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A Die Hard Christmas Pageant, Part 4
Merry Christmas, Wesley Bros fans!
And welcome back to part 4 of the Die Hard Christmas Pageant! This week, our hero John Wesley sneaks through the vents to avoid the evil Herod-the-Great and his henchmen, only to stumble upon the very object of Herod’s schemes…the baby Jesus doll!
We’re ending 2024 with this silly series to take a break, to give all of our brains a rest from seriousness, and because, well…Die Hard is a Christmas movie. Please enjoy these two pages I bring you today, and tune in next week to watch the story unfold!
Any Wesley Bros merchandise orders will be shipped after Christmas now! Liturgical calendars, books, and prints are all available in the Etsy store! You can also support Wesley Bros Comics on a regular basis as a Patreon sponsor. I am a United Methodist deacon working in the church, and these comics are an independent venture I do in my free time. Thank you for reading, and for any support you can give to share the love with others!
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A Die Hard Christmas Pageant, Part 5
Welcome back to Part 5 of a Die Hard Christmas Pageant! While our hero John Wesley has been crawling through vents and stealing the baby Jesus doll before Herod can get to it, our villains have cracked the code and readied themselves to “honor” the newborn king! There are only a few entries left in this silly story to end 2024 and kick off the New Year. While I have tried to fill up every page with liturgical jokes and tributes to both Die Hard (it’s a Christmas movie!) and Methodism, I am also hoping to subtly show the passing of Christian time from Advent to Epiphany, with blue and purple backgrounds (symbolic of Advent) giving way to gold and green backgrounds (holy days and ordinary time), with the exception of occasionally highlighting Herod with red to indicate his blood-thirst. The church carpet has remained pink through every panel as a string of joy (the pink candle on our Advent wreaths) through the entire story. These details are mostly just for me and my own nerdiness, but I thought I’d let you in on it as well.
May your year end in blessing and contemplation on the many ways God has remained present through thick and thin. Until the next post, my friends!
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A Die Hard Christmas Pageant, Part 6
Happy Epiphany, my darlings! Epiphany is this beautiful moment in the Christian year where we notice God’s brilliant, easily-missed revelation. While we tell the tale of the magi following a star on Epiphany, I love to remember how even with a celestial event revealing God breaking into the world, only three-ish wise foreigners noticed enough to follow it and see what it meant. I take it not only as a reminder that God’s revelation is clear and presently available for all people, but how easily we tend to miss it.
But enough of that meaningful reflection, we’re trying to wrap up a series conflating the Die Hard movie with a small church christmas pageant! In part 6, John finally confronts Herod and we hear the villainous monologue we’ve all been waiting for. Also, couldn’t help but Method-ize the famous Die Hard line, “This time John Wayne does not walk off into the sunset with Grace Kelly,’ to which Bruce Willis replies, “It’s Gary Cooper, a—-ole,” and everyone laughs and laughs. I recognize this joke is for the exactly three people in my audience who will find it hilarious.
Our story will conclude with the next post! And until then, may you find the light of Christ, however subtly it shines into your gloom, my friends.