FIRST IMPRESSIONS

Thursday in the Week Before the Epiphany
Jn 1:43-51

As many people say, so is the number of people who believe: First impression last. But as many people believe so is the number of people who are mistaken. While first impressions do last, they are also often wrong. Unfortunately, it does not matter to many if first impressions are right or wrong, for even wrong impressions are hard to erase from the minds they are created in.

The Gospel today clearly reveals that Nazareth had a truly lasting impression on the minds of Jesus’ contemporaries. Sadly though, it was not a good impression. Nathanael put into a rather insulting expression what many people of his time thought about Nazareth: “Can anything good come from that place?” Of course, we know the answer by now. But Nathanael and the disciples did not until they met Jesus of Nazareth.

We are still in the first week of the new year. We have just started. Perhaps one of the beginnings we need to experience at the start of the year is to correct whatever impressions we have about things, places, events, and, most importantly, people. As I mentioned in my previous reflections, Christmas is God’s protest against the tired belief that there is nothing new under the sun. Christmas sends across the message that things, places, events, and, most importantly, people can be better because of the birth of the Son of God. Because Jesus is from Nazareth, definitely there can be something good from Nazareth. Because Jesus became human like us in all things but sin, there can really be something good in every human person. St. Augustine wrote, “Since God became man, we can be sure that in everything human we can find something of the divine.” All it takes is having a fresh view on things, places, events, and people to see that ‘something good’. All it requires is taking the risk of trusting again and never surrendering our hope in whatever or whoever we seemed to have already dismissed as hopeless in the past. All it waits for is our discovery; or better yet, our re-discovery.

Incidentally, Nathanael’s name in Hebrew means “God’s gift”. His name points to the good that came from Nazareth: Jesus, God’s gift to us. Together with the other disciples of Jesus, Nathanael would soon re-discover Nazareth and find God’s gift coming from that place. He would soon realize that his first impression about Nazareth was wrong no matter how lasting it seemed to be. He would have to let go of his first impression and start anew. We have to let go of our first impressions, too, and start anew; otherwise, we miss so much of God’s gift to us.