It is part of God’s nature to know all things. We call this quality omniscience. God knows everything. There is nothing he does not know. Jesus once said that the Father’s knowledge is so total that he even knows when a single bird falls out of the sky and he knows the number of hairs we have on our head. In the case of some of us it is easier for him to keep track of that last statistic.

That God knows how much hair we have is just one indication of how intimately he knows each one of us. In Hebrews we read that "no creature is hidden to him but all are open and laid bare to his eyes" (Hebrews 4:13). Job confessed that "God’s eyes are upon the ways of a man and he sees all his steps" (Job 31:21). God’s knowledge of us is so perfect, Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount, that he knows all our needs even before we ask him (Matthew 6:8).

King David was very much aware of how personally and completely God knew him. He confessed, "O Lord, you have examined me and you know me. You know everything I do; from far away you understand all my thoughts. You see me, whether I am working or resting, when I rise up and when I sit down. You know all my actions. Even before I speak you already know what I will say ... Your knowledge of me is overwhelming; it is too deep for me to understand." God knows all things.

Today’s Gospel lesson informs us that Jesus knows all things also. He knew all about Nathanael even though they had never met. As Nathanael walked toward the Lord for the first time, Jesus could already say about him that he was an Israelite indeed, in whom was no guile. Nathanael looked back at Jesus and asked in wonder, "How do you know me?"

When Nathanael first heard about Jesus from Philip he was not impressed at all. "Can anything good come out of Nazareth?" he asked. Nazareth was a little hick town and Nathanael figured all you get out of a hick town is hick people. But when he met the Lord face to face and saw how well Jesus already knew him, he confessed, "Rabbi, you are the Son of God! You are the King of Israel!"

Our Gospel lesson manifests Jesus Christ to us as true God because Jesus knows all things also, just as God does. In Hebrews we read that Jesus "reflects the glory of God and bears the very stamp of his nature" (Hebrews 1:3). Just as it is part of God’s nature to know everything, so it is also part of our Lord’s nature. Jesus knows everything. Jesus is God.

Nathanael is not the only one who was ever impressed by the knowledge of Jesus. That happened for the first time, Saint Luke tells us, when Jesus was only twelve years old. Together with his parents, he went up to Jerusalem for the Feast of the Passover. They stayed several days. When the Feast was over, the parents of our Lord started for home, supposing that Jesus was in the crowd of travelers with them. But he wasn’t; he was in the Temple, sitting among the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions. Saint Luke tells us that "all who heard him were amazed at his understanding and his answers" (Luke 2:47).

Jesus knows everything. Jesus is God. One day Jesus was in Samaria. He was thirsty so he sat down by a well and waited to get a drink. He didn’t have anything with which to draw water so he had to wait for somebody who could help him to come by. Presently a woman of the area came to the well. She was the real reason why Jesus was there. They began to speak. Jesus asked her some questions about her personal life but the questions were asked in such a way that she could tell that he already knew the answers. Because of his intimate knowledge of her, she believed in him and confessed to her neighbors, "He told me all that I ever did" (John 4:39).

The Pharisees were regularly frustrated in their confrontations with Jesus because he always knew what they were thinking. "Jesus knew their thoughts," Matthew tells us; "he perceived their wickedness" (Matthew 12:25; 22:18). "Jesus knew all people and needed no one to tell him about man for he himself knew what was in man," Saint John confessed (John 2:25). He even knew that one of his disciples would betray him, from the moment he was chosen to be a disciple. All the disciples, in the last few hours before our Lord’s death, confessed, "Now we know that you know all things ... (and) by this we believe that you came from God" (John 16:20).

Jesus knows everything. Jesus is God. Jesus knows us. "I know my own and my own know me," he said (John 10:14). This is God’s seal of approval on us, for the sake of Jesus Christ. "The Lord knows all those who are his" (2 Timothy 2:19). Saint Paul testified, "If any one love God, the same is known of him" (1 Corinthians 8:3). Jesus knows us, everything about us, our strengths and weaknesses, our joys and our sorrows, our successes and our failures, our sins and our victories over sin. He knows everything.

The fact that Jesus knows everything about us can be either good news or bad news. We decide which it is. It is good news if we look at his omniscience and believe that because he knows everything about us he takes care of us, providing all our needs even before we ask him. It is bad news if we try to hide from him. Adam and Eve decided it was bad news, after they sinned. They knew that God knew what they had done. They decided to be afraid of God and run away from him. They tried to hide from him because of what they had done. It would have worked, except for the fact that our all-knowing God knew where they were.

Like Adam and Eve, many people still choose to pretend that God does not know everything. They try to hide things from him. The Pharisees of our Lord’s day believed they could hide their wickedness from God and they hated Jesus, because he showed them over and over again that there was no hiding place. Like the Pharisees, people who try to hide from God today invariably wind up hating him also because he always finds them.

Little children try to hide from their parents. They try to conceal facts from Mom and Dad, but "the old man" and "the old lady" know what’s going on. My children are always amazed that I know what they are doing. I tell them it’s because fathers know everything. They don’t believe that as much as they used to anymore. Even more than parents, God knows everything.

Better than to try to hide from our all-knowing God and Savior is to expose ourselves to him, to confess what he already knows about us anyway. To confess means, in its most basic sense, to expose oneself. The tax collector Jesus told about in one of his parables knew that God knew all about his sin and it was senseless to try and hide. So he confessed, "O God, have mercy on me, a sinner." God accepted him, Jesus tells us in his story, and forgave him and he was justified.

The good news about our Lord Jesus Christ is not only that he knows all things, but that he accepts us and loves us as we are, in spite of all that he knows about us. Jesus knew all the dirty details about that woman caught in adultery one day. She couldn’t hide anything after the people dragged her out in front of him for punishment. He forgave her. Jesus knew all about the public sins of that woman who washed his feet with her tears. She didn’t try to hide and he forgave her. He knew all about the weaknesses of Peter and James and John and Judas; still he called them to be his disciples. He knew the record of the thief crucified next to him, a record that could no longer be hidden even though the other criminal still tried to hide it. To the one who exposed himself, who confessed, "Lord, remember me when you come to your Kingdom," Jesus promised, "Today you will be with me in Paradise."

Jesus knows everything. There is no hiding from him. But when we expose ourselves to him, confessing our sins, there is no longer any need to hide, for he takes all our sins away; he forgives us; he accepts us and loves us. Then, knowing that he knows everything about us, there is no threat to us.

Best of all, Jesus knows the way to heaven. He told Nathanael, "... you will see heaven opened and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man." Jesus knows the way to heaven because he is the way. "I am the Way," Jesus said. "No one comes to the Father but by me" (John 14:6). All who believe in Jesus, our all-knowing Savior, have eternal life.

There used to be a chilling radio drama many years ago that always began with these words: "Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men? The Shadow knows!" The Shadow was a mystical, magical agent of discovery. Somehow he always managed to know who the "bad guys" were and how to get them caught. The Shadow was imaginary. God is real. And God knows everything. Because he is true God, Jesus knows everything also. He knows everything about us, and he loves us in spite of all of it. In Jesus’ precious name. Amen