in North America, is all about what I have or have not accomplished. The credentials are individual, almost as if an individual owes even his beginning to himself. There is little or no mention of family. But in India, the country of my father’s birth, my father’s credentials, my mother’s birth and my roots become very important to the audience.

You see, in a stratified society your home address gives the inquirer literally a wealth of information about you. The privilege of birth opens doors. It is not at all surprising that Nathaniel’s response when he was first told about Jesus was, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” That is followed some verses later by, “Is this not the son of Joseph, the carpenter?” How in the name of reason could the answer to the hopes and dreams of Israel, in search of the Messiah, come from a city of such low esteem and from the family of one whose profession was in the lower end of their honor roll?

Jesus’ answer builds the intrigue. He did not give a street name or a house’s identification. He simply said, “Come and see.” They went with Him to see where He was staying and evidently spent the night there. Andrew returned to tell his brother Simon that they had found the Messiah, that is, the Christ, and invited him to come and see, also. The next day, Philip, who was also from the same city, invited Nathanael to join them by saying, “We have found the one Moses wrote about in the Law, and about whom the prophets also wrote—Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph.” There you have it—the city and the parentage. Nathanael is predictably cynical and is given the same challenge—“Come and see.”

A MEMORABLE ENCOUNTER

The Scriptures remain silent on numerous issues. Matters in which we would be greatly interested, are left without description. What kind of home did Jesus live in? What kind of carpentry did He do, if any? But maybe this is where God’s vision of reality seeks to lift us from the enslavement and distortion of our earth-driven view. Historic figures have homes for posterity to visit; the Lord of history left no home. Of Christ we are told that He did not have a place to lay His head. The same Gospel writer forthrightly states this: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God…And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us full of grace and truth” (John 1:1, 14). John’s “In the beginning” has a striking parallel with the first words of the Scriptures, “In the beginning God….”

As important as His earthly parentage was, His home address was not an earthly one—for in a very real sense He had no beginning. In the “where and when” questions that plague our finitude there is no such encumbrance for the eternal and infinite one. To lift them beyond the here and now was the task ahead of Jesus when He said to them, “Come and see.” Put yourself, then, in Andrew’s sandals. He had been invited to the home of the One identified by a recognized prophet as the Lamb of God. Andrew went. What was he anticipating? Would he be disappointed?

Billy Graham tells of the time he walked into an elevator where a handful of businessmen were in conversation. One of the businessman said, “I hear Billy Graham is in this hotel.” One of the others who recognized Dr. Graham smiled, looked at the one who had made the comment, pointed to Billy Graham and said, “That’s he.” The startled person paused, looked again at Billy Graham and said, “What an anti-climax!” Being the man that he is, Dr. Graham fully sympathized with the person’s disappointment and admitted that this was all there was to him.

What was this man really expecting? Some haloed and winged figure who did not need an elevator and who would only be seen praying and rising on air? In our human imagination we so often perceive our heroes to be something larger than life. We exalt them in ways that do them disservice. We make them to be almost plastic in our imagination. And when they bleed or grow old or stumble we either cast them aside or find some way to perpetuate the myth. We convince ourselves that they were something essentially different to the rest of us.

This one time in history this person was essentially different from all of us. But, from Nazareth? The son of a carpenter? Even the temple that was erected as His dwelling place had beauty and wealth expended beyond imagination. Now in the flesh His home was so paltry by comparison. To help sort it out, Nathanael is brought into the picture. He was one of those who was so true to his commitment to the truth that when he was invited to come and meet Jesus, he agreed to go along, probably in the hope of dispelling this “deception” that had been manufactured in the minds of his friends. But when he came within range of Jesus’ voice, Jesus spoke those carefully chosen words—“Here is a true Israelite, in whom there is nothing false.”

There lay the first surprise. There are few things as disquieting to a person as having his or her inner thoughts laid bare by the words of a stranger. He had come to “check out” this person and instead, his own character was revealed for who he really was. “How do you know me?” demanded Nathanael. And Jesus replied, “I saw you under the fig tree, before Philip called you.”

What did this mean to Nathanael? Was he pondering something when under the fig tree? Something in Jesus’ disclosure made Nathanael react impulsively, almost rashly, and he uttered these life-changing words, “Rabbi, you are the Son of God; You are the King of Israel!” I believe Jesus jarred Nathanael’s skepticism by a gentle uncovering of the thoughts and intents of Nathanael’s own heart.

It was at this very point that Andrew’s question—“Where do you live?”—met a most incredible answer. Jesus had seen Nathanael when Nathanael did not know he was being watched. In one of his psalms David confessed that he could not flee from God’s presence, for God knew him in his inmost being—“Wherever I go, you are there.” Nathanael had just realized the same truth.

Jesus also knew that Nathanael did not think very much of Nazareth. But Jesus, equal to His enormous recognition of Nathanael’s, challenged his impulsive declaration, and said, “You believe because I told you I saw you under the fig tree? You shall see greater things than that. I tell you the truth, you shall see heaven open, and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man.”

The description He gave them of angels ascending and descending on the Son of Man pointed to Jesus’ “parentage.” Peter, Andrew and Nathanael all knew the story of the father of their nation, Jacob, that really provided the backdrop for Jesus’ answer. As a young man Jacob had cheated his brother, Esau, and was on the run to flee from his wrath. On his journey to distant parts he thought he was alone, far from the eye of anyone else. He had been raised in a home where the altar, as the center of the family’s worship of God, played a significant part. His grandfather Abraham was known as “the man of the tent and the man of the altar.” Abraham saw his home as temporary, but his worship as permanent. Now, on the run, Jacob was homeless and altar-less. When he reached a place called Luz, he slept with a stone for a pillow. Even for a desert dweller, that was rough.

And while he slept, the Lord came to him in a dream in which he saw a stairway that reached from the earth to heaven. Angels ascended and descended the stairway. And there above it stood the Lord, who said, “I am the Lord, the God of your father Abraham and the God of Isaac.” When Jacob awoke from his sleep, he thought to himself, “Surely the Lord is in this place, and I was not aware of it…how awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God; this is the gate of heaven” (Genesis 28:10-22). Jacob took the stone pillow and left it as a marker in the place he was now going to call “Bethel”—meaning, the house of God.

Whether the disciples gained full measure of it or not, a thundering message was sounded when Jesus spoke those words to Nathanael. Jacob found out that God’s presence to bless could transform any location into the house of God. Now the disciples learned the same. They were inclined to judge Jesus by his earthly father—Joseph the carpenter. They were trying to measure His worth by his earthly home, Nazareth. He opened up to them the truth that any earthly setting at which He is present becomes the gateway to heaven. What comfort this must have brought them.

But, more than that, they rightly inferred from what Jesus said that He had come from His Heavenly Father who was the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. He took them farther back than their own understanding and lifted them to further heights to show them that the word “home” was at best only an analogical representation of living with God. The disciples were clearly overwhelmed by that initial impact. They did not fully comprehend all that this encounter was going to mean to them. Their lives would change beyond their wildest dreams, so that the day would come when they would leave their own homes to tell the world of Jesus of Nazareth. “If you marvel at what I have shown you of yourself, Nathanael, this is only the beginning of what awaits you when I disclose my glory to you.” That, He assured them, would be no anti-climax.

GLIMPSES OF ANOTHER HOME

Jesus broached some very significant truths in this simple interaction. The primary and unique indicator here, literally and figuratively, is His revelation of the realm of His existence. To ask for the “where” of Jesus’ home is the same as asking the “when” of God’s beginning. Such categories are necessary in our finite existence, because there was a time when we were not. But God, who is a necessary being, transcends such categories. His references to a heavenly dwelling and to the angels ascending and descending in His service point to the fact that He is the Lord of heaven and earth who exists eternally and necessarily. His existence precedes every spatial metaphor. Just as it is impossible for Him not to be, so it is not necessary for Him to have a place to live. That is precisely what He said to David who wanted to build a temple where God could “dwell.” It is more sensible to ask where He has promised to bless us than to ask where His locus of existence is.

Such transcending categories seem so beyond our reach and yet they intimate our ultimate destiny. Even now, we realize that concepts such as speed, time and space are so bound up into the limited dimensions of our understanding of the nature of reality that for most of us, they seem the domain of geniuses. Yet, the deeper we penetrate into such mysteries, the more inexorably we are drawn to the lowest common denominator of what makes life the way it is. We look for the minutest part of reality in the physical world so that we can, in the words of the scientist, arrive at a theory of everything. Jesus reversed the process. He told us that the only way we could understand who we are is to cast our gaze not on the equation that binds it all together, but on the relationship towards which we move in the sum total of our being. It is the assemblage of an object that gives it its purpose, not the reduction of it. In the words of Jesus to Nathanael, our amazement will know no bounds when we understand all that the realm of God’s existence means.

No other claimant to divine or prophetic status would ever have answered this question of His home in this manner. Even John the Baptizer took great pains to remind his followers of this difference: “A man can receive only what is given him from heaven…the one who comes from above is above all; the one who is from the earth belongs to the earth. The one who comes from heaven is above all. He testifies to what He has seen and heard” (John 3:27-32).

In another conversation, Jesus stated that His ascent into heaven was preceded by His descent from heaven (John 3:13). Implicit in that claim is the assertion that His knowledge of everything is perfect and complete. That alone sets Him apart. His vision of reality, His explanation of life, His opening up of mysteries, His glimpses into what matters and what does not matter—proceed out of His being in the eternal. And that is the point. His earthly sojourn was not an origination but a visitation.

Every other person who is at the heart of any religion has had his or her beginning either in fancy or in fact. But nevertheless, there is a beginning. Jesus’ birth in Bethlehem was a moment preceded by eternity. His being neither originated in time nor came about by the will of humanity. The author of time, who lived in the eternal, was made incarnate in time that we might live with the eternal in view. In that sense, the message of Christ was not the introduction of a religion but an introduction to truth about reality as God alone knows it.