Bruce Marchiano - The Character of a Man: Reflecting the Image of Jesus

T HE C HARACTER OF A M AN

Reflecting the image of jesus

BRUCE
MARCHIANO

HOWARD PUBLISHING CO

Our purpose at Howard Publishing is to:

• Increase faith in the hearts of growing Christians
• Inspire holiness in the lives of believers
• Instill hope in the hearts of struggling people everywhere

Because Hes coming again!

The Character of a Man 2006 by Bruce Marchiano

All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America

Published by Howard Publishing Co., Inc.
3117 North Seventh Street, West Monroe, LA 71291-2227
www.SimonandSchuster.com

www.howardpublishing.com

06 07 08 09 10 11 12 13 14 15 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Edited by Michele Buckingham

Interior design by John Mark Luke Designs

Cover design by Design Works Group

Cover illustration by Gaylon Wampler

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Marchiano, Bruce.

The character of a man : reflecting the image of Jesus / Bruce Marchiano.

p.cm.

ISBN 1-58229-494-1
eISBN: 978-1-451-60557-0

1. Men (Christian theology) 2. Jesus ChristExample. 3. CharacterReligious aspectsChristianity. I. Title.

BT703.5.M34 2006

232.904dc22

2006041114

No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form without the prior written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations within critical articles and reviews.

Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture quotations are from The Holy Bible, New International Version . Copyright 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved. Scripture quotations marked NKJV are taken from the New King James Version. Copyright 1982, 1988 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. All rights reserved. Some italics in scripture are used to indicate the authors emphasis.

To Dad and Mom, thank you.

And to Howard Publishing for their
unique support as together we
fix our eyes on Jesus.

C ONTENTS

My heart is stirred
by a noble theme

Jesus, Jesus, Jesus!

INTRODUCTION

D ISCOVERING J ESUS, THE M AN

It was several years ago that I, as an actor, enjoyed the breathtaking privilege of portraying Jesus on film in The Gospel of Matthew. Id 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 Himwow! As a professional actor, Id 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 (doesnt that sound 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, Youre 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 historythrough the life of Jesus, the most significant Man in universal history. Though I couldnt 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 opportunitythis 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 personand I can only speak for myself as an actor and the specific way that I trained as an actorwhat he essentially does is tiptoe into another life. He walks a mile in another persons shoes. As best he can, he takes on another persons priorities, motivations, point of view, and desires. He does his best to understand and move into this other persons heart.

One of my lines in Matthew was Jesuss 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, surprisetheres an acting tenet that says, A mans 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 choiceswhat he does and how he does itand Ill quickly understand whats 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 to know Him. 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 react this way and not that way? Why, why, why?

And what does all this tell me about who Jesus was two 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 like as a Manas 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 whats in my heart, or anyone elses heart for that matter? I mean, Jesus was 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 from?

At the bottom of all that asking and searching was one seminal question: Who was this Man named Jesus?

I cant begin to tell you what its like to stand on a hillside surrounded by hundreds of people and belt out, Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven (Matthew 5:3). I dont have words to describe how it feels to get down in the dirt with a filthy beggar, pull him into a Jesus-embrace, and whisper in his ear, Be clean! (Matthew 8:3).

I remember one scene where I was standing in a boat, a one-hundred-degree sun beating down on me and a one-hundred-degree wind whipping at my robes. There were throngs lining the shore, and I remember the heartbreak that overcame me as I spoke the words of Jesus, He who has ears, let him hear (Matthew 13:9). Like never before, I was deeply aware of how many didnt have ears, of how many more still dont hear.

Then there was the day I hung on a cross. Reenacting the Cross is my most vivid memory.