A female servant

I was there. I was confused but I was there.

My name is Judith. I work for Caiaphas the high priest. Or at least that was what my mother told me when she sent me off to work a couple of years ago when I was still a young girl. Apparently I was lucky. Apparently I was going to work for one of the most important people in the land. Apparently I should feel honoured. I tried to feel honoured – I really did – but the kitchen was hot, and noisy and smelly. I worked from dawn until dusk. I never saw this Caiaphas at all. My job was kitchen dogsbody – doing the jobs that no one else would do. There’s not a lot of honour in that.

The best thing about my job was that I had to run errands. To the market to buy vegetables; to the house of Annas to deliver messages or food; to the temple to collect the High Priest’s portion from the sacrifices from the Levites. I was nimble and fast and countless times a day I would be found running here or there, delivering and collecting, and pausing to inhale the sweet, clean air before I plunged back into the raging heat of the kitchen once more. While I ran I noticed things. I noticed the spring time flowers bursting into bloom. I noticed the blue sky above me and birds singing as though their life depended on it. I noticed the city slowly filling up as Passover got close. And then I noticed someone I’d never seen before. It was a man. There was something about him that made me check my stride. I don’t know what it was – he just felt different to anyone else I’d ever met.

Every time I saw him he was with the same group of people, big rough looking people with weathered faces and calloused hands. There was one of them. He spoke a lot. He was the biggest and roughest-looking of them all but he had kind eyes. One day he saw me noticing ‘the man’ and waved me closer, making space at the front of the crowd. The man – they called him Jesus – was in the middle of a big crowd of people and he started telling a story about vineyards and an owner wanting his rent from some tenants. I loved it but the Pharisees didn’t seemed to. They twitched and murmured together all the way through and then stalked off in disgust. Every day that week I saw him, Jesus, as I ran my errands and every day I stopped if I could to hear more.

The day that Passover started I didn’t get to run any errands. The kitchen was too busy. I was too. We got no breaks at all until the great Passover meal was over. Then exhausted we slunk out into the courtyard to breathe fresh air and enjoy a moment of rest. The sun went down, and with it came a chilling night breeze. So we lit a fire and settled down to enjoy its warmth.

Almost at once the gates of the courtyard burst open and in walked what looked like the whole temple guard. I couldn’t believe my eyes. What were they doing here? Why were they not at their posts and who was that right in the middle of them? As they fanned out, I saw him – Jesus – they took him to stand over in the corner, near the door that opened into the house. I turned back to the fire, puzzled, and was startled to find someone next to me I didn’t know. No wait I did know him. He was tall and well built. His beard bushy and his face weathered – as though he spent all day outside. His hands were calloused and hard. I looked at him and looked again. It was him. The one who had waved me in. The one who had made space for me so I could hear the story about the vineyards and the tenants that I’d loved so much. So I said it, ‘This man was with him too’.

He bristled indignantly and said ‘Woman’ – I was pleased with that most people call me girl if they call me anything at all – ‘Woman I do not know him’. ‘But’… I started saying ‘but you were there, I saw you’. But the other servants hushed me. I sat there and stared at him. It was him. I know it was him. So why would he say it wasn’t? I watched him in the firelight. His eyes darted backwards and forwards constantly. His forehead glistened with sweat. Then someone else noticed him, ‘you’re one of them, aren’t you?’ The man turned on him ‘I…am..not’.

The conversation swirled around us. This Jesus had been arrested only this evening, after Passover had begun. ‘He was a Galilean rebel,’ said one. ‘No, a would be Messiah’ said another. ‘Wanted to destroy the temple, I heard’. ‘Did you know that it was one of his own betrayed him? ’. On and on it went. About an hour later one of the Temple Guards strolled over to get a bit of heat – all that time Jesus had been standing quietly in the corner where they’d put him. The guard glanced at the man next to me.

‘Who are you?’

‘Peter’, he replied.

‘Where are you from?’

‘Capernaum’, he mumbled.

He turned to us, ‘Surely he’s one too. One of those Galileans’.

Peter, sprang to he feet and roared in fury. ‘I’ve no idea what you’re talking about.’

While he was mid-roar, a cock crowed and Jesus turned looked over at us. A strange noise came out of the man – Peter – it sounded like a sob, as though his heart was breaking right inside him. He turned and rushed away into the night.

I looked back at Jesus but all I could see in his face was love. I couldn’t help thinking what a shame it was that Peter hadn’t seen that too.

I was there. I was very confused but I was there.