The day I met Jesus

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...

I had been following the matter of the Rabbi for several months, aware that he was causing increasing amounts of concern amongst both the Pharisees, the Saducees and the Roman leaders.   There was talk in the synagogues about blasphemy and talk in the town halls about revolution.  Ordinary people in their hundreds, possibly thousands, were flocking to hear his teachings and witness the miracles which were allegedly happening wherever he went.   Nothing like this had happened before to my knowledge.  Yes, occasionally we had heard of radical revolutionaries calling for an uprising against the Romans, and sometimes a young gifted Rabbi would come to light in some country synagogue and make an impact in Jerusalem.    But this was different.   This felt like something momentous.  I was very curious to see for myself the cause of all the talk and debate so I chose to follow Jesus closely when he came to Jerusalem. As a member of the Sa...

When I was twelve I witnessed my mother being speared to death by a Roman soldier outside our house.  She had been crossing the road carrying a basket of apples which she had picked from our own trees and was taking to the market to sell.  I was walking beside her and eating one of the delicious juicy apples and we were chatting away when all of a sudden a Roman centurion on horseback came round the corner and ran straight into us.  The horse reared up and threw the soldier into the road.  My mother was caught by the horses hoof and she fell and the apples went all over the place.  I screamed which upset the horse even more and as I fell to my knees to try to help my mother up the Roman got up from the ground, stood over us, drew his sword and pierced my mother through her stomach.  I will never forget the look on his face - he was smiling as he killed her.  And the look on my mother's face as she clutched at her stomach and realised that he had killed...

I had been following Jesus at a distance for weeks, ever since my friend had been healed by him as he passed through our village.  She had been suffering from headaches and fatigue for months and as soon as Jesus touched her all her pain vanished and she was completely well.  From that moment both of us wanted to know more, everything, about Jesus so we joined the crowd which followed him everywhere.  We got to know some of the women who were close to him, Mary and Joanna and offered to help with buying supplies for the diciples and anything else tht was needed.  We were welcomed into the community of followers, which was pretty large by that time.  As we travelled around the countryside we got to witness many miracles and hear some revolutionary and radical teaching.   Jesus was always teaching.  Everything he said was a story which contained a lesson.  I wish I had been able to write so that I could remember everything he said. The day I ...