Here’s a readers’ theatre setting of John 3: 1-17, the
conversation between Jesus and Nicodemus.
It is set for three voices.
Readers’
Theatre: John 3: 1-17
One: There was a man
named Nicodemus,
a Jewish
religious leader who was a Pharisee.
After dark
one evening, he came to speak with Jesus.
Two: Rabbi, we all
know that God has sent you to teach us.
Your
miraculous signs are evidence that God is with you.
Three: I tell you the
truth,
unless you
are born again,
you cannot
see the Kingdom of God.
Two: What do you
mean?
How can an
old man go back into his mother’s womb
and be born
again?
Three: I assure you,
no one can
enter the Kingdom of God
without
being born of water and the Spirit.
Humans can
reproduce only human life,
but the
Holy Spirit gives birth to spiritual life.
So don’t be
surprised when I say,
‘You must
be born again.’
The wind
blows wherever it wants.
Just as you
can hear the wind
but can’t
tell where it comes from or where it is going,
so you
can’t explain how people are born of the Spirit.
Two: How are these
things possible?
Three: You are a
respected Jewish teacher,
and yet you
don’t understand these things?
I assure
you, we tell you what we know and have seen,
and yet you
won’t believe our testimony.
But if you
don’t believe me when I tell you about earthly things,
how can you
possibly believe if I tell you about heavenly things?
No one has
ever gone to heaven and returned.
But the Son
of Man has come down from heaven.
And as
Moses lifted up the bronze snake on a pole in the wilderness,
so the Son
of Man must be lifted up,
so that
everyone who believes in him will have eternal life.
For God
loved the world so much
that he
gave his one and only Son,
so that
everyone who believes in him
will not
perish but have eternal life.
God sent
his Son into the world not to judge the world,
but to save
the world through him.
