The day I met Jesus

 It was Passover week and things were becoming very difficult in Jerusalem.  On top of all the usual problems which the city experiences every year when thousands of people descend on the temple for the feast ( the crime rates rocket and there is never enough accommodation for everyone ) we were also dealing with the ' phenomenon of  The Prophet'.   We had been keeping tabs on Jesus for quite a while as his reputation as a rabble rouser and an insurgent increased.   He now had hundreds of followers, all of whom were swarming around the city.   Our informants had told us that he had been talking about Jerusalem being surrounded by armies,  the temple being torn down and a new kingdom coming - all of which sounded somewhat dangerous.    On the one hand this was a man who was clearly charismatic and could command a crowd.  On the other hand he was a peasant from Nazareth with no access to weapons for an army or money to buy p...

My boys had been following Jesus pretty much from the start. Over the past three years they had been dedicated to helping him, learning from him and travelling all over the country witnessing many many miracles and even seeing the dead raised to life!!   Every now and again they would manage to grab a couple of days to come home and visit us. Then they would tell us amazing stories about Jesus and explain his teachings to us. Zebedee and I had also been out to listen to the prophet and had seen with our own eyes some of these miracle works . We became more and more convinced that this Jesus was the Messiah. The day I met Jesus properly in person for the first time was the day I decided to ask him a favour.  Now you have to understand, I am genuinely not a typically pushy Jewish mother.  I just believe that my boys have huge potential to become influential men in this new kingdom Jesus keeps talking about.  James and John kept telling me to butt out and n...

We have been to the gardens this evening and we saw him being kissed by his friend Iscarriot.   We   watched him rebuke his friend for cutting of Malchus’s ear and   watched him heal it.   We have taken him and bound him and led him to the temple courts where we are to present him before the High Priest and elders in the morning.    He is quite some guy.   We are all a little apprehensive about this arrest. When we got him to the cells someone broke out the wine and we settled down to play dice and to watch him for the rest of the night.   One of my officer friends started to taunt Jesus asking him to predict where the dice was going to fall – apparently Jesus is able to predict the future.   This became an amusing game, one which Jesus refused to join in.   So then Lamech got up and dragged Jesus over to where we were playing and forced him onto his knees on the floor.   He spat in his face and demanded that Jesus answer him. ...

I had been working for Caiaphas for several years and was considered to be a trusted servant and worker.  I had the privilege of being present at many of the council meetings, celebrations and festivals and social events which were presided over by the High Priest as well as attending to many of his personal needs.  Caiaphas was married to the daughter of Annas, the previous High Priest and was highly regarded by the Romans who needed someone reliable and level headed in the Jewish courts to deal with disputes regarding Jewish law which the Romans didnt understand and wanted nothing to do with.    He was a reasonable man as long as he was getting his own way but had a mean temper when he was crossed.  I had rarely been on the receiving end of his temper, but other household servants had been.  It was never pretty. In the weeks running up to Jesus's arrest there had been lots of meetings and assemblies and covert conversations about what was to be done....

I blame my parents.  It must have been something to do with them - the reason that I was so short.  Even from being a young child I was much smaller than my contemporaries and by the time of my bah mitzvah I was about half the size of my peers.  My hands and feet were ' normal sized' but my body was shortened and my head looked too big for my torso.  I had trouble with aching bones and was often short of breath.  But that wasnt the worst of it.  The worst of it was that from as far back as I can remember I was the target of every bully and mean-minded half wit in town.  At school I was thrown about like a ball.  I was called every name under the sun and often came home covered in cuts and bruises.  My parents were desparate to intervene and try to sort the bullies out, but that just made things worse.  So in the end I developed a strategy of attack and assault.  I reckoned that if I could get them before they could get me...... ...

The day I met Jesus started as an ordinaary Sabbath day.   I didnt know that Jesus was going to be in our synagogue that day or indeed that he was going to be invited for lunch by Jonas the Pharisee afterwards.    Jonas was my neighbour and I had known him for several years.   He had seen my health failing little by little and knew that the doctor had said the swelling in my legs was due to some problem with my heart.   I wasnt quite sure how that could be so, but I was prepared to believe it as I was constantly short of breath and sometimes did feel my heart beating with a strange rhythm.  I used to work as a lawyer and a scribe for the synagogue, but as my health deterioirated I was able to do less and less and spent much of my time at home sitting on my porch watching the world go by.  But I always managed to get to synagogue on the sabbath and I had been particularly interested to hear Jesus teaching - I had heard the rumours about...