Think of him as the Kid Rock of the New Testament.
Nathanael.
He's that swaggering, self-assured loner we hear about in Sunday's gospel. We don’t know much about him because this is one of only two times he’s mentioned in the entire Bible.

Nathanael comes to our attention thanks to an over-anxious neophyte called Philip who plays the role of Art Carney to Nathanael’s Jackie Gleason. Phillip is excited and bubbly, and somewhat badgering and overanxious, to get Nathanael hooked up with the one, “whom Moses in the law and also the prophets wrote about.” Nathanael gives a listen, but not much else. And when he hears that the Messiah is from Nazareth he gives the cocky, Kid Rock retort: “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” - which is the modern day equivalent of saying: “Can anything good come out of Cleveland?”

For someone as cocky as Nathanael, this was a disconnect. He’s a Renaissance Man, a gentleman of the world - so the revelation of the Messiah could only come from a place with a prestigious provenance. Give me Rome, Alexandria, or at least Jerusalem-but Cleveland?

It’s a wonder Nathanael’s interest didn’t wane right there. But, for some reason, he followed the giddy and giggly Philip. And when Nathanael came within earshot of Jesus, the Christ, the Messiah spoke first.

“Ah Nathanael! - said Jesus - “Here comes the icon of all Israel! Radiating honesty and righteousness!” And Nathanael, far above the compliments of anyone especially strangers claiming to be the Messiah, goes into Kid Rock mode once again: “Ya, sure, and how would you know?” We imagine Nathanael uttering these words as he was buffing his fingernails or checking his Blackberry. But Jesus is unphased and unfluttered as he settles in for the kill.

And the ‘kill,’ mind you, is a term we borrow from our friends in sales to describe that moment in time when we are about to hear nothing more than a single sentence uttered. Nothing more than a few seconds of time will go by and a lifetime of habit, custom and convention, at the drop of a sentence of such weight and profundity, will cause attitudes to change, behaviors to amend and an internal earthquake, a seismic shift in personality and priority, to happen. The old Nathanael is about to die. He's about to be killed! Yes, it is even faster than a kill- and its results just as devastating as Jesus utters the disabling sentence: “I saw you under the fig tree.”

Jesus knew Nathanael's secret.
What was under the tree was only known by Nathanael and God.
Jesus knew Nathanael's secrets.
Jesus knows our secrets.
Our secret ambitions, our secret lusts, our secret fears and our secret joys. Jesus knows them all.

If this could get Kid Rock converted, how about us?