David L Wetzell

The Story of Jesus and Us: A Love Story in the Shadow of the Cross is a biblical romance. It is half novel, half play. It is a novel that is written as a two person play where two minor characters from the Gospels, Mary and Clopas, give an oral performance of the Gospel. They together tell their first-hand account of the life, death and resurrection of Jesus, interwoven with their own unusual love story.

Their story follows the general contours of the Gospel of John with parts of Luke woven into a faithful, creative retelling of the story of Jesus. In it, Mary, the sister of Martha and Lazarus, is both the woman who Jesus saved from getting stoned in John 8 and the (recently wed) wife of Clopas who also was at the foot of the cross in John 19:25. Clopas is both the former blind beggar Jesus healed in John 9 and the disciple Cleopas on the road to Emmaus in Luke 24.

They tell of how Jesus saved each of them and how they met when Mary first anointed Jesus in Luke 7, in a desperate attempt to make him "save" her again by marrying her. Mary's strong passion and Jesus loving response made Clopas fall in love with Mary. But Mary also drew the attention of Judas Iscariot and it is he who Mary had eyes for at first, until much later after she is engaged to Judas and learns of his treacherous ways. Meanwhile, Clopas begins to see how much he needs the agape love of Jesus and community to learn to love himself and become a true disciple of Jesus. And it is only through Jesus' multiple interventions that these two very different people are able to become together a well of living water that helps to grow the family of Jesus.