Jesus of the Small Screen

THE THIRD SEASON of The Chosen, a television series about the life and ministry of Jesus, includes a moving scene between Jesus, played by Jonathan Roumie, and his disciple James, the son of Alphaeus, known as “Little James.”

Jordan Walker Ross, who plays James, has severe scoliosis, minor cerebral palsy, and a noticeable limp. His character, nervous, vulnerable, and troubled in spirit, requests a moment with Jesus.

Why would Jesus send out his disciples to heal the sick and lame, he asks, and not heal him?

Jesus, speaking with tenderness, explains to James that he could heal him, and if he did, James would have a good story to tell, as many others who had been healed by Jesus did. “But think of the story that you have, especially in this journey to come, if I don’t heal you. To know how to proclaim that you still praise God in spite of this. To know how to focus on all that matters so much more than the body. To show people that you can be patient with your suffering, heal on Earth, because you know you’ll spend eternity with no suffering. Not everyone can understand that. How many people do you think the father and I trust this with? Not many.”

James, fighting back tears, confesses that this explanation is insufficient. “It doesn’t make me feel like any less of a burden,” he says. Jesus acknowledges James’s physical limitations—he isn’t fast; he doesn’t look impressive—but says that those are things the Father doesn’t care about.

“You are going to do more for me,” Jesus tells James, “than most people ever dream.”

“When you pass from this Earth,” Jesus continues, “and you meet your Father in heaven, where Isaiah promises you will leap like a deer, your reward will be great. So hold on a little longer. And when you discover yourself finding true strength because of your weakness, when you do great things in my name in spite of this, the impact will last for generations. Do you understand?”

James, weeping, says, “Yes. Thank you, master.”

“A man like you, healing others,” Jesus says. “Oh, what a sight. I can’t wait to hear your stories when you return.” Jesus begins to walk away but stops and turns to James. Struggling with his own emotions, Jesus says, “And James, remember: You will be healed. It is only a matter of time.”

I’M A VERY UNLIKELY FAN of The Chosen, which debuted in 2019, and now has its fourth season rolling out in movie theaters across the country. I have had a longtime aversion to watching cinematic portrayals of Jesus. I’ve never found the actors portraying Jesus to be compelling; they make Jesus look emotionally distant and lethargic, or stoic and otherworldly. In the 1977 movie Jesus of Nazareth, the producers decided that Robert Powell shouldn’t blink, which I found weird and distracting. The whole thing just didn’t work for me.

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So at a relatively young age, at the outset of my own journey of faith, I decided I was done with cinematic portrayals of Jesus. I didn’t want to have a particular contemporary actor in mind when I imagined Jesus, because it would surely distort my understanding. My wife, Cindy, knew all this. But in 2020, during the pandemic, she recommended that I give The Chosen a try anyway. Her book club discussed each episode, and she fell in love with the series. She asked me to watch the first two or three episodes of Season 1 to get a feel for it; at that point I’d know. And I did. I became a huge fan. So did my daughter, Christine, for whom the series has become a touchstone, and my youngest son, David, who told Cindy and me after watching Season 1, “Jesus isn’t nearly as uptight as I thought he was.”

Unlike a lot of Christian entertainment, The Chosen is well produced and well written, the dialogue engaging and at times gripping, the acting across-the-board superb.

Roumie humanizes Jesus in a beautiful way. He’s good company; he smiles and laughs and enters into the world of those around him. People feel seen by him. He shows gentleness and kindness; he feels grief and pain. He exhibits, as Chris DeVille wrote in The Atlantic, “easygoing warmth.” There are scenes in which Jesus is weary; other times he’s angry.

In The Chosen, Jesus is compelling, approachable, and dignified; he is relationally sophisticated and relatable. The success of the series—through word of mouth, it has become a phenomenon within and to some degree even beyond Christian communities worldwide—is that many millions of viewers feel like they form an emotional connection to Jesus. It turns out that Jesus on the screen can add to rather than detract from the Jesus in the Gospels.

“My main goal is to portray Christ’s heart and love for all of humanity,” Roumie told the Catholic group Life Teen. “For me, as an actor, that begins with relating to my scene partners and everyone around me with a much more open heart, a sense of compassion and kindness.” He succeeds, and that draws you in.

The Gospels don’t always flesh out the personality of Jesus in the ways that we moderns have come to expect. The Chosen helps fill in the gaps of our imagination and empathy. It brings people on the page more to life. Viewers also get a better understanding of the time and place, and of what it was like for Jews to live under Roman occupation. We’re introduced to characters who represent the occupying Romans, including some very unpleasant ones, and at least one who’s more appealing. The series engaged a variety of Christian consultants, including a Protestant scholar, a Roman Catholic priest, and a Messianic Jew, to aid its fidelity to scripture.

The show also offers considerable focus on the disciples and how they interact. We see their affection for one another, the humor and banter between them, the formation of cliques. There are conflicting personalities, envy and resentment, struggles to connect. There are moments of confrontation and forgiveness.

The Chosen takes plenty of artistic liberties. Much of the dialogue is not found in the Bible, though scenes that are based on the Bible are true to it. Matthew is on the autism spectrum. There are fictional backstories and fictional characters, including Peter’s wife, Eden, and Thomas’s fiancée, Ramah. We see the disciples deal with marital struggles and financial anxieties.

We see, too, Jesus providing leadership to his followers, dealing with them as a group as well as individually, understanding the personalities he’s interacting with, discerning what each person needs. And there are powerful and memorable scenes: Jesus meeting the Samaritan woman at the well; embracing and forgiving Mary Magdalene; inviting Matthew to join his team; healing a man with leprosy; conversing with children; and having intense conversations with Nicodemus.

WHEN I WAS ABOUT 20, I told my sister that I was a bit intimidated by the epistles of Paul in this one respect: I had the sense that he had reached the limits of language to describe his love for Jesus. I told my sister, in effect, “How on earth am I supposed to fall in love with a person I’ve never met, a person I’ve only read about in the Gospel accounts?” Jesus seemed impressive, his teachings sublime. I developed a profound gratitude for what I had come to believe he did for me on a hill outside the city walls, on a cross made of wood. But I needed more.

Over time, I got more. A sense that I was part of an unfolding drama with a purpose and an author. People of faith who walked the journey with me, extending love, grace, and a healing touch along the way. Beauty, in music, nature, art, and architecture that have helped me see glimmers of the transcendent. And now, of all things, I can add what began as a small, crowdfunded project that has been seen by an estimated 100 million global viewers.  

[From the July/August 2016 issue: The unbelievable tale of Jesus’s wife]

I could never have anticipated that The Chosen would enrich my faith. Maybe that’s because for many of us who are Christians, faith is not primarily an intellectual ascent, though the intellect can certainly be involved. Nor is it first and foremost about embracing dogmas, though teachings and decrees matter. It is above all about having our affections won over, not to an idea as much as to a person. And The Chosen helps us—or at least helps me—understand a bit better the person of Jesus. In this world, we need hints and shadows of the things to come.  

The Chosen isn’t everything, obviously; it’s only a series, and Jonathan Roumie is only an actor. The show is certainly not to everyone’s taste. But for some of us, for whom faith hasn’t always come easily, there is often a gap between where we are and where we want to be. Sometimes, it seems more like a gulf. We’ll take bridges where we can find them.