Pod the Alien Sketch :  ‘Easter – fact or fiction’

Standard entrance (Compere responds to banging on the door) That must be Pod. (Spaceman enters)

Oh dear, I’m terribly sorry everyone. We were expecting a guest to drop in on us at this point, but it seems he’s run into a technical hitch…It’s not looking very hopeful is it… I should explain that very occasionally an alien visitor comes to see us on a kind of cultural exchange. He likes to try and understand people on Earth, and I’m sure that he would have been very interested in our Easter service.
Can anybody hear me? We got a problem, Brookwood!
Oh I think that we might be getting radio contact with him. Wait a minute and we might be able to get a visual as well.
Hello, hello, is that you Bee-sissy?
Hello Pod, It’s good to see you. Are you have a problem landing?
No, no, it’s not a problem, not a problem at all, it’s just.. er just that I’ve got a little bit of a cold. I could land if I wanted to, but I didn’t want to pass it on to you.
Ah, that’s very thoughtful…
No, I wouldn’t want to wipe out the planet…
…anyway what are are you doing there today?
Well I don’t know if you can see us..
Well I can see a sweeping view of the car park, but not you. I can hear you though.
Well we were just having our Easter service at the moment.
Ah Easter, is that a special thing for you? Is it anything like Christmas? I do like Christmas. I’ve been to several of your Christmas services, I even gave the main talk one year, I don’t know if you remember.
Yes, well Easter is another important time to remember because it was on the very first Easter that Jesus died.
Oh, well that’s a bit of a downer isn’t it. I mean doesn’t that blow the who church thing out of the water?
How’s that Pod?
Well, I thought that you made a big thing of Jesus being alive. Doesn’t if mess things up a bit for you if he’s actually… well dead?
Oh no Pod there is much more to the story than that. I think I need to explain
Yes, I think that would be helpful.
What happened at the first Easter was that Jesus was crucified on the Friday, and was resurrected on the Sunday.
Whoa, whoa! You’re off to a full start there, Dobbin. No one there understands a word you’re saying.
Ah yes, Crucified and Resurrected. You don’t know what they mean, do you.
Of course I know what they mean. I just though that some of this lot would be a bit puzzled.
OK. Crucified; that was the way that Jesus was killed. By being nailed to a wooden cross, and left to die.
You mean Jesus is dead! That’s just awful. And such a good man as well, a great man. I can’t believe it.
And Resurrected; that means that even though he had died, God bought him back to life again.
Wow that’s just amazing, impossible even. Are you sure he hadn’t just fainted?
No, he had certainly been dead. A soldier stuck a spear in his side while he was still on the cross, and the blood that came out had separated, into a blood clot and clear stuff, which is what happens when a body dies.
So, OK he was really dead, but that doesn’t mean that he came back to life does it. Maybe someone, (and this sounds a bit sick admittedly) maybe someone stole his dead body?
No, no one ever found his body, but some people saw him alive afterwards.
Yeah? Not many, I’ll bet.
Quite a few did actually, on one occasion 500 people at once.
Whoa, that’s incredible. I suppose that’s what makes Jesus so very special does it? I mean that makes him more than just an ordinary man doesn’t it.
It means he proved who he said he was – the Son of God.
You know, I don’t think that coming back to life was the hard bit for Jesus.
No?
No, what is a bigger surprise is that anyone could manage to kill God’s son in the first place!
But that was because Jesus let it happen.
No-way. Why would he let it happen, why would he want to get killed?
He knew that if he took the punishment, then we wouldn’t have to. You see, each one of us is separated from God, from the day we’re born. We don’t know God, we don’t have friendship with him, we think only of what we want, and not what God might want for us.
Hang on. Don’t be too hard on yourself.
And that kind of attitude, that kind of lifestyle; a life lived separated from God, leads to a death that is separated from God too. But because Jesus took that punishment, he offers us the everlasting life, and friendship with God that would have been the result of his perfect life.
So, no one took His life from Him. He gave it up?
You see, because Jesus died we are forgiven, and because Jesus came alive again, we can have life too. All we have to do is believe it and it’s ours. Jesus has done it all for us because he loves us so very much.
Wow, I see now why you think Easter is worth celebrating. Jesus did all that, in just a bank holiday weekend?
That’s right, and all because he loved us and wanted our friendship back. Before any of us had a name, before any of us were even born. That’s how big God’s love is.
Cool! You know I’ve learn something really important on this trip: that Jesus loved you so much that he gave his life up so that you could be forgiven, and rose to life so that you could share life with him. That’s a big God! Anyway you’ll be wanting to get on with your celebrating, and I should be going. I think I need to sneeze. You wouldn’t believe how messy that can be in space. I’ll need to find a plastic bag. Good-bye everyone.
Good-bye, Pod.

Standard exit (pod shuffles out the door and take off sequence is initiated).

© M Day 7-Mar-2005