Pastor Devin Strong, Spirit of Peace Lutheran Church.

My Sunday School faith came alive watching Godspell and Jesus Christ Superstar in the 1970’s, but generally speaking, I do not enjoy religious movies or religious characters on television. With rare exceptions, like Father Mulcahy of MASH fame, Hollywood tends to portray religious people as flat, one-dimensional moralists, like Pastor Jeff on Young Sheldon, or it insists on bringing Hollywood glitz to the stories of the Bible, as in the classic film, The Ten Commandments. 

All of this explains why I was skeptical when my wife suggested that we check out The Chosen on Prime Video. First released in 2017 and filmed in rural north Texas, The Chosen is the first television series to air in the U.S. about the life and ministry of Jesus. I know, a two-hour religious movie is one thing, but a whole series about the Lord with three seasons and counting?! But it works. The ground-breaking serial does its best to be faithful to scripture, often quoting the Bible word for word. The sets are authentic and the characters earthy. At the same time, the show does not try to BE scripture. In fact, it pulls stories from all four Gospels and places them in a new order than we traditionally read them. It tries to bring familiar Bible stories to life and explicitly challenges the viewer to learn more by reading the Bible for ourselves.

There is an ancient Jewish tradition called Mid-rash, which is telling a story about a Bible story. That’s what The Chosen does. It fills in the gaps, imagining the backstory of each of the Apostles. One of my favorites so far is Matthew, the tax collector, who seems to be on the autism spectrum. According to the show, Matthew’s great skill with numbers has made him wealthy and a favorite employee of Rome, but the taxman is out of sorts, questioning his choices until Jesus calls him. Much of The Chosen is told through the eyes of Nicodemus, the leading Pharisee and potential follower of Jesus who makes a nighttime visit to the Lord in John 3. The show puts both the religious leader’s yearning and his reluctance on full display. It also strives to put well-known passages in context, as when the Lord helps Peter and his team find a miraculous catch of fish in Luke 5. In the show, the fish are crucial because they help Peter pay a massive debt in back taxes. These characters have layers; Jesus is real, and the miracles are powerful without being sickly-sweet.

From my glowing praise, you might think that I am an investor, which I am not, though I could be since The Chosen received more than $5,000,000 in crowdfunding directly from fans to help bring it to the airways. Neither am I a personal friend of the series creator, Dallas Jenkins. I am just a big fan.

Besides offering a recommendation for one of the better things on television right now, I write about The Chosen because it reminds me of how Jesus comes to us at Christmas: real, earthy, and human. God’s arrival in our midst is no Hollywood production. Jesus is low-budget and genuine. He does not present himself in glory in the Temple but instead to shepherds in a manger. The Lord of Love leads not with his power but with his infant-vulnerability. My prayer is that it is precisely Jesus’ authentic substance that will allow him to touch you this holiday season.

God Love You, and So Do I!