The Scenes

Scene One: Pete & Stella’s Home

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I struggled initially with this opening scene, as it needed to enable the audience to become familiar with the characters. Thankfully another friend came to my rescue: Diana Panes, an accomplished actress, one of a small group of professional actors and actresses who worked with David Watson in many of his missions across the UK. She had moved to the area where I live and attended the same church. At my request she took my script and rewrote this first scene, extending it enough for it to achieve its purpose. She also directed the first series of presentations in 1986 - the year before the YouTube version was recorded.

Scene Two: Pete’s Boss’s Office

Two of the poems Pam had given to me were concentrated on the way life sometimes kicks us in the teeth. So I needed to give Pete a difficult situation. The loss of his job at a time of publicity about unemployment in the UK seemed the ideal situation.

Scene Three: The Bus Stop

This was the chance to present the first of these songs - ‘We Meet in the Street’. How often do we keep a ‘stiff upper lip’ and pretend everything is fine while our heart is breaking?

Scene Four: Pete & Stella’s Home

This was the chance for the second of these songs. The scene was intended to be a ‘mini’ version of the kind of tensions that can happen over a much longer period where one member of a couple is a Christian and the other is not. For Stella, as a new Christian, she was struggling to maintain her newly-found faith and at the same time trying to support her husband, but only succeeding in increasing his frustration. For Pete, the double whammy of the loss of his job and a wife with a very different outlook on life from the one he had known up until a day ago, was more than he could take.

Scene Five: The Bedroom

The song Stella sings here is very simple, but when I first wrote it I found it very moving. Obviously, as a new Christian Stella was very unsure how to go about praying, hence the use of John Wesley’s children’s prayer; but once launched, the pressure of her concern for Pete leads her to go on to pray for him.

Scene Six: Pete’s Return Home

God does answer prayer. It is often the case that one has to wait for the answer, so perhaps the rapid events in response to Stella’s earlier prayer is a little far-fetched. But this is a stage play, after all, and we don’t have time to wait for that! When Pete spots Stella’s Bible, he carelessly picks it up to glance at it while he finishes his drink. As soon as he starts reading, Jesus enters the room. This is to symbolise the way God does speak to us through His word, even though, like Pete, we may be unaware of it.

Scene Seven: The Angel

Everything thus far has been to set the scene for all that follows from this point. Of course, I’m not sure if an angel has ever been given ‘a job like this’, but I needed him to be able to get Pete into the past to see what happened there for himself. Once Pete discovers he has no choice but to listen to what the angel has to say, he immediately challenges him with a series of arguments regularly used against Christianity.

“Everything is here because it evolved that way.”

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Arguably, the theory of evolution has done more damage to the Christian Church than any other single thing. Much of this web site is taken up by the issue, so there is little point in adding more here. But the angel’s song in this scene was written in order briefly to address it, and it is intended to echo the scripture that tells us the fact of God’s existence can be clearly seen from the creation all around us.

For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse...

Romans 1:20

The angel’s admission of being kept out of the choir for 32 million years is not intended to imply a universe that is millions, or billions, of years old, but refers more to the unknown ages past before the universe appeared. No one knows how long it was after angels had been created before God brought the universe into being, and of course, since He created time along with the physical realm, it is probably not accurate to talk in terms of years at all - but the angel does say, “in Earth time,” which is intended to indicate he was translating the past ages into the time frame of which we are aware.

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 “You talk as if God were a real person... He is the good that is in all of us”

Because the Bible is largely ignored in today’s society, most people have little or no idea what it says about the nature of God. Two extremes are to think of God either as some kind of superman character, which is to diminish His power, influence, intellect, etc; some kind of power or influence pervading the universe, rather like the force in Star Wars or Hoyle’s ‘Intelligent Universe’; or the supernatural force behind New Age thinking.

Elsewhere on this website I do describe God as being like ‘The Force’. However, this is merely to try to break away from ‘small’ ideas about God and show how He fills the universe with His presence. This is only a tiny part of what He is like, though, and as an illustration is almost certainly totally inadequate!

The reality taught in the Bible is a personal God, passionately in love with His creation (humanity) but whose presence fills the universe, knowing everything there is to know about everything, past, present and future.

“What you believe certainly has an effect on you.”

There are all sorts of views and opinions on the Internet, with some people getting very angry when they come across something contrary to their own ideas. Whatever we think is true has absolutely no effect on reality - truth is truth and lies are lies, and my ideas about which is which will not change them one iota. On the other hand, our beliefs have a massive effect on us, since we live according to what we think is right. Even people acting contrary to their conscience are still doing what to them at the time seems the best thing to do. An extreme Islamic suicide bomber will kill himself and many other people as well, believing his action is correct. This has a massive effect on him and those around him; but if the message of Christianity is right, then he has a huge shock when he stands before the God who says that no murderer will enter Heaven!

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Whoever hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him.

1 John 3:15

“Why doesn’t God change the rules?”

A common criticism of ‘Christianity’s God’ is regarding why He allows this, or doesn’t do that, or fails to step in to prevent evil in the world. The angel’s answer is the key:

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“God’s makes no rules, He simply acts according to His nature, which is love and justice.”

There is much we will never understand; but the Apostle Paul tells us that one day we will know as we are known,* and there is no doubt in my mind that on that day, when we look back, we will agree the way God did it was the best, indeed the only, way to do it.

For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part, but then I shall know just as I also am known.

1 Corinthians 13:12

“God wouldn’t send anyone to hell for eternity.”

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Today the idea of Hell is laughed at and not a consideration for most people. However, no-one talked more about the place in the Bible than Jesus Himself, and the extreme lengths He went to in order to enable us to escape a fate there is surely evidence of its reality and its horror. Is it a place of real fire? The Bible certainly talks in those terms, and it is dangerous to go beyond that.

However, regardless of what the environment will be like, the point made by the angel is key: any place inhabited by those only concerned about serving themselves is bound to be horrific. One only has to look at countries where a despot is given absolute power to see the misery inflicted on the unfortunate inhabitants. The angel also makes the point that even Heaven would be hell for those who wish to live in opposition to God’s will. It would be like being emerged in the most foul-smelling, noxious substance for someone hating God’s presence to be within in it. Of course, God is neither foul-smelling nor noxious: quite the reverse, He is the most beautiful, fragrant being in existence; but to someone opposed to him, it would be a clash of opposites and since God is Almighty, guess who would come off the worst!

I don’t know if angels lose their tempers or not - I suspect not. However, I thought it would be rather amusing to have this angel become fed up with Pete’s stubborn resistance to his reasoning, and impatiently decide the only way to sort him out would be to show him what happened.

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Scene Eight: Bethlehem about 2,000 years ago

In the stage play, if we had been making a film with an unlimited budget we could have made scenes eight and nine more realistic. As it was, we made very little attempt at reality, relying instead on the audience’s imagination. So I felt the simple nativity tableau was enough to make the point here. This introduces the main theme song for the musical, ‘Son of God’, although it only appears twice.

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Scene Nine: Jerusalem 33 years later

Of course, showing the crucifixion in all its gory detail was impossible and unnecessary. For one thing Jesus was required to appear on the cross in agony and in heaven in all His glory in very quick succession. Live, on stage, there was no time to attempt anything, other than a quick costume change. The idea that Jesus would sing while on the cross is ludicrous, of course: this is just one more thing that left reality far behind; although in the book version I was able to change it slightly to be Jesus’s thoughts. But when this song came to me, it hit me as powerfully as anything I wrote for the musical.

We needed to express the point that the tools men were using to torture Him to death were, to Jesus, simply the means of Him providing the sacrifice God needed to give forgiveness to mankind: hence calling the cross, nails and crown of thorns ‘His battledress’.

​ At the beginning of Jesus’ ministry, John the Baptist prophetically called Him ‘the Lamb of God’…

The next day John saw Jesus coming toward him, and said, "Behold! The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!

John 1:29

…showing the main purpose for His life was to become the fulfilment of the Jewish animal sacrifice system. Those sacrifices needed to be made often. Jesus died once for all.

By that will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.

Hebrews 10:10

While Pete is still reeling from the horror of what he has just seen, the angel presses the point home:

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“That’s how much He cares!”

To anyone thinking God is a casual observer to the pain and suffering endured by humans, this proves the contrary. The doctrine of the trinity is too complicated to go into here: I have covered it elsewhere on this website, so the reader must take it as read. This is God Himself, going to the most extreme lengths in order to restore His original intention for us. The verse that says, “There’s not a child that cries in pain” came to me as a result of seeing a TV News item, in which a young girl had been trapped up to her neck in flood water for a very long time - many hours. She was finally rescued, but died when she reached hospital. Her desperate plight brought me to tears, and then fury at the work of our enemy who has wrecked this planet and brought so much suffering to so many.

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There are very few songs, if any, that I have seen bring people literally to tears when they heard them being sung. ‘Have you seen his hands?’ is such a song. The first time Sheila Blude sang it in church, a significant number of the congregation, myself included, were in tears by the end. She wrote it after a personal experience with God, and it was my privilege to be the accompanist when she sang it. So my top priority when writing the musical was to ask if she would let me include it, and indeed, if she would sing it in the presentations.

An even bigger thrill was that her husband, Paul, at the time a very new Christian, agreed to play the part of Jesus. So when Sheila sang it, she was actually singing to her husband! It was very moving indeed, and it is they singing in the book version of Son of God. Sadly, they were unable to take part the following year when the YouTube version was recorded, although Aisha did a magnificent job with the song.

Actually it was a real problem finding someone with the voice range to cope with the song. Eventually Aisha was suggested to me, and I went to her house to hear her sing it. After I played the introduction, she had only sung the very first note, when I knew she was the one. The emotion that hit me on that opening word was so great I could barely hold myself together to keep playing so she could sing the whole song! I don’t think she ever knew this, but if it ever happened that the right person came along at the right time, in answer to prayer, this was such an occasion!

‘Jesus, please don’t come down here’

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This was a song born from my own experience. It was at a low point in my life when I was feeling totally defeated, incapable of living the way I knew I should. I had been working in a school, tuning their pianos all day, feeling very miserable; and in between each tuning I let my hands drift over the keys saying to myself that I was useless and if I’d been able to see Jesus before He left heaven to come to Earth I would have to tell Him not to come because I was not worth it. The tune started to emerge and by the end of the day it was mostly in my head. As I was driving home - a 30-mile journey that took around 45 minutes - words started to form in my head. In the end I had to pull over into a lay-by to write them down, because I knew I would forget them if I didn’t. As I wrote, the pattern began to emerge: half a verse with me saying how I felt to Jesus; the second half what I thought He would probably reply to me; and then the chorus saying what actually happened.

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‘See the world’s Creator rising from His great eternal throne’

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The aim was to include the earthly life, death, resurrection and ascension of Jesus in a single song. In some ways it is a duplication of what has already gone before; but I wanted to show that from start to finish, everything was a part of God’s plan to unravel the mess we had made by our rebellion against Him, and that the journey of Jesus concludes in complete victory on Heaven’s throne. The portrayal of Satan was also symbolic, of course: we have no idea what his true appearance is like. The fact that in the video the pointing finger of Jesus in Heaven is enough to have Satan making a rapid exit was intended to demonstrate the power and authority the Son of God now has. There is no description of Satan’s work in the book version, because Pete was viewing either the physical world or the gates of Heaven, so I didn’t think it necessary.

As previously mentioned, I felt the only possible result of Pete witnessing this scene could be him surrendering to Jesus. For a while I struggled to write the words for the song to express this, until I realised that the words of Isaac Watts in his classic hymn, ‘When I survey the wondrous cross’, could not be bettered. Although the language may be a little dated now, there was nothing I could produce that could come anywhere close to what he has written. After making this decision, the music almost wrote itself!

Pam Moore’s words for the song Pete sings a little later to Stella, “I dreamed that I lay in His arms last night” speak for themselves. In order for the song to work, I had to have Pete wrapped in the arms of Jesus. Although we had to make sure it was portrayed in such a way as to avoid any hint of the ‘gay agenda’, we also had to portray the reality that when a person takes this step of faith, Jesus does indeed come to him or her in an intimate union. So the most natural thing in the world was for Jesus to come over to Pete at the end of his song of commitment in ‘When I Survey’, and then during the next song, ‘You’re a son of God’ kneel down behind him and hold him close. Once again, the book version enabled me to portray this slightly differently.

The reason the musical was called ‘Son of God’ and not ‘The Son of God’ was in order to be able to apply the phrase, not only to Jesus, but to the new convert, Pete. During the song, the two different aspects of our sonship are briefly mentioned. We become God’s children through adoption...

...to redeem those who were under the law, that we might receive the adoption as sons.

Galatians 4:5

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...having predestined us to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will...

Ephesians 1:5

...and by birth – the new birth:

Jesus answered and said to him, "Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God."

John 3:3

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...having been born again, not of corruptible seed but incorruptible, through the word of God which lives and abides forever...

1 Peter 1:23

I said earlier that becoming a Christian is not an intellectual exercise, but an experience. At the end of this song, having experienced the presence of Jesus as a result of his commitment, Pete, realising the change that has taken place within him, joins with the choir, singing, “I’m a son of God.” This is a very common experience. It may not always come as quickly as it did for Pete, although it is not unusual for it do to so; but most Christians will remark on the difference it made to them: a sense of peace, lightness, joy, etc. It is hardly surprising, bearing in mind the Bible describes it as moving from darkness to light:

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But you are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, His own special people, that you may proclaim the praises of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light;

1 Peter 2:9

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Scene Ten: The Bedroom

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As Pete and the choir finish the song, the alarm clock starts ringing and Stella wakes up. The explanation Pete gives for being out of bed is in the song previously mentioned, “I dreamed.” However, the song ends, “and it wasn’t a dream, for His presence lingered there.” So was Pete’s experience a dream, or did it really happen? Well, this is fiction, of course; but I do not know! It could have been either.

However, I am reminded of the real experience of a friend, who, as an atheist at university, from a family that took great pleasure in destroying the faith of Christians (his own words), had a visitation by Jesus in the middle of the night. The result of this was that he got out of bed and knelt at Jesus’ feet in surrender to Him. He went on to become a public school headmaster and an ordained minister in the Church of England. Had this been a dream? The thing that convinced him it had been real was the splinters he found in his pyjamas when he woke up the next morning, from the rough wooden floor on which he had been kneeling. It had to be something dramatic to change such a committed atheist to Christianity overnight.

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It may have been a little odd for Stella and the choir to join Pete in such a personal song, but it was quite long and needed the variety they brought to it; and after all, most of them had had an experience of the presence of Jesus in their own lives, one way or another.

Of course, the very real problem for Pete and Stella was his unemployment, and this is not resolved at the end. Life always has its challenges, and the final song is the way to meet them. ‘Alleluia! Praise!’ The Bible says that God works everything out for good for those who love Him.

And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose.

Romans 8:28

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We may not understand why some things happen the way they do, but we can demonstrate our trust in God’s love by praising Him, come what may. Indeed, the experience of many has been that praising God in difficult times not only changes their own state of mind, but the circumstances themselves change. However, even if they do not, the joy that Jesus brings to a life means that, with Job, the Christian can say,

Though He slay me, yet will I trust Him.

Job 13:15

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There was one more song coming from Pam’s six poems, which did not fit into the story line. Instead, we used this as a kind of epilogue - our prayer for those who had come along to see the presentation:

“Go with our love in your hearts.”

My prayer is that all who take the trouble to view this You Tube presentation, or read the book, will experience the life-transforming love of God in a life shared with the Son of God

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​Table of Contents

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Scripture taken from the New King James Version.

Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

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