Character of a Man Reflecting the Image of Jesus

DISCOVERING JESUS, THE MAN It was several years ago that I, as an actor, enjoyed the breathtaking privilege of portraying Jesus on film inThe Gospel of Matthew.I'd been born again for two years and was well on my way to an exciting journey in salvation. I was enjoying life with the Spirit of God growing (hopefully!) inside me. I was freed from sin, well aware of it, and learning more and more how to walk in the righteousness Jesus bought for me with His death and resurrection. Glory to His blessed Name! Then the opportunity came to play Him --wow!As a professional actor, I'd played many characters before, from a cop to a boxing promoter to a journalist to a gentle ex-con whose home was the backseat of a '63 Rambler (doesn'tthatsound wonderful?). But then I met a born-again director gearing up to put the Gospel of Matthew on film word for word. Over lunch at the downtown Los Angeles Hilton, he said to me, "You're the one," and the rest is history. The next thing I knew, I had a beard on my face, sandals on my feet, and I was "walking through" the most significant events in universal history -- through the life of Jesus, the most significantManin universal history. Though I couldn't have guessed it at the time, life for Bruce Marchiano as Bruce Marchiano knew it to be would never, ever be the same. And again, glory to Jesus! Why do I bring up this life-changing opportunity -- this personal "encounter" with the life of Jesus? Why do I make a special point of that word,Man?And what do these things have to do with the chapters and words that follow? When a guy "acts" another person -- and I can only speak for myself as an actor and the specific way that I trained as an actor -- what he essentially does is tiptoe into another life. He walks a mile in another person's shoes. As best he can, he takes on another person's priorities, motivations, point of view, and desires. He does his best to understand and move into this other person'sheart. One of my lines inMatthewwas Jesus's saying, "Out of the overflow of the heart the mouth speaks" (Matthew 12:34). Another was, "A tree is recognized by its fruit" (Matthew 12:33). Well surprise, surprise -- there's an acting tenet that says, "A man's heart is reflected in his choices and actions." In other words, if I want to understand a man, all I have to do is look at his choices -- what he does and how he does it -- and I'll quickly understand what's in his heart. (I guess you could call it the gospel according to Stanislavski.) So as an actor faced with the overwhelming, humbling, responsibility of "acting" Jesus, I got on my face before Him. I buried my nose in His Word. I bought every book I could find about Him and began a quest toknowHim. I pieced through His every choice and every action. I knocked the familiarity off His words and dove into the dynamics and human realities of His every Gospel encounter. Within those dynamics and realities I asked, "Why did Jesus do what He did in this situation and not all these other things He could have done? Why did he say this specific thing using these specific words? Why did he reactthisway and notthatway? Why, why, why? "And what does all this tell me aboutwho Jesus wastwo thousand years ago? What does it tell me about His heart and His person, His nature and His ways? In other words, what kind of a Person was Jesus two thousand years ago? What was He likeas a Man-- as He lived His daily life, faced His daily challenges, pursued His daily hopes and passions? "And what were those hopes and passions? What was in His heart as opposed to what's in my heart, or anyone else's heart for that matter? I mean,Jesuswas the most common male name in first-century Israel, yet His life was shockingly different from anyone who ever lived before or after Him. Where did those differences come froMarchiano, Bruce is the author of 'Character of a Man Reflecting the Image of Jesus', published 2006 under ISBN 9781582294940 and ISBN 1582294941.