Summary: Peter tells the story of his journey with Christ. It concludes with a challenging encounter with Jesus.
Style: Dramatic. Duration 10min
Actors: 1M
Characters
Peter
Script
(Note: This monologue can either be performed as a stand alone person or you can use the added dimension of a PowerPoint in the background, which adds focus to certain words in the piece. The piece will need to be given the time it deserves, don’t rush it. At the end the voice of Jesus comes over the PA system; take your time with this part as it is where we see Peter being restored.)
Scene: Peter enters the room and sits down in the chair, looking confused. Then he stands up to speak.
PETER: I was going to do so much, Peter the rock the one he could depend on, but I let him down.
I remember the first time I saw him. We were on the water's edge tending our nets when Jesus arrived with a large crowd of people, all trying to hear what he had to say, he climbed aboard our boat and we pushed out just a short way from the shore, and Jesus stood and spoke to the people.
He was so easy to understand, so clever with his words. After he had finished talking to them he said to us, put out your boat into the water and put down your nets. We had fished all night and caught nothing, not even a sardine, we were exhausted. I won’t tell you what Andrew my brother said, but there was something in the way he spoke, so we did it, pushed out into the water and threw down our nets. Immediately they were so full we could hardly manage them. We had to call the Zebedee brothers James & John to help us get them ashore. That was when he called us to be fishers of men. We left everything, our nets, boats, families, our lives and followed him.
We saw some incredible things. There was this time we were out on the lake and the wind blew up a tempest the like I had never seen before. Well.
I have been around boats all my life, but I don’t mind admitting I was scared. We threw everything overboard, then someone noticed that Jesus was asleep in the aft of the boat. We pleaded with him, ‘Master, master we are going to drown!’ He stood up and said, ‘Oh ye of little faith’, then he turned to the storm and said, ‘Peace – be still’, and immediately the lake was like a sheet of glass.
Then there was another time we were miles from anywhere and Jesus was talking to a large crowd, we reckoned on about 5000 men, not to mention all the women and children.
Time was moving on and, well, people were getting hungry, so we said to the master, ’let the people go to the villages so that they can get food’. He turned to us and said ‘You feed them’. Judas the keeper of the purse nearly fainted, there was no way we had enough money to pay to feed them, and nowhere to buy it anyway.
We started to scout around to see if there was any food and found nothing, then a young boy tugged at my coat. He handed me a small package, which contained five small loaves and two small fish, the packed lunch his mum had given him that morning. Well I laughed, but I gave it to Jesus. He smiled at the boy then he held it high and thanked his father in heaven for the food. Then he broke it and gave it to us to pass out, then he broke it and he broke it. The same with the fish, he broke it and passed it out, he broke it, it just kept coming. When we had all had our fill, all 5000 men and the women and children were all full, he had twelve baskets of leftovers.
With Jesus, the blind saw
The deaf heard
The lame walked
Even the dead came back to life.
He was, IS Amazing!
He told me I would let him down, you know, he knew.
We were at the meal table in the upper room and after the meal Jesus took a loaf of bread and he broke it, saying, 'take, eat, this is my body which is broken for you'.
Then he took a cup of wine and said, 'this wine is my blood which is shed for you. Whenever you eat this bread or drink this wine, remember me.'
We didn’t understand, We didn’t have a clue.
Then he stood and said, ‘I tell you the truth, all of you will let me down’.
Well, I stood to my feet and I said, 'NO LORD, not me; these others maybe but I will never let you down, not even to the point of death.'
Jesus looked at me and said, ‘I tell you the truth, before the cock crows you will deny me three times.
He knew!
We left there and went to the Garden of Gethsemane, and Jesus gave us two instructions, to watch and to pray. Well, we had just had a meal and it had been a busy day, so we fell asleep. Three times he came back to us and told us to watch and pray, and three times we fell asleep. The third time he said, ‘Are you still sleeping, enough! The hour has come the Son of Man is being betrayed into the hands of sinners’.
Just then a large mob arrived with swords and clubs, and Judas Iscariot was at their lead. He stepped forward and kissed Jesus. That was the sign, you see. I tried to defend him, I drew my sword and sliced the ear of the high priest's servant clean off, but Jesus stopped me. They took him and we scattered like scared rats.
I followed at a safe distance and watched as they dragged him through a farce of a trial full of hate and lies, they were out to get him at any cost. They beat him and spat on him, and I stood there and watched. Well, what could I have done?
Just then one of the servant girls said to me, ‘You also were with Jesus of Nazareth’. I just turned to her and said, ‘No, I don’t know what you are saying’.
It was a cold night, so I moved closer to the fire to warm myself, but again she said, ‘I know you are one of his followers, I have seen you with him’.
‘I tell you I am not,’ I said, turning away from her. Then another man said, ‘Yes I have seen you in the temple with him’. I stood up and said, ‘Listen I don’t know that man’. I turned and pointed at Jesus and Jesus looked at me. Just then the cock crowed, and I realised what I had done.
He knew!
They bruised and beat him with fists and clubs, the whip was next and they knew how to use it. Lash after lash tore through the flesh on his back.
They forced him to carry the cross that would be his own weapon of murder through the streets, but he couldn’t manage it, hardly surprising after what they had done to him. He stumbled and fell and I rushed to help, but a Roman soldier held me back and instead another man from the crowd was forced to carry the cross. It should have been me.
They nailed through his wrists and his ankles; with each nail I felt the shame of letting him down. They wrapped him in a purpIe robe and shoved a crown made out of thorns on his head. I watched as the cross was pulled upwards and jolted down into place, jerking his whole body. Above his head was a sign that read 'THE KING OF THE JEWS'. They laughed at him and mocked him.
He somehow found the strength to forgive them! Forgive? How did he find the strength to say that.
Then he found the strength to release a final cry, a cry of triumph!
IT IS FINISHED!
He hung there and he did die, I saw it. They took his body and they lay him in a stone tomb, and rolled a large stone across the front. It was over! He was dead. It was finished.
For three days he was dead! Then three days later the stone was rolled away and Jesus was, IS alive! Now he’s here again and what am I going to say to him?
JESUS: Simon, son of John, do you truly love me more than these?
PETER: Yes, Lord, you know I love you.
JESUS: Feed my lambs.
(PAUSE)
JESUS: Simon, son of John, do you truly love me more than these?
PETER: Yes, Lord, you know that I love you.
JESUS: Tend my sheep.
JESUS: Simon, son of John, do you truly love me more than these?
PETER: Lord,
You know everything,
You know that I love you.
FREEZE – Fade to Black
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© Copyright Michael Harris, all rights reserved. The script may not be reproduced, translated or copied in any medium, including books, CDs and on the Internet, without written permission of the author.
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