In the Shadows

2.5 minutes / 1 narrator

Description
This narration emphasizes Christ’s sacrifice. It leans toward the darker, pre-resurrection side of Easter—thus would be appropriate for Maundy Thursday or Good Friday use.

Voices
one

Topics
Easter Suffering Jesus Christ Light Darkness Remembrance Golgotha

Script
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-|script begin|-

Narrator
(simply; conversationally)
Easter is all about remembering. Every year we are invited to remember what Christ Jesus did for us. Not the historical facts, the chronology, so much as the promise of new life through His death and resurrection. The cross stands at the crossroad of time—one way despair, the other way hope and joy.

But the story of Easter begins in the shadows. It begins around the time of Passover—for the Jews a remembrance of death, of release tinged with bitterness and pain. There is the one bright moment of Christ’s entry into Jerusalem, where He was celebrated and greeted with loud hosannas. But then He and His disciples gather for the Passover meal. Soon Jesus is betrayed, arrested, and so begins His lonely journey to the cross.

Easter represents the promise of unbounded light after the gloom and despair of the shadows. We celebrate that light—gladly, joyfully—but we do injustice to His sacrifice if we do not remember, as well, the suffering that led to the resurrection, the pain that brought about victory.

So come, give ear to the final hours of Jesus with His disciples—scenes of confusion, of fellowship darkened by betrayal, of moments cast in shadows that would deliver a new hope for mankind, suffering that would end in victory, despair that would end in the promise of new life for all who would believe.

Narrator
And so we come to Golgotha—the place of suffering and death. Here Jesus would shed His blood as the spotless Lamb of God. Here Jesus would cry out in His agony—and alienation from His Father. Here Jesus would declare the end of death—as He breathed His last.

“Did e’re such love and sorrow meet,
Or thorns compose so rich a crown?”
(Isaac Watts)

Death and life, combined in a single moment. Death for Jesus the man, leading to resurrection and life for Jesus the Son—and resurrection and life for any and all who would believe in Him.

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