Two-character dialog.
Cast: N: Nicodemus
S: Samarian Woman
N: I’m Nicodemus.
S: My name isn’t recorded in the Bible.
N: I’m a Jew.
S: I’m a Samaritan.
N: I’m a man.
S: I’m a woman.
N: I’m a religious leader.
S: I’m nothing in my religion.
N: I came to Jesus under the cover of darkness.
S: Jesus came to me in the middle of the day.
N: I came to Jesus under the cover of darkness because I didn’t want other religious leaders know I was speaking to Jesus.
S: I had to come to the well in the middle of the day because the respectable women shun me if I go when they’re there in the early morning.
N: I have a respectable family. My life is orderly. Life is under control and predictable.
S: I’ve had five husbands and the man I’m with is not my husband.
N: I feel I’m in control of my life.
S: My life is chaos.
N: I knew that Jesus had come from God, for no one could do the signs that he did apart from God.
S: I knew nothing about Jesus… until he knew everything about me without even asking.
N: As a religious leader I have spent years of my life studying what God is like. I feel I know what God wants and what God doesn’t want. God likes faithfulness and virtuous living. God rewards people who live like that.
S: I never studied anything. I know how to cook and clean. I can take care of livestock too. As for what God is like, I have no idea. God is good, I hope.
N: The more time I spent with Jesus the more confused I got.
S: The more time I spent with Jesus the more I understood even though what he said was complicated.
N: Jesus said we must be born from above. How can man climb into his mother’s womb and be born a second time?
S: Jesus said he will give me living water. At first I didn’t understand. I thought it meant I wouldn’t have to come to the well to keep drawing water. It would be like the water came right into my house. (Imagine such a marvel!) But Jesus meant a living water that comes endlessly from him.
N: Jesus said that the Spirit of God is like the wind. We feel it and hear the sound of it, but we do not know where it comes from or where it goes. How can that be? That makes it sound like God can’t understood through logic. How can God act in a way that isn’t logical? That would mean God makes no sense!
S: Jesus said that God is not confined to Jerusalem or to Samaria. He said that God is worshipped in spirit and truth
I said I knew that the Messiah is coming and that when he comes he will proclaim all things to us. Then Jesus said that he is the Messiah. I believe he is!
N: Jesus said to me, “Very truly, I tell you, we speak of what we know and testify to what we have seen; yet you do not receive our testimony. If I have told you about earthly things and you do not believe, how can you believe if I tell you about heavenly things?
S: Jesus said to me, “The water that I will give will become a spring of water gushing up to eternal life.”
N: Jesus said that he is the Son of Man and that he descended from heaven. Then he said, “Just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.”
Then he said, “For God so loved everyone, including his enemies, that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him would have eternal life.”
I don’t understand any of this. What does Jesus mean by being lifted up like Moses lifted the serpent in the wilderness? What does he mean that God loves his enemies so much that he gave his only Son?
How can God give to his enemies? That would be absurd.
S: I’m a Samaritan. Jews are my enemies. We are their enemies. I think we’ve hated each other forever.
I was surprised Jesus asked me for water. Jews and Samaritans never help each other out.
Jesus said to me, “… salvation is from the Jews.” I didn’t like the sound of that. But he also said that salvation isn’t limited to the Jews. He said that it was about worshipping God and not about nationality at all.
N: After I met with Jesus I went home and didn’t tell anyone where I had been or what I had done. I wasn’t sure about Jesus. He doesn’t seem to be a bad guy. He does perform miraculous signs. But there is so much else that doesn’t fit with what I know about God.
S: After meeting Jesus I immediately told everyone I knew about him. I was in such a hurry to go and tell them that I left my water jar behind. (Imagine that! Forgetting that I needed water!) Then everyone I told came out and met Jesus. They believed in him too. We invited him to stay. He did stay with us for two whole days. It’s hard to believe enemies like us would connect like that. But many people in my town now know that Jesus is truly the Savior of the world.
N: I’ve decided to keep an eye on Jesus. We’ll see what happens.
S: I’m going to keep telling people that God wants both the good and the bad to know that God desires them, and that God wants them to love him too!
No comments:
Post a Comment