THE STORYTELLER'S BIBLE
Act VI - The Gospel of John
Script by Bob Allen
For four voices

THE STORYTELLER’S BIBLE

Script by Bob Allen

Arranged for four voices. 

Voice two should be female. The other voices can be either male or female.

Scene changes are indicated by numbers and should be marked by a pause, accompanied by a re-arrangement of the positions of the speakers. Suggested staging and movements are included in the text.

PART SIX: THE GOSPEL OF JOHN

Scene 1

1                                                                                                                                            2

      3                                                                                  4

VOICE FOUR: The church through the years had become known for its extravagant Christmas productions. The entire stage would be transformed into a scene from Bible times with Judean hillsides, starry skies and the little town of Bethlehem.

VOICE THREE: Every child in the entire Sunday School would participate in the pageant along with the children’s choir, youth choir, orchestra and handbells. Angels flew on hidden wires suspended high above the heads of the congregation. Live animals occupied the stable, even camels on loan from the local zoo.

VOICE TWO: But this year no child had come home with a part to memorize. No sets had been built and no camels had made the trip from the zoo. As the guests filled the auditorium that evening, the platform sat completely bare. Even the organ and piano had been removed. There were no wreaths, no lights, no painted stars.

VOICE ONE: After everyone was seated, the lights began to dim until the auditorium grew completely black. At first there was silence, and then people began to grow restless, waiting for the music to start. But there was no music. No organ. No angelic choir. Not even a chorus of bleating sheep.

VOICE FOUR: Suddenly, a bright light broke the darkness. A single spotlight shone down on the very center of the empty platform. It didn’t shine on anything. It was just there—a light in the darkness.

VOICE THREE: Again some people grew restless, wondering when the extravagant Christmas production they had come to expect was going to begin. Some of them grew so frustrated that they got up and left, turning their backs on the light and walking away. Others just sat there and looked at the light.

VOICE TWO: The more they looked the more they began to understand what the light was all about. This was the Christmas story according to John, and the Light was the center of the entire story. It was the focal point, the heart of the celebration.

VOICE ONE: The light that shone in darkness.

VOICE FOUR: For those who were willing to concentrate on the Light, a tremendous understanding began to develop. They realized that the Light God sent to earth that first Christmas was a Light that had been present with God from all eternity past. The Word who became flesh was not part of the created world.

VOICE THREE: “In the beginning” described a time before time began.

VOICE TWO: Does that sound like a contradiction? As creatures of time we have little language to convey timelessness.

VOICE ONE: The Light born that first Christmas was not bound by time—He had always existed from eternity past and would always exist into the infinite future.

VOICE FOUR: This was a Being not bound by space—He was everywhere present and there was no place where He was not.

VOICE THREE: The Word who took on flesh was not bound by matter—He was a Spirit Being who transcended all the material universe.

VOICE TWO: The Christmas story according to John began, not in a manger in Bethlehem, but in spaceless, matterless, eternity past.

VOICE ONE: This was the birth of an unconfined, transcendent, infinite Word who inhabits spaceless eternity. This was the birth of God.

VOICE FOUR: The Light was God, and yet was distinct from God. Not simply an emanation from God, or one attribute of God, the Light was with God and was God. The Light did not become God when it entered the darkness, it had always been God, from the very beginning.

VOICE THREE: Those who contemplated the Light realized that this Light, this Logos, had done the work of God in creation. “All things were made by Him.” All things in totality, and all things separately.

VOICE TWO: The Light did the work of God in giving Life. He was the Light of Life—the giver of Life.

VOICE ONE: He also did the work of God in giving Light. All life came from God, but for man that life included light. He gave us the light of reason. He gave us the light of revelation. He gave us Himself, the Light of the world.

VOICE FOUR: As the crowd sat in the darkened auditorium that night focusing on the light, they also realized that Christ does the work of God in triumphing over darkness. The room was full of darkness, but it didn’t affect the Light. It didn’t destroy the Light. Instead, the Light flooded the darkness. Only Christ, the Light of the world, could triumph over the darkness of evil and free the sin-cursed world from condemnation.

VOICE THREE: Everything in the entire program that evening was designed for one purpose—to direct attention to the Light.

VOICE TWO: There was only one true Light.

VOICE ONE: Either they responded to the Light or they remained in darkness.

VOICE FOUR: The Word, the Light, the Life--was God.

VOICE THREE: The Word, the Light, the Life—became a man.

VOICE TWO: God of very God, the Creator, the Sustainer, the true Light, the source of Life, the eternal One, transcendent, infinite, sovereign and perfectly holy—became flesh.

VOICE ONE: Everything that John tells us about God is at the same time true of a man.

VOICE FOUR: The God who had created man so that he could see, who had designed the pupil and the retina—looked out at the world through the eyes that He had personally crafted for man to use. God would see as a man.

VOICE THREE: The God who had given man the light of intelligence by fashioning a cerebrum and a cerebellum with a tremendous capacity for thought and memory and logical reasoning, was Himself thinking by means of the functioning synapses of a human brain. God would think as a man.

VOICE TWO: The God who had formed man with lungs and oral cavities and a larynx and endowed him with the capacity of speech would talk to other man and women in their own language, in words they could understand. God would speak as a man.

VOICE ONE: A man has perfectly revealed God to us in all His glory.

VOICE FOUR: We have seen His glory.

VOICE THREE: When Moses asked to see the glory of God, God chose to reveal Himself as compassionate and faithful, full of grace and truth. That was His essence.

VOICE TWO: That was the way He wanted man to think about Him, the way He wanted Moses to know Him.

VOICE ONE: When the Son of God became a man in order to bring God to us, His glory was seen because He is likewise “full of grace and truth.”

VOICE FOUR: He was the perfect revelation of Almighty God.

VOICE THREE: Absolutely identical with the Father.

VOICE TWO: And yet he was a man.

VOICE ONE: A man has revealed God to us in all His glory.

VOICE FOUR: This man came to us, in order to bring us to God.

VOICE THREE: As long as man kept trying to atone for his own sin, there was no end of sacrifices.

VOICE TWO: Jesus Christ appeared once for all at the end of the world to do away with sin by the sacrifice of himself. He is the only one who can bring man into the presence of a Holy God.

VOICE ONE: The auditorium is dark. We have all been born in the darkness of sin.

VOICE FOUR: But the Light shines in the darkness.

ALL: The Christmas story according to John.