4. Thursday (Dive B)

Dive B Monologue – Bartholomew

Hello! Wow! What an exciting place this looks. Are you having a good time at Deep Sea Divers? Look at all these sea creatures! This all reminds me about a

time when I was sailing on the sea.

Oh, I should introduce myself. My name is Bartholomew. I was one of Jesus’ 12 followers. You might have already met a friend of mine, Thaddeus.

Yes, I thought his name was weird too. If you don’t

know, Jesus chose 12 people to follow him and be taught by him. We were called the disciples.

Well, we sailed on this huge lake called Galilee all the time. It was so big that some people called it a sea. But there was this one time that sticks in my memory. We had just seen Jesus do something absolutely amazing.

He had fed a huge crowd – it could have been

as many as twenty thousand people.

I’m not sure, I’m not very good with numbers. Anyway, he fed this vast group of people with just five small loaves of bread and two fish.

Sorry! Getting side-tracked! Back to the story I was going to tell. It was almost dark when Jesus made us all

get into a boat and set out across the lake. Oh! Here’s a boat. (He picks up the toy boat left behind by Flotsam and Jetsam.) Well, ours wasn’t like this; it was made of wood and was made to be a fishing boat. Anyway, Jesus went up a mountain so that he could be on his own while we sailed off. People followed us everywhere we went, and Jesus talked to them, healed them and told them all about God. He liked to get away every now and again to spend time with his Father. You see, Jesus is the Son of God.

We were quite a long way out onto the lake when the wind got up. It got stronger and stronger, and the boat was going up and down and side to side.

The night seemed to last forever; I felt seasick for hours!

(He sees the sandal and picks it up.) Hey!

This is like the sandals we wore when we were walking everywhere with Jesus. Well, the next part of the story is about walking, but not the kind of walking you’re familiar with.

Then, just before dawn, we saw this figure coming towards us on the water.

Thaddeus thought it was a ghost and we started screaming. It had been a long and difficult night and we were all terrified!

But then, as the figure got closer, we heard it speak: ‘Don’t worry!

I’m Jesus! Don’t be afraid.’

We couldn’t believe it. Jesus was walking on the water! Well, while we were all trying to take in what was happening, one of the disciples, called Peter, said, ‘Lord, if it is really you, tell me to come to you on the water.’

‘Come on, then!’ said Jesus.

Peter got out and he started walking on the water too!

We were all shocked, and I think Thaddeus was still screaming. But then Peter saw how big the waves were and he got scared. He started to sink and cried out to Jesus to save him.

Jesus reached out his hand and said,

‘You don’t have much faith, why do you doubt?’

Peter and Jesus got into the boat and the wind died down. I can tell you, we all learned something that night. I learned that I get very seasick. But more importantly, we learned that Jesus really is the Son of God!