Sign up for our free newsletter:

ACTOR BRUCE MARCHIANO sets the record straight immediately. "I am in no way a pastor, teacher, scholar, or authority of any kind. I've never been to seminary or Bible school. I've never been an atheist, built a financial empire, spent time in prison, or been raised from the dead. I've never seen a vision of Jesus or had thousands healed by my touch. I'm just a sinner saved by grace. That's my only 'wow.'"

But that "wow" is plenty—especially when orchestrated by God. In January 1993, Marchiano began a spiritual and professionally demanding journey portraying Jesus Christ in Visual International's video, The Gospel According to Matthew, a production scripted word for word from the Book of Matthew (NIV). At times during the three months of actual filming, as Marchiano reveals in this excerpt from his book, In the Footsteps of Jesus, playing the role was frightening, exhilarating, wrenching, frustrating, humbling. At all times, it was transforming. That's what Bruce Marchiano wants everyone to know.

There was a single message on my answering machine after I returned from auditioning for the role of Jesus. It was from South African film director Regardt van den Bergh: "I'd like to talk with you about doing the film. Please phone me back as soon as you can."

I played the message again. Yes, I heard right; yes, that's his voice; it's him; he's offering me the role. This man I'd just met two hours before wanted me to play Jesus!

I stopped shaving, canceled my haircut, and hunkered down for what would be seven of the most intense weeks of my life—49 days during which I would pray like never before, study like never before, and memorize every word of Christ as recorded by Matthew.

The real work that had to be done—bigger than big—was a work in Bruce, the person. In my heart, I had to get spiritually, soulfully, and in every other way prepared to represent Jesus. I had to get myself out of the way so that the Spirit of God dwelling within me would shine in front of the camera.

For the first time, I began to pray prayers the Lord had been longing for me to pray, begging him for things he'd been longing for me to desire: "Jesus, give me your priorities and character. Mold my heart to reflect yours. Fill it with your compassion and love, your graciousness and gentleness, your mercy and joy, your passion for people and for goodness and holiness. Give me your heart to serve and forgive, your integrity and intimacy. Lord, make me like you."

I had never been one to memorize Scripture, but in the seven weeks of preparation, I spent day and night soaked in it. It was important for the words to become second nature to me. Only then would I be free to concentrate on Jesus' behavior and actions toward others.

There was also cultural/historical research to be done, exploring the world of first-century Palestine. Were my eyes ever blasted wide open!

Like Jesus' teaching on divorce: "Anyone who divorces his wife, except for marital unfaithfulness, and marries another woman commits adultery." Divorce in Jesus' day was a hot issue. When he chose to speak openly like that, he was putting himself out on a limb. No matter the personal cost.

Can you imagine the shockwaves he must have caused that day? Can you imagine the silence that must have fallen over the crowd? Ah, what a day it must have been for the ladies!

Suddenly I saw a Jesus who was not so much unsympathetic but rather of uncompromising principle, standing alone for truth and liberating the oppressed, a Jesus who willingly took an unpopular stand for his Father's heart, his Father's will, and for his Father's daughters—fully aware it would cost him not only friends and followers, but ultimately his life. That's quite a man!

How does one "play" Jesus? I knew one thing for sure—I couldn't play God. End of story.

Director Regardt van den Bergh set the plumb line. "Bruce, I believe the Lord wants us to film the reality of Jesus Christ as opposed to the 'religion' of him." Our prayer would not be, "Lord, show us how to make this look beautiful and fantastic," but rather, "Lord, show us how to make this look the way it was."

For me to play God was out of the question. But for me to explore the personality and character of Jesus, the man, was one thing I could do. My mandate was to look at the things Jesus did, the choices he made, the realities he walked in while asking the question, "What does this tell me about the kind of man Jesus was 2,000 years ago?"

Grit and Grime Gospel
Jesus was a real person living a real life. Everything around him was real as well. "The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed, which a man took and planted in his field." As he spoke these words, there had to have been babies crying, people coming and going, donkeys braying, camels doing whatever camels do, a whole mishmash of first-century activities going all around him.

When we filmed the scene of the feeding of the 5,000, what a glorious experience it was! The day was steaming hot in Morocco, where we shot much of the film, the crowd was 2,500 strong, complete with children, animals, and every other visual effect the art department could come up with. The cameras rolled and I walked through the throngs. Little ones were thrust into my embrace left and right. An old woman took my face and kissed it. A basket of loaves and fishes was laid in my hands.

After an hour, a look in the mirror showed sweat running down my neck, robes soiled from top to bottom, hair windblown. Our makeup artist took one glance and threw his arms up in surrender.

It really hit home that remarkable day. That's the way it must have been 2,000 years ago. It was real life, not always pretty. It was people, and people were poor, hungry, oppressed; emotions were running high; there was excitement, celebrating, laughter, and weeping. Field dust and mud was caked between my toes.

While we were filming, a sandal strap broke and I sat on a stump to fix it. Working this strip of leather into a fresh knot, it hit me—Jesus could raise people from the dead, he could feed thousands with a handful of scraps, he could walk across a stormy sea, yet he repaired his sandals with his own hands. I looked at the dirt under my fingernails, and thought, Jesus.

We would weave that small detail—repairing a pair of sandals—into the next shot where Jesus tells Peter to go fishing for the temple tax. Clumsy Peter, so perplexed and full of doubt with the Son of God sitting quietly in a doorway, enjoying the breeze, repairing his well-worn sandal in preparation for the journeys ahead.

I was doing my homework with great pleasure. Through it all Jesus became so intensely real, so much more tangible, so much more glorious and awesome—so much more God.

When an actor approaches a character, he grabs the script (in my case, the Gospel) and looks at what the character does, asking the question, "Why would he choose to do that, as opposed to anything else he could have done? What does it say about the character's priorities and motivations—about the character's heart?"

That made me realize something that hadn't occurred to me before: Jesus had a choice. I always had thought of Jesus just automatically blazing through his Father's will, fulfilling Scripture, doing a miracle here and there, all the way to Calvary, thank you very much.

But if anybody had a choice in life, it was the Son of the Living God. No one was forcing him to do the things he did. He chose to obey his Father every step of the way.

I looked at the Gospel story, highlighted the things Jesus did, all the time asking, "Why choose that?" in the context of the specific circumstances and human dynamics he was involved in. The final conclusion? He was a man with a whole different "why" steering his actions and governing his behavior. He was a man with one vastly different heart.

A Moroccan Welcome
My first journal entry of the film shoot included this excerpt:

"I don't know what day it is, except to say I arrived in Quarzazate (KWAR-za-zot), Morocco, on Saturday, and am guessing today is Thursday. We've just completed our second day of shooting—yesterday the temptations in the wilderness, today some preaching in Galilee as well as minor confrontations with Pharisees.

The Lord is with me and the entire production every step of the way. All are not just working hard, but high-spirited. There is a sense of purpose in this—even the non-Christians are working with a sense of doing something important. Hundreds—crew, extras, bystanders, police—are sitting around listening to the Word of God all day, and it is glorious."

The scene of Jesus in the wilderness was a challenge. Regardt and I had envisioned Jesus walking barefoot, but the desert floor was blanketed with jagged rocks and needle-sharp thorns. Though it wouldn't be fun, we decided to go for it. The pain of actually walking through the thorns would lend authenticity to the scene I could never achieve on even my best acting day.

So the sandals came off. With every step I landed on one barbed thing or another. Between takes, Khadija, our Moroccan makeup assistant, held my feet in her lap, tweezing out thorns, cleaning cuts, massaging bruises.

As if the thorns and rocks weren't enough, Regardt led me to the crest of a steep incline and explained the action for another shot—an exhausted Jesus would crawl up the incline, then just before making it over the ridge, slip, and tumble back down. Looking down the hill, all I could see were boulders—some the size of watermelons and some the size of me! We wouldn't be using a stunt man. I would be doing it. A sense of protection rose in my heart. "You won't get hurt. You'll get a little banged up, but you won't get hurt." I tumbled down that hill five, six, maybe even seven times.

That evening, I checked everything from the bottoms of my feet to the top of my head. My feet were pretty tender, there was an occasional scrape, cut, or bruise, but no real wounds or broken bones. Yes, I had gotten a little banged up, but not seriously hurt. God was faithful.

The day before we filmed Golgotha, Bruce Rudnick, the production designer, and I decided to walk to the location and pray. It was a breathtaking sight—a mound of barren black rock, ominously peaked with three wooden crosses. Bruce and I approached from the back side, scrambling up the loose rock, catching our breath as we took in the panorama of cultivated fields, rural villages, and desert expanse.

Finally, we came over the crest and stopped in our tracks. Local villagers, young and old, were sitting on rocks and in the dirt—in the shadow of the three crosses. Every so often one of them would walk over and touch the crosses or just stand looking up at them. More villagers were teeming up the slope from all directions. Finally Bruce whispered, "They're gathering at the Cross."

It was time to pray. We prayed for the success of the next day's work, for the people sitting around us, for the town of Quarzazate, and all of Morocco. We prayed that the cross of Jesus reenacted would bring a flow of real redemption into every heart witnessing it. We prayed and prayed and prayed.

The next day I would hang atop that hill for the better part of twelve hours with Bruce praying for me the entire time. Suspended from the beam, every joint and muscle screaming for release, I'd lift my head and look over the crowd, and there, behind everyone, would stand my friend Bruce's lone figure, lips moving in whispered intercession. It was a sight I'll never forget.

Stamped on My Heart Forever
Following the South African release of Matthew, I toured that country for six months, promoting the film and ministering. My quiet time with the Lord was usually fifteen minutes in the afternoon.

During one of those devotional times, I was reading Exodus 34—the Lord comes to Moses, passes before him, proclaims his name, and describes himself. I'd read that passage hundreds of times, but for some reason, for the first time I "saw" it. God was describing himself. God on God, straight from the source, no middle man.

What's the first word you'd use to describe God? All-powerful, exalted, all-knowing? What do you think is the first thing God wanted Moses to know about Him? Glorious, majestic?

How about compassionate? The first thing God revealed about himself to Moses that day was that he was compassionate.

The Lord goes on to describe himself further as "gracious," "slow to anger," "abounding in love," "abounding in faithfulness," "maintaining love to thousands," "forgiving," and finally (paraphrased), "just." Every one of the words is a matter of the heart! But it was that first characteristic—compassion—that I learned when I was filming.

It was Day Two and we were shooting the "Woe to Korazin" scene (Matt. 11:21-24). With just moments to go before the cameras rolled, I hadn't the slightest idea what to do. As much as I learned Jesus is full of joy and brimming with love, I also knew he was definitely not someone to mess with.

That's what presented the dilemma—the words appear so harsh and condemning, yet the hallmark of the Savior giving them was compassion, love, and mercy. How could I fuse the two together? All I could think to do was pray, "Lord, show me what it all looks like through your eyes."

There were hundreds of bodies milling around, paying no attention to me as I paced and prayed and looked at their faces. Then in a fraction of a fraction of a second, I "saw" with my heart—a sea of people living lives in ways he didn't plan.

People living lives away from his love, away from his care; outside of his goodness, his embrace, his plans, purposes, and hopes for them.

I felt like the wind had been knocked out of me. I couldn't breathe and my heart just broke. I would weep uncontrollably that day for more than an hour, unable to compose myself.

As I stood sobbing and shaking, the Lord stamped a Scripture on my heart—and I mean, stamped. A verse I'd read a thousand times came to life in me: "When he saw the crowds, he had compassion on them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd" (Matt. 9:36).

For the first time in my life, I understood what "compassion" means when used to describe Jesus Christ. It's a heartbreak so intense it screams in agony for the needless, pointless pain of people—people who need only turn to him. What I felt was so incredibly tragic. What I tasted was just a drop of water compared to the oceans of what it truly feels like for him. The compassion for people.

Young apostle Matthew, played by Matthew Roberts, saw it happen. By chance he was looking over at me when suddenly he saw my face change dramatically, and then I broke. Stunned, he whispered to himself, "He's living it."

Regardt was watching from the scaffolding and realized something special was going on. Things weren't quite ready, but he took a chance and yelled, "Action!"

"Woe to you, Korazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida!" I screamed through trembling lips, with a gash in my heart. These people were all going to their death—they were all living in death—and they had no idea. All they had to do was take his outstretched hand. It wasn't, "You heathens be damned!" It was "Open your eyes! Save yourselves! Come to me!"

I finished the speech and fell crying into Matthew's arms. F.C. Hamman, our Moroccan cinematographer, came down from the scaffolding, crying, and said, "That wasn't acting, brother; that was ministry."

"Woe to Korazin" was a huge scene, and normally big scenes like that are scheduled well into a shoot to give the cast and crew time to feel comfortable in their respective roles. But God needed me to experience that scene with its heartache and compassion right off the bat. He needed me to understand his heart right away, for it to be etched on my heart from the beginning so it would come through everything I did in front of the camera. "Come to me! Come to me! Come to me!" That's what he needed people to see; that's what he needed people to know.

It is unquestionably Jesus' fullest moment—the moment when someone does take his hand. It's the moment he lives and longs for—the moment he died for—Come to me!

Condensed from In the Footsteps of Jesus (237 pp., $19.99), © 1997 Bruce Marchiano. Used by permission of Harvest House Publishers, Eugene, Oregon.

	What did you think of this story?
	Please to give us your feedback.

Read more from 'People of Faith'

Home  |  People of Faith  |  Stories of Hope  |  Today's Culture
Build Your Faith  |  Laughing Matters  |  Archives  |  Contact Us

				Try an Issue of Today's Christian Free! Name Street Address City/State/Zip E-mail Address No credit card required. Please allow 4-6 weeks for delivery. Offer valid in U.S. only. Click here for International orders. If you decide you want to keep Today's Christian coming, honor your invoice for just $17.95 and receive five more issues, a full year in all. If not, simply write "cancel" across the invoice and return it. The trial issue is yours to keep, regardless. Give Today's Christian as a gift Buy 1 gift subscription, get 1 FREE!

FREE Newsletter Subscribe to the Today's Christian Newsletter    RSS Feed   RSS Help