I often like to think about what it must have been like to see Jesus and to talk to him.

What were his eyes like? Were they warm and kind, yet penetrating? How did it feel when those eyes rested on your own? How did it feel to be in His presence? Was he tall or short? What made Him laugh? What was the tone of His voice? Did it speak to your heart in ways that no other voice had ever done?

What did it feel like when He called you by your name?

I can feel my heart swelling now even as I write these ponderings. I can almost feel Him next to me, smiling at me, as I express my desire to be with Him forever, unworthy as I am.

I love to read the stories about Him in the Bible. But then I like to picture the scene in my mind and really feel the intensity of the events from the viewpoints of the people in the story. Was it a hot day? Were children playing nearby? Were there dogs and cats around, lazing in the sun? Were there women around doing chores?

How did it feel when the events were over and Jesus had moved on?

We are told in John that he spat on the ground and made mud, which he then rubbed on a blind man’s eyes. How amazing to witness! The man could see, but the Pharisees didn’t believe him and were greatly angered by the claim that Jesus had healed the man. If I was walking through my town, after doing my shopping and saw a man doing this today, then what would I think!? If the man was blind or deaf or mute or unable to walk… then how would I feel if he then saw, heard, talked or walked?

I suppose that it would be the same today as it was then-reactions of incredulity, suspicion, anger, curiosity, amazement, devotion.

In particular I love the stories of Jesus mixing with prostitutes, tax collectors and other sinners. He shared food with them and spoke with them, thus enraging and confusing many of the religious leaders of the time, who found it hard to understand why he would spend time with such hopeless and unclean sinners.

I can totally understand how the sinful woman wept her tears at His feet, then wiped them with her hair, kissed them with tenderness and then poured perfume on them. Only a heart that has been consumed by the despair of sin, that has shamelessly degraded itself, but yet has felt the merciful forgiveness of God could do such a thing.

The woman had felt what it means to truly repent. She had seen that there was another way. She had understood that Jesus was the way, the truth and the life.

Somehow this passage enables me to understand the mercy of God. God knows that we will fail and sin, time and time again. He knows that we are battling against dark deceptions to which we so easily succumb. Indeed Jesus tells us

‘I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance’.

He knows we will sin but he asks us to beg for forgiveness, to realise how far we have strayed, to feel the pull of His love for us in our heart…to want to be worthy of it.

Jesus loves the sinner…He gives them hope. He tells them that they are not lost nor forgotten and He comes to tenderly call them by their name.

I have a copy of the Bible next to my bed, and sometimes I like to read it.

It’s strange that it is a book which is so familiar to most people around the world, so many of us have heard of it; yet how many of us have actually read it with an open heart?

How many of us trust the truth of the words within it?

Recently I was reading through the Acts of the Apostles. I find these books quite fascinating. Jesus was dead, he had endured His passion and his followers had witnessed His Resurrection-he was no longer with his apostles in a physical way- yet these men continued to preach His word and proclaim Him as the Saviour- often at great detriment to their livelihood.

It leads me to only one conclusion…

And that is, that these men must have glimpsed Paradise. They must have had glimpses of heaven, they must have known a love that changed everything for them, they must have realised the divinity pulsing throughout creation. It gave them incredible courage, conviction and strength of heart. Indeed they were willing to die for Jesus and almost all of them did.

The stories of the deaths of the apostles have been handed down through the generations. We are told that:

• Peter was crucified upside down in Rome AD 64
• James was beheaded in AD 44
• John lived on
• Andrew was crucified upon an X shaped cross
• Philip was crucified in AD 54
• Bartholomew was skinned alive and then beheaded
• Matthew was killed by an axe in AD 60
• Thomas was killed in India in AD 72
• James was stoned at age 90 and then clubbed to death
• Jude was crucified
• Simon the Zealot was crucified in AD 74
• Matthias was stoned and beheaded

So, these men were executed, after the many years that they had spent preaching, teaching, healing and bearing witness to the Resurrection of Jesus Christ.

We are told in the Bible that they were with Jesus as He spoke with love and authority to the crowds, as he performed truly miraculous healings, as he controlled the forces of nature.

These apostles must have told the people that they met about these events, as they travelled around the Mediterranean countries and into Asia.

Wouldn’t you want to cry out, ’Jesus raised a man to life!’, ‘Jesus made a blind man see!’, ‘He was dead but he came back to life!’, ‘He is the Messiah!’.

But how these words led them to their deaths, just as today those stories still exist in our Bibles for us to read whenever we so wish. But so many still struggle to listen and accept the truth of it in their hearts- just like the executioners in the First century.

So for me the Acts of the Apostles bear witness to the truth of Jesus…His miracles, His healings, the power of His teachings, His Resurrection and so His enduring and saving Love.

I would not be able to endure such persecution and face such terrifying deaths as these first followers of Jesus did…unless I too had seen Paradise.