It was an evening approximately one year ago that I first heard about the TV program The Chosen, while driving down Van Dyke Road just north of Tampa listening to the radio.
I am not sure which radio show I was listening to because I stopped on it while channel-flipping. I think the guest was Dallas Jenkins, The Chosen's creator and director, but I'm not even sure about that. The only things I am certain of are that the program's concept sounded fascinating and innovative and that I felt I should watch it.
I didn't exactly jump on the bandwagon however, for it was not until three weekends ago -- after hearing that Season Two would launch on Easter night -- that I finally viewed Series One by indulging in some late-night and early-morning binging. Having done that and having watched the live streams of Season Two's episodes as they've been released, I am very, very happy to report that the show is everything it's been cracked up to be.
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If you have not heard about The Chosen, here's the quick description: It is a first-of-its-kind, a television series about Jesus that does not simply follow him around showing him perform miracles. Instead it focuses on other figures from the New Testament and portrays how they are affected when they come in contact with him.
Liberated from the time constraints of a movie and the control of a studio or network (more on that later), the creators of The Chosen are able to flesh out biblical characters by giving them backstories and depicting details of their individual lives and struggles. And remarkably, they pull this off in a way that is faithful to Scripture: Rather than alter it, they enrich it by making the characters intimately relatable and inviting viewers to feel an emotional kinship with them.
Believers and non-believers will both enjoy this show and be captivated by it -- and importantly, the former need not worry that the latter are getting fed some diluted, dumbed-down version of the real McCoy.
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It is well-known that Simon, aka Peter, was a blue-collar fisherman who acted impulsively. It is almost as well-known that Matthew, although a Jew, worked for the occupying Romans as a tax collector and was therefore not exactly popular around town. The Chosen takes these two facts and uses them to develop an entirely plausible subplot in which Simon and his brother Andrew are drowning in debt, in arrears for taxes, and on the verge of losing everything and possibly going to prison -- with Matthew participating in their persecution because he works for the bad guys.
The parallel stories of the fishermen brothers and treasonous taxman are woven brilliantly together and used to show the profound personal importance (to the brothers) of Jesus's first miracle of the fish, and also to highlight the very human tension between the parties. Simon's seething animosity towards Matthew is palpable even after they are both called to follow Christ as fellow disciples.
Matthew's social awkwardness as a man whose brain is hyper-focused on numbers, particularly in one scene where he complains about people speaking "in riddles" when discussing spiritual matters, is vivid. The creators of The Chosen freely admit that they are depicting him as having Asperger's (a reasonable inference for a man with a savant-like ability to do complex mental math and quickly discern weights and measures).
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The gravity of the wedding of Cana and healing of the paralytic are likewise presented in bold.
Sure, we know what Jesus did with the water at the wedding after Mary told him the wine had run out, but The Chosen rescues twenty-first century Westerners from the narrow mindset that this simply allowed the reception not to lose steam. Instead we are made to realize how big a deal a first century Jewish wedding was; how it involved a celebration lasting days, not hours; and the importance it had socially as well as personally. We are made to realize that the wine running out would have not merely cut short a party, but would have brought crippling shame and humiliation down upon the family of the bride.
And there's more, with The Chosen using the wedding to show Jesus's humanity. Whereas movies and mini-series usually depict him as being somewhat above the emotional fray, here we see him joking and dancing and joyful, and we even see him somewhat hesitant when his mother calls him to do something about the empty wine casks. As someone who has expressed my distaste for certain inter-denominational bickerings, I am happy that The Chosen's portrayal of these interactions between Jesus and Mary have been praised by Catholics as well as Protestants.
We also get introduced to Thomas in the wedding episode. Not yet a disciple, he appears as one of the caterers, is obviously smitten with the daughter of the vintner, and on more that one occasion he fretfully doubts (of course!) whether enough wine has been supplied for the celebration.
One episode later Jesus cleanses the leper and heals the paralytic. It is right before the latter miracle that we get our strongest glimpse so far of his fiery side, when he makes eye contact with the prosecutorial Pharisee Shmuel and defiantly shocks him by reading his mind and daring him to question what he is about to watch.
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The most compelling figure in the show is the Sanhedrin elder Nicodemus, played by veteran India-born actor Erick Avari.
While Nicodemus is certainly not unimportant in the Bible, he doesn't get much ink in it either. He is mentioned only three times, all in the Gospel of John, but The Chosen catapults him into the opening scenes as he travels from Jerusalem to Capernaum for an annual meeting with Capernaum's Pharisees, whence he quickly becomes the central character of Season One.
We see Roman authorities, starting with the antagonistic Praetor Quintus, attempt to exploit Nicodemus's good reputation for their own ends.
We see him go reluctantly to Capernaum's red quarter and try to help an outcast woman named Lilith (actually Mary Magdalene under an alias) by attempting to exorcise the demons that have possessed her.
His personal modesty and openness are revealed not only by his reaction to the failed exorcism, but by his measured response to the arrest of John the Baptist and his curiosity-filled handling of rumors that miracles are occurring.
We sense his trepidation as he walks a metaphorical tightrope to protect his standing, diplomatically rebuking overzealous colleagues on the one hand and still upholding Jewish law on the other -- all while secretly seeking to discern what kind of supernatural happenings might be afoot in this hinterlands city.
Some of the Bible's most famous passages appear in the third chapter of the Gospel of John when Jesus and Nicodemus have a secretly-arranged nighttime meeting. For example, most people know of John 3:16 ("For God so loved the wold...") but I'm willing to bet that very few people realize that verse was delivered directly from Jesus's mouth to Nicodemus's ears. The Chosen fills this blind spot by presenting their meeting in a moving, unrushed scene that feels almost like a revelation: You have heard these passages many times before, but now it feels like you're hearing them for the first time, for as the Lord and the Sanhedrin make eye contact and talk sincerely to one another you will find yourself saying to yourself, "Oh, that's where that comes from!"
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One of my favorite plot devices in this series is how it ties things together with flashbacks to Old Testament stories.
Season One's finale concludes with the encounter between Jesus and the woman at the well, after having opened by flashing back to the day Jacob dug the well while passing through Canaan almost 2,000 years earlier.
In the flashback a Canaanite approaches Jacob and says this is not a location where underground water can be struck. During their ensuing conversation the Canaanite wonders aloud why Jacob's family would opt to follow "an invisible god whose promises take generations to come true, who makes you sojourn in strange places, and he broke your hip!" He laughingly describes this as "a strange choice," to which Jacob responds by saying, with a glint in his eye: "We didn't choose him, he chose us."
Another flashback occurs when the previous episode starts with Moses forging the bronze serpent on a pole during the exodus, for backslid Hebrews to look upon for healing after being bitten by the horde of poisonous snakes (Numbers 21:9). When one of his frustrated fellow Hebrews asks him why he is doing something that makes no sense, Moses sternly responds: "It wasn't my idea...I've leaned to do what he says without questioning." We find out later that this scene presages the nighttime meeting between Jesus and Nicodemus, during which Jesus tells Nicodemus that "as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life" (John 3:14-15).
Season Two tweaks things by starting not with a flashback but a flash-forward, to several of the disciples-tuned-apostles gathered together for the first time in years. John realizes it is time to put things in writing after years of spreading the gospel by word of mouth, and we get to watch him mull things over and finally decide upon an opening line that will become one of history's most famous: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God."
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Although my blog posts are rarely given over to gushing praise, I simply am not going to use this one to pick any nits. There are a couple of things I can think of in The Chosen that I consider nits, but they are minute, and unimportant, and whether they are "pick-worthy" at all is entirely subjective.
I will close by noting how The Chosen is produced, seeing as how it is not a network show (ABC, NBC, HBO, etc.) or streaming service production (Netflix, Hulu, etc.).
As noted previously, this series is the brainchild of Dallas Jenkins, who in addition to directing it helps write the scripts along with several co-authors. They collaborate with a research team to ensure historical accuracy as far as culture, customs, clothing, and sets are concerned.
Jenkins, a devout non-denominational Protestant, of course wants to strike a strong chord getting the theology right too. To that end, he consults with Father David Guffey (a Catholic priest), Rabbi Jason Sobel (a messianic Jew, i.e. a Jew who believes in the divinity of Jesus), and Dr. Douglas Hoffman (a professor and associate dean at the Talbot School of Theology, and ordained minister in the Evangelical Free Church of America).
Obviously there are set designers, camera crews, editors, et al to make The Chosen's cinematography so good... and composers, musicians, et al to create its mellifluous soundtrack... and, oh yeah, actors and actresses to bring the characters to life and make us feel for them.
This costs a lot of money, a factor that would usually be alleviated by having a Hollywood studio or television network or entertainment mogul foot the bill. But Jenkins & Co. didn't want somebody else financing the project, because that would introduce ROI (return on investment) concerns and sacrifices in ownership, and with that would come loss of control with the financiers getting say on content.
What was the path out of this dilemma? Jenkins turned it over to God by way of the people, for lack of a better phrase.
Season One was entirely crowdfunded with some 19,000 individuals making donations that covered the costs and got it onto the airwaves; and by airwaves, I mean YouTube and Facebook and a free app (craftily named "The Chosen") that you can download from the Apple or Android app stores. If you don't like watching TV on your tablet or cell phone, no problem -- as The Chosen plays on the app you can stream it from there directly to your television, as long as your television has a streaming device such as Roku, Firestick, etc.
It costs absolutely nothing to watch The Chosen and you are under no obligation to make any donations, but the app does have a "pay it forward" feature that allows you to make donations to cover streaming expenses and fund future seasons. This is how Season Two got funded, and to date funding for Season Three has exceeded expectations.
Another way you can help pay things forward is by purchasing merchandise from the show's "gift factory" web site. Naturally the merchandise includes clothing, but it also includes devotional books and a companion Bible study guide and DVD's (for those who are technologically challenged!) and other stuff.
If you haven't watched this show yet, get off your duff and do it. There is no excuse not to, and trust me when I say you'll love it.
