Easter Script for Families

Our family used the script below to read the Easter story with our kids and grand kids with each person reading a part. Try it – it brought the Easter message alive for all of us. Assign the color coded roles ahead of time with a narrator reading the black sections.

John 20: 1-18 NIV Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene went to the tomb and saw that the stone had been removed from the entrance. So she came running to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one Jesus loved, and said,

Mary - "They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we don't know where they have put him!"

So Peter and the other disciple started for the tomb. Both were running, but the other disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first. He bent over and looked in at the strips of linen lying there but did not go in. Then Simon Peter, who was behind him, arrived and went into the tomb. He saw the strips of linen lying there, as well as the burial cloth that had been around Jesus' head. The cloth was folded up by itself, separate from the linen. Finally the other disciple, who had reached the tomb first, also went inside. He saw and believed. (They still did not understand from Scripture that Jesus had to rise from the dead.)

Then the disciples went back to their homes, but Mary stood outside the tomb crying. As she wept, she bent over to look into the tomb and saw two angels in white, seated where Jesus' body had been, one at the head and the other at the foot. They asked her,

Angels - "Why are you crying?"

Mary - "They have taken my Lord away, and I don't know where they have put him."
  

At this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not realize that it was Jesus. 

Jesus - "Woman," he said, "why are you crying? Who is it you are looking for?"

Thinking he was the gardener, she said,

Mary - "Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have put him, and I will get him."

 Jesus said to her, "Mary."

 She turned toward him and cried out in Aramaic, "Rabboni!" (which means Teacher).

 Jesus said, "Do not hold on to me, for I have not yet returned to the Father. Go instead to my brothers and tell them, 'I am returning to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.' "

 Mary Magdalene went to the disciples with the news:

Mary - "I have seen the Lord!"

That evening

John 20:19-20 On the evening of that first day of the week, when the disciples were together, with the doors locked for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said,

 Jesus  - "Peace be with you!"  After he said this, he showed them his hands and side. The disciples were overjoyed when they saw the Lord.

Luke 24:13

Now that same day, two of them were going to a village called Emmaus, about seven miles from Jerusalem. They were talking with each other about everything that had happened. As they talked and discussed these things with each other, Jesus himself came up and walked along with them; but they were kept from recognizing him. He asked them,

Jesus  - "What are you discussing together as you walk along?"

They stood still, their faces downcast. One of them, named Cleopas, asked him,

Cleopas - "Are you only a visitor to Jerusalem and do not know the things that have happened there in these days?"

 Jesus  - "What things?" he asked.

 Cleopas - "About Jesus of Nazareth," he replied. "He was a prophet, powerful in word and deed before God and all the people. The chief priests and our rulers handed him over to be sentenced to death, and they crucified him; but we had hoped that he was the one who was going to redeem Israel. And what is more, it is the third day since all this took place. In addition, some of our women amazed us. They went to the tomb early this morning but didn't find his body. They came and told us that they had seen a vision of angels, who said he was alive. Then some of our companions went to the tomb and found it just as the women had said, but him they did not see."

He said to them,

 Jesus  - "How foolish you are, and how slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken! Did not the Christ have to suffer these things and then enter his glory?"

And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he explained to them what was said in all the Scriptures concerning himself. As they approached the village to which they were going, Jesus acted as if he were going farther. But they urged him strongly,

Disciples -"Stay with us, for it is nearly evening; the day is almost over." So he went in to stay with them. When he was at the table with them, he took bread, gave thanks, broke it and began to give it to them. Then their eyes were opened and they recognized him, and he disappeared from their sight. They asked each other,

Disciples - "Were not our hearts burning within us while he talked with us on the road and opened the Scriptures to us?"

They got up and returned at once to Jerusalem. There they found the Eleven and those with them, assembled together and saying, 

Disciples - "It is true! The Lord has risen and has appeared to Simon."

Then the two told what had happened on the way, and how Jesus was recognized by them when he broke the bread. While they were still talking about this, Jesus himself stood among them and said to them,

 Jesus  - "Peace be with you."

They were startled and frightened, thinking they saw a ghost. He said to them,

 Jesus  - "Why are you troubled, and why do doubts rise in your minds? Look at my hands and my feet. It is I myself!  Touch me and see; a ghost does not have flesh and bones, as you see I have."

 When he had said this, he showed them his hands and feet. And while they still did not believe it because of joy and amazement, he asked them, "Do you have anything here to eat?" They gave him a piece of broiled fish, and he took it and ate it in their presence.  He said to them,

 Jesus  - "This is what I told you while I was still with you: Everything must be fulfilled that is written about me in the Law of Moses, the Prophets and the Psalms."

He appears to Thomas John 20:24

 Now Thomas, one of the Twelve, was not with the disciples when Jesus came. So the other disciples told him, 

Disciples -"We have seen the Lord!"   But he said to them, 

Thomas - "Unless I see the nail marks in his hands and put my finger where the nails were, and put my hand into his side, I will not believe it."

One week after Easter                                                                                                     

A week later his disciples were in the house again, and Thomas was with them. Though the doors were locked, Jesus came and stood among them and said, "Peace be with you!" Then he said to Thomas, "Put your finger here; see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it into my side. Stop doubting and believe."

 Thomas said to him, "My Lord and my God!"

 Then Jesus told him, "Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed."  Jesus did many other miraculous signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not recorded in this book. But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.

Blessings in Christ, Dottie

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