The Gospel According to Romeo & Juliet

So this week I spent 4 nights of the week and one full day hearing the wisdom of Don Miller. In fact, I had a chance to just sit and talk with him over a brew at the local pub. As we talked about his life in Portland, conversation ventured into what he spoke about previously that evening. He exposited the play Romeo and Juliet as both symbolic of Christ’s love and relationship with his people and a limited allegory of the political/religious upheaval of 16th century Catholicism/Protestantism.

If you remember the play, Don maintains that the “balcony scene” is inconsequential and unnecessary without reference to Christ’s love for the church. The Christ-figure Juliet goes so far as to say that to love her, Romeo must “deny thy father and refuse thy name,” to which Romeo proclaims that he is unable within himself. This “salvation” scene, wrought with deep love, not simple facts or wrote prayers, reveals Shakespeare’s understanding of the Gospel that far-surpasses our post-Enlightenment culture’s four spiritual laws and scientific evangelism. The deep love that begins in this scene is not consummated until the end of the play, when Juliet drinks a poison that makes her rise in three days. Romeo dies with her, that he may live with Juliet forever in death. At the end of the play, both lie on the altar together. What a beautiful picture of the love of Christ – he’s willing to die on our behalf, then be raised again to have a relationship with us. And we – out of the same love that he showed us – are willing to die for him that we might live with him in eternity.

Well-worth your time to re-read Romeo & Juliet (or re-watch it). And if you have the means, talk to Don about it.