When a book is adapted into a film or television series, it can offer fresh insights and perspectives on the original material. Seeing a scene visually often helps me to understand more of the context and to focus better on the circumstances of what was going on. Watching movies, shows, and documentaries about the Bible often gives me that experience, yet I’m very conscious of keeping in check with the inherent Word of God.
But then there are those times when it goes south, like when character depictions don’t add up or the director goes sideways in his/her vision or key details are neglected.
Sorry, this is not meant to be a critique …
In The Chosen, Jonathan Roumie’s portrayal of Jesus is stunning – in my humble opinion. I also get a realistic view of most all the characters in that series. Overall, I feel the show has been very well done, especially in the portrayal of Jesus’ humanity. What’s missing for me is His divinity. The depth of Jesus is missing, and it saddens me that this important event in the life of the Godman was omitted:
“And he was transfigured before them, and his face
shone like the sun, and his clothes became white as light.
And behold, there appeared to them Moses and Elijah, talking with him.”
Matthew 17:2-3, ESV
In Season 5 of The Chosen, the content creators left me lacking in the final episode, which was set in the Garden of Gethsemane. Jesus’ anxious pacing felt real, like I could start to feel His tunnel of fear – but the intensity of His anguish wasn’t reached. It was missing this gut-wrenching scene from Scripture that could have pulled me into Jesus’ anxious pain more deeply:
“And being in agony he prayed more earnestly;
and his sweat became like great drops of blood
falling down to the ground.”
Luke 22:44, ESV
That is intense! Hematidrosis is explained here, https://www.droracle.ai/articles/72471/what-is-hematidrosis. And scripturally, it’s explained here, https://www.gotquestions.org/sweat-blood-Jesus.html.
Needing to fulfill my visual desire, I turned on The Passion of the Christ, whose opening scene is in the Garden of Gethsemane. The portrayal of Luke 22:44 in that movie is magnificently intense. After rewatching it, I sat with the Lord and listened. “Think intense” was the download I quietly received.
The Vocabulary Dictionary defines “intense” like this, https://www.vocabulary.com/dictionary/intense. Within the definition it says, “Intense comes from a Latin word meaning “stretched,” implying that something has been stretched to its maximum limit.” Crucifixion involves those elements along with even more brutal treatment.
As I rolled all this over in my thoughts, the word “soldier” came to mind, along with these verses, “Share in suffering as a good soldier of Christ Jesus. No soldier gets entangled in civilian pursuits, since his aim is to please the one who enlists him (2 Timothy 2:3-4, ESV).”
As Christ followers, we’re enlisted by Christ Himself to please God according to His will, just as Jesus did. It’s not a duty for the faint-hearted. It’s self-sacrifice and it can be heavy. It’s also the greatest honor in life, “If anyone serves me, he must follow me; and where I am, there will my servant be also. If anyone serves me, the Father will honor him (John 12:26, ESV).”
So, when you think intense, think Jesus. He’s the only One who could carry out the most incredible act of love for each and every one of us to reconcile us with Our Creator, Lord, and Father.
“He is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours
only but also for the sins of the whole world.”
1 John 2:2, ESV
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