I just finished Searching for God Knows What.
Where to begin? Wow. You’ll just need to buy the book and read it for yourself. Seriously – just click the link and buy it straight from Amazon. It’s easy. They’ll ship it right to your home or office.
But enough of that. You’re interested in the title to this post – otherwise you wouldn’t be reading this.
I feel like maybe I’m spoiling the book here, but in the final chapter of Searching for God Knows What, Donald Miller suggests that the poet and playwright William Shakespeare may have been more of a prophet that we’ve given him credit for.
Granted I would say prophet is probably a strong word – but I can agree with modern day preacher (for his day).
I wish I could find a copy of the balcony scene from Baz Luhrmann’s 1996 movie William’s Shakespeare’s Romeo+Juliet but this will have to do… watch the clip for a refresher…
The clip doesn’t show it, but as you may recall, in the beginning of the play, Romeo thinks he’s in love with a girl named Rosaline, but as soon as he sees Juliet at a party he immediately falls madly in love with her. He understands now that his previous love for Rosaline was something formulaic and invented. He’s even criticized by his best friend, Mercutio who says Romeo simply “loves by numbers.” Sounds pretty formulaic to me.
Yet when he sees Juliet – their eyes meet and he feels a love that simply can’t be explained.
After he and his friends leave the party he returns with haste to try and catch a glimpse of his love.
But, soft! what light through younder window breaks?
It is the east, and Juliet is the son!
Arise fair sun and kill the envious moon,
Who is already sick and pale with grief,
That thou her maid art far more fair than she.
Romeo compares Juliet’s beauty to the brightness of the sun, after earlier comparing Rosaline’s beauty to the moon.
There’s more Miller discusses here, including the fact that when Romeo speaks of Rosaline he speaks in iambic pentameter, a rigid rhyme. But when he speaks of Juliet he switches to free verse, indicating a truer, more sincere love for Juliet, over the systematic or formulaic love for Rosaline.
Now imagine Juliet as the Christ figure and Romeo as the church.
As Juliet steps out on to her balcony she speaks:
Romeo, Romeo! wherefore art thou Romeo?
Deny thy father, and refuse thy name;
Or, if thou wilt not, be but scorn my love,
And I’ll no longer be a Capulet
Juliet expresses her love for Romeo but she also understands that they can never be one as long as she is a Capulet and he is a Montague.
As mortal men we are unable to face God in his Holiness and pure nature. Romeo and Juliet want to be together but their names keep them apart. If Romeo will simply cast off his name, or his born nature then they two may unite.
The Gospel of Luke puts it this way:
One day when large groups of people were walking along with him, Jesus turned and told them, “Anyone who comes to me but refuses to let go of father, mother, spouse, children, brothers, sisters—yes, even one’s own self!—can’t be my disciple. Anyone who won’t shoulder his own cross and follow behind me can’t be my disciple. – Luke 14:25-27
Miller says, “True love, love in its highest form must cost the participants everything… In exchange for what Scripture calls repentance, be renouncing our natures, by admitting our own brokenness, we may take all of Christ, identifying ourselves with His righteousness.”
Romeo, doff thy name,
And for that name, which is no part of thee,
Take all myself.
Miller continues, “Should Romeo take Juliet up on her proposition, he will not gain love for love’s sake, but rather Juliet herself. This idea is all biblical but the stuff of poets. The playwright understood that Christ’s invitation was not an offer of heaven or mansions or money; it was rather, Himself.”
Wow! How many times to I think about eternity and think about the joy of no pain or streets of gold – yet Christ offers even more – Himself! If Laurie and I lost our home, cars, money, computers and material goods I’d still want to spend the rest of my life with her and I’d be singing with John Lennon all day long, “Love is all You Need”. Christ is offering the same thing – life with Him in eternity!
Miller continues suggests that Shakespeare also carries on the Gospel theme with a bit of a Calvinistic approach.
“Romeo understands that he has no ability to change his own name, that it will not be an act of his own will that his nature is made new; rather it will be on the whim and wish of Juliet. If she calls him love, then he ill be called love, both his name and his nature changed, made new.”
I could go on but I feel I’m stealing Miller’s thunder as it is.
But what an amazing picture of the Gospel. In the trailers for Luhrmann’s movie, the story is teased as “The Greatest Love Story Ever” but now I can only imagine it as a parallel version to the true Greatest Love Story Ever – that of God for mankind.
“This is how much God loved the world: He gave his Son, his one and only Son. And this is why: so that no one need be destroyed; by believing in him, anyone can have a whole and lasting life. God didn’t go to all the trouble of sending his Son merely to point an accusing finger, telling the world how bad it was. He came to help, to put the world right again. Anyone who trusts in him is acquitted; anyone who refuses to trust him has long since been under the death sentence without knowing it. And why? Because of that person’s failure to believe in the one-of-a-kind Son of God when introduced to him.” – John 3:16-18
