Shakespeare and the Christian

When I was an English major for the first 2 years of University, I loved my Shakespeare class most. We breezed through the most popular of Bill’s works and it taught me a lot about seeing true meaning behind his art. While comedies like “Comedy of Errors”, “As You Like It”, and “Midsummer Night’s Dream” were fun to take in, I particularly loved the tragedies. Sadistically, I loved how in most cases the protagonist dies: Romeo & Juliet die of conquering love, Othello meets his own doom through envy, Hamlet dies in order to follow through on his revenge, and Shylock is duped by greed and is forced to lose his religion (literally) in “The Merchant of Venice” (though debatably a tragedy). Although I was involved in a few high-school plays and dramas, I never had the experience of being the lead of a Shakespeare piece. I would have loved to be a Shylock or an Othello who lay it all down for their cause. That’s kind of like the Christian life, isn’t it? We build our lives in accordance to that which we believe in and (presumably) die for it. In a soliloquy in “As You Like It”, Jacques, a none-to-pleased exiled Lord, quips about how are lives are compared to just that:

"All the world's a stage,
And all the men and women merely players;
They have their exits and their entrances;
And one man in his time plays many parts…”

As Christians, that is “little Christs”, we live for His cause. In Him we and live and move and have our being. God is the director and we are His actors. He guides, directs, and asks for our best performances. Like protagonists in a Shakespearean tragedy, we eventually die. But our death is not death itself. It is life. Reward. Eternity. Maybe even an Oscar. Ok, maybe the Academy (ironically comprised of mostly Jewish critics) won’t recognize our lives as Oscar-worthy, but we should strive for that acclaim from God. We do it for His glory.

So act like you’re in the performance of your life. Don’t worry about the audience because you’ve only got One to perform to anyway. Everybody else is just a spectator and the best you can hope for is that your performance will affect others enough to want them to perform even better. Your performance should be infectious to others. Yet, you still only perform for an audience of One. There’s only one showing and it’s sold out so make it your best.

Enter.
Perform.
Exeunt.