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I have been waiting to post this article until The Chosen released the Season 5 teaser. The cliff hanger from last season of The Chosen was when Jesus mounted a colt and began to ride it toward the city of Jerusalem in the distance. The Chosen season five will cover the last week of Jesus from the entry into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday to the Last Supper, the agony in the garden of Gethsemane and the arrest all on Thursday.
Five days is not much of a time period to cover with eight full episodes so I expect the Chosen to take liberties to add more back-stories and extra-biblical character development. We know what will happen throughout the eight episodes because the Chosen, for the most part, has been faithful to the Gospel story. What we don’t know is how the characters and their particular personalities will react to the events and we don’t know how their back-stories will unfold. We don’t know what will be added or what will be cut. The Chosen always has a surprise or two in each season. Here’s what I will be looking for…
On Monday of holy week Jesus and the apostles come across a fig tree and Jesus is hungry. Finding no fruit on the tree he curses it.
The Chosen will have an opportunity here to use some of their budget for a cool looking miracle. Even though the apostles discovered that the fig tree had withered the next day, they might show the fig tree instantly wither and die?
The theological significance of this scene reflects God's disappointment with the lack of fruit produced by Israel. The fig tree was a symbol of Eden’s tree of the knowledge of good and evil. The cursing of the tree, ‘May no one ever eat of it again’, stands for the judgment against sin and the sins of Israel as a whole.
This scene will be tricky for The Chosen because, so far, they opted to portray Jesus as mild-mannered, approachable and humorous with mostly a gentle lamb persona. Will Jonathon Roumi be able to turn on his lion persona? Will he be able to rage with a whip and create fear in the hearts of the pharisees? Based on the teaser i think he will!
We’ve seen Roumi’s Jesus as someone who confronts the Pharisees with confidence but this scene calls for righteous anger and a physical expression of his masculine gusto. Hopefully they don’t pull any punches and we see the Lion of Judah coming out to balance the previously meek portrayal of Jesus.
The theological significance of this scene is that Jesus uses the words of Isaiah as a way to show that he is fulfilling the prophets. The marketplace was set up in the court of gentiles. They have taken away the gentiles' place of prayer. Jesus insists that the Temple is ‘a house of prayer for all the nations’, Jew and Gentile.
According to the scriptures, Satan entered into Judas. “...the chief priests and the scribes were seeking a way to put him to death, for they were afraid of the people. Then Satan entered into Judas, the one surnamed Iscariot, who was counted among the Twelve, and he went to the chief priests and temple guards to discuss a plan for handing him over to them” (Luke 22:3-4).
So far, in The Chosen Satan has not had many scenes. There have been a few exorcisms but nothing that would make us wonder at the supernatural reality of demons. The first episode showed Mary Magdalene possessed and it looked as though she was merely ill. Here’s an opportunity to be creative in portraying Judas being taken over by Satan. What would it look like for a possessed man to be at the Last Supper? Demonic possession is no sublte mood change. Judas ought to be seen as having a noticable physical aversion to Jesus and the Eucharist.
This is one of the scenes that is only in the Gospel of John. So far The Chosen has drawn from John’s gospel a few times. Most notably the Wedding at Cana episode and the raising of Lazarus. So I’m pretty sure we’ll see it happening at the Last Supper. Jesus is the “servant of the servants of the People of God”. Here he teaches the paradox of servant leadership. I can see The Chosen building in some extra dialogue here, maybe even humor. He also teaches the Law of Love which again fits nicely with the Roumi version of Jesus.
This scene calls to mind the command God gave to Moses to remove his sandals. It also calls to mind the laver at the Temple and before that at the Tabernacle. The water there was used for ceremonial washing of the priests’ hands and feet. Both of these Old Testament washing scenes are a preparation for a priestly encounter with God. This happens at Mass when the priest washes his hands during the lavabo rite. This washing is a prelude to the institution of the priesthood which happens when Jesus says, “Do this in memory of me”. He commissions them to offer the sacrifice of the Mass and cleanses them to handle the Eucharist.
Unlike many paintings of the Last Supper which show only bread and wine, there will most likely be a whole spread, a seder banquet on the table. When Jesus is eating the lamb with his apostles, there might be an opportunity to talk about the Passover Lamb as a type of Eucharist. When he begins the blessing, he will use the Jewish Berakah prayer which we as Catholics are familiar with... “Blessed are you Lord God, king of the universe…”. This prayer was said a few times during the Wedding at cana episode so I'm sure we will hear Jesus say it. It will be very annoying if, during the words of consecration, Jesus adlibs or goes off script. We want it to sound like scripture. Jesus should take just the bread, say the blessing, break it, and giving it to his disciples say, “Take and eat; this is my body.” Then taking a cup, give thanks, give it to them, saying, “Drink from it, all of you, for this is my blood of the covenant, which will be shed on behalf of many for the forgiveness of sins.” (Mt 26:26-28). It is too important to mess up or to be cute by adding or taking away words.
Luke’s description of the Garden of Gethsemane scene is unique. "And being in agony he prayed more earnestly; and his sweat became like great drops of blood falling down to the ground" Luke, a physician, is the only evangelist that records that Jesus’ sweat became like drops of blood. There is a scientific explanation for this. It is called hematidrosis. Small capillaries burst around the sweat glands and blood comes out mixed with sweat. It happens to some people during great mental stress or fear.
Will The Chosen’s Gethsemane be a beautiful garden reminiscent of Eden? Jesus was there to begin a reversal of what the first Adam had done in Eden. Will they show that it is a place where olives are crushed? Gethsemane means ‘olive press’. Just as a crushed olive bleeds oil, Jesus crushed by the weight of the world’s sins exudes his precious blood.
This scene also features an angel according to Luke 22:43, "There appeared to him an angel from heaven, strengthening him". Does The Chosen have the budget to create a believable supernatural being? Maybe. They did create a believeable walking on water scene using special effects.
According to John's gospel, the temple guards come to arrest Jesus but they are knocked down to the ground when Jesus goes to confront them. “So Judas got a band of soldiers and guards from the chief priests and the Pharisees and went there with lanterns, torches, and weapons. 4 Jesus, knowing everything that was going to happen to him, went out and said to them, “Whom are you looking for?” 5 They answered him, “Jesus the Nazorean.”He said to them, “I AM.” Judas his betrayer was also with them. When he said to them, “I AM,” they turned away and fell to the ground” ( John 18:3-6).
Jesus invokes to himself the holy name of God, I AM. Like an exorcism, this causes a supernatural reaction from his enemies. Will The Chosen use John’s version of the event? If so, how will this scene play out?
Peter has been portrayed as very masculine in The Chosen He looks more like a bodybuilder than a fisherman. So I can see him getting into an altercation with the temple guards and even cutting the ear off of one of them.
Something else that might happen is the development of some of the characters that appear during the traditional Way of the Cross such as Simon the Cyrene who helped Jesus carry his cross. I heard that the woman with the hemorrhage may be revealed as Veronica who washes Jesus' face even though that is a Catholic tradition and not in scripture. Will Mary have more of a role before he meets her on the Way of the Cross, station 4 or will The Chosen leave that out since it is not in Scripture?
Season 5 will come out this coming April during Holy Week. This will hopefully make our lenten preparations for Easter more vivid. Until then we can prepare by reading the gospel accounts of these events more closely.
I am a life-long Catholic, husband, dad, teacher and former football coach. I've been teaching the Catholic Faith to young men, religious educators and catechists since 1998. My academic background, MA is in Theology and Catechetics. Email: gary@apexcatechetics.com
