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Hello! Let me introduce myself. I'm one of Jesus' disciples. No ‑ I'm not Peter, or James, or John, or Andrew, or Philip, or even Judas Iscariot ‑ in fact, I'm not one of the ones you think you already know something about. No, I'm one of the ones you don't really know much about at all, and even my friends don't seem know whether to call me Nathanael or Bartholomew. I don't mind, really. I quite like the name 'Nathanael' ‑ in Hebrew, it means 'the gift of God', which is nice. 'Bartholomew' is just a family name ‑ it means 'Son of Ptolemy' (or, if you prefer the Hebrew version, then I'm really 'Nathanael Bar Tolmai'), and you can tell from my father's Greek name that my family didn't come originally from around here. In fact, although I was living in Cana of Galilee when what I'm going to tell you about took place, I was really brought up to look down on Galileans ‑ my family used to think of them as somewhat inferior beings! I regret that now, of course, but, as things turned out, it was that rather 'superior' attitude that brought me into contact with Jesus, in the first place.

I have this friend called Philip, you see ‑ you can tell from his name that he's another one who has Greek family-connections, although he and I had been living down in Galilee for quite a while. In those days, all the 'talk of the town' was about this prophet called 'John the Baptiser'. Palestine was under Roman control then, of course, and the idea that God might have sent his people a prophet ‑ like Elijah, or Isaiah ‑ well, that certainly caught the popular imagination. Maybe God was about to send us the long-awaited 'Messiah', who would overthrow the hated Romans and re-establish a Jewish Kingdom like that of those great ancient Kings, David and Solomon! That was what we were all waiting for.

So, huge crowds started trekking out from the towns and villages, near and far, to see John ‑ a charismatic figure if you ever saw one, with his rough camel-hair coat and long shaggy hair to match. They came in droves to hear what he was preaching on the banks of the Jordan. He had a thoroughly uncompromising message for them, too: "Repent of your sins, and turn to God, for the Kingdom of Heaven is near!"

John had some 'disciples' ‑ people who followed him, supported him, listened to his message and wanted to be like him. One or two of them were Galileans, too ‑ they'd trekked a long way to hear John; that shows you how his message had gripped the popular imagination of our nation at that time.

A man named Jesus was there, too ‑ people said he was a cousin of John the Baptiser, and he too was a very striking figure, but not wild and unkempt like John. Tall and distinguished-looking, he wore a simple white robe. When John saw Jesus among the crowd, he pointed him out to some of his disciples, saying, "Look! There's the Lamb of God!" That's a strange expression, isn't it! In our culture, we would associate lambs with the annual Passover meal, of course.

Philip and I weren't among those who went up from Galilee to hear John, but later I got to know one of John's followers called Andrew (another Greek-sounding name ‑ see what a mixed-up lot we all are?), and he told me what happened next. He said, "I was with one of John's other disciples, and we were really intrigued by this Jesus, whom we only knew to be another Galilean, from Nazareth, and we were intrigued by what John was saying about him."

So, Andrew and another of John's followers decided to follow this Jesus and try to find out more about him. Jesus looks around, sees them following him. "What do you want?" he asks (firm, but gentle). They don't quite know what to say, so Andrew says, "Teacher, where are you staying?" "Come and see," he says. It's about four o'clock in the afternoon; so they go with him to the place where he's staying, and they stay with him the rest of the day and he talks to them. Andrew didn't tell me much of what Jesus said to them, but I could see from his face that it had been a life-changing experience for him.

Anyway, next thing you know, Andrew goes off to find his brother Simon (who's also trekked up from Galilee to see 'John the Baptiser') and Andrew tells him, "We've found the Messiah ‑ the Anointed One!" Off he takes Simon to meet Jesus. Jesus takes a good look at him, and he says, "Your name is Simon, son of John," (how did he know his name, I wonder?) "but you're going to be be called Cephas" (which means 'a stone', or ‑ if you like ‑ 'Petros' ‑ 'Peter' ‑ that's the Greek equivalent).

Well, next day, Jesus decides to go back to Galilee. He finds my pal Philip, and he says to him, "Come and follow me." Philip was from Bethsaida ‑ the same village as Andrew and Peter. Philip dashes off to look for me, and he finds me sitting in the shade of a fig-tree ‑ in summertime it gets very hot around mid-day, and those big fig-leaves make good shelter from the sun. I can see that Philip's all excited! He blurts out, "We've found the very person that Moses and the prophets wrote about! His name is Jesus, the son of Joseph the Carpenter, from Nazareth." "Nazareth!" says I. "Can anything good come out of Nazareth?" Well, as I told you, I'd been brought up to view all Galileans with a measure of suspicion, but up in Judea, Nazarenes had a particularly bad reputation. Anyway, Philip shrugs his shoulders, and says, "Come and see for yourself, then!" So off we go!

When we reached Jesus (it was half-an-hour's walk, to get there), he was talking to a group of his followers. As we approached him, he looks up at me and says, "Now, here's a genuine son of Israel ‑ a man of complete integrity." Well, I'm dumbfounded, of course. I've never seen this man before, and, so far as I know, he's never seen me, either ‑ and yet he seems to know all about me, already!

"How do you know about me?" says I. He laughs, and says, "I could see you under the fig tree, before Philip found you." How amazing is that! "Rabbi, you're the Son of God ‑ the King of Israel!", I blurt out. "Do you believe that just because I told you that I'd seen you under the fig tree?", he says. "You'll see greater things than that! I'm telling you the truth, you're all going to see heaven open, and the angels of God going up and down on the Son of Man, the one who is the stairway between heaven and earth." I really had no idea what this Jesus was talking about, and I don't suppose the others did either, at that time, but I was fascinated by him. Later, some of what he'd said did begin to make some sense to me, but I'm still not quite sure that I understand what he was really saying to us.

Well, I was made very welcome amongst the circle of followers who'd already gathered around Jesus, so I just tagged along. Besides Philip, the brothers, Simon and Andrew, were there, and their fishing colleagues, two more brothers ‑ Zebedee's sons, James and John.

I mentioned earlier that I was living in Cana at that time, and a few days later some young friends of mine were going to get married in the village. I talked to them about Jesus; they'd heard about him too ‑ they knew his mother Mary, and she was already on the guest-list; they wanted to meet Jesus too, so they asked me to invite him along, and he was to bring his friends with him. Jewish weddings are always splendid affairs ‑ definitely not occasions to be missed! ‑ so we all turned up on the day.

I'm sure you've heard what happened at the wedding ‑ the story got around the whole district! The wine runs out (terribly embarrassing for the bridegroom, of course, since, in our tradition, he's the one who has to meet all the costs of the wedding!)

Mary tells the servants to do whatever Jesus tells them; he instructs them to fill their wine-jugs from one of the huge water-pots, and then they're to take it to the President of the Feast to taste, and ‑ lo and behold! ‑ suddenly, it's become wine! And not just any old wine, either, but really expensive, top-quality, vintage stuff! This Jesus was certainly beginning to sound like no ordinary village rabbi!

He'd talk about weddings too, sometimes, but we weren't always sure what he was getting at. "Do wedding guests fast", he said, "while they're celebrating with the bridegroom? Of course they don't! They can't fast while the groom is with them. But someday, the bridegroom will be taken away from them, and then they'll fast, alright." Then he'd go on to give us a couple of little illustrations: "Who'd patch up old clothing with new cloth? Surely, the new patch would shrink and rip away from the old cloth, leaving an even bigger tear than before! And no-one puts new wine into old wineskins, for the wine would burst them, and then, wine and skins would both be lost! New wine calls for new wineskins."

He'd often use little illustrations like that ‑ little stories which were meant to make us think! After all, we'd just seen him turning old water into new wine ‑ were we being groomed by him to become those new wineskins, maybe?

Here's another example ‑ remember that at night we all used simple oil-lamps in our homes. They weren't very efficient and oil was expensive, so they needed to be used sensibly. "Would any of you light a lamp," he says, "and then put it under a basket, or under a bed? Of course you wouldn't! You'd put a lamp on a proper lamp-stand, where its light could shine out and fill the room."

OK, thus far ‑ but usually, he'd follow a little illustration like that with a little 'extra' bit, to make us think more deeply about the inner meaning of what he'd just said to us. He goes on, "Everything that's hidden now will eventually be brought out into the open, and every secret will be brought to light." And then he'd add (as he so often did), "Anyone with the ears to hear should listen and understand." Made us think, you see!

To be continued

BK-S

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