Description
Early Days
Bible Ref: Matthew 3 & 4; Mark 1; Luke 2-4; John 1-4
Each of the following sketches (scenes) can be used to form the basis for a complete act of worship or used as individual scenes on separate occasions. Each scene will require a narrator to read the linking text as well as the characters in the scene itself.
List of scenes:
Jesus Visits the Temple as a Boy
John the Baptist Begins His Ministry
Jesus is Tempted in the Wilderness
The First Followers of Jesus
Nathanael – the True Israelite
The Wedding at Cana
Water into Wine
Nicodemus
The Samaritan Woman at the Well
Back to Sketching out the Gospel Category
John the Baptist Begins His Ministry
When Jesus reached the age of thirty, stories began to leak into his town about an uproar in the surrounding wilderness. A wild man had emerged from the desert and was disrupting the status quo.
John:
Listen up! All you who think you’ve got your lives organised. Listen hard! Things are going to change. You need to change. This thunder you hear heralds the lightning work of God’s spirit. Humble yourselves. Submit to the good work of God. Submit and receive what he has for you. Bend your knee and bow your head. Let his grace rain down on you like refreshing rain. Forgive and be forgiven. Take hold of the broom and clean-sweep your houses. It’s up to you. Start again. Come to the water and be washed. The time is right, so get ready! Be honest, be kind, be generous and do everything with integrity.
The crowds swarmed to see this wild man, and many succumbed to his call and went into the river Jordan to be washed clean of their sins. John welcomed them all and never refused anyone the baptism and forgiveness of God. Then, one day, the crowds parted and John’s own cousin walked through the sea of people. There was a terrible pause, a moment when John himself fell to his knees in the rippling waters.
John:
It’s not for me to baptise you. You must wash me. Forgive me, cousin, I’m not good enough to even touch you…
Jesus:
Don’t say that, John. For now - I need your baptism. Please.
So John baptised his cousin, and as Jesus came up out of the water the sky rang with thunder as if a voice was rumbling through the clouds.
Continues...
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