R&V At the Movies: The Chosen Episode 3

I told you I couldn’t get enough of The Chosen! I’m back with more to rave about in this excellent series on the life and ministry of Jesus. 

If you missed our review of the first two episodes, you can catch up on The Chosen now. The series is a crowd-funded media production from Angel Studios, free to watch online through their website or on your mobile device, the BYUtv website, The Chosen YouTube page, and VidAngel. You can also watch the series via The Chosen TV app, which is available on iTunes and Google Play. The show is in its second season, with five more seasons to go.

The Chosen Episode 3: What to Expect

Episode 3 of The Chosen features Jesus spending time teaching children prior to his time in public ministry. Once more, the creators of The Chosen have taken a few bits of Scripture and expanded them into an experience we can relate to today.

The young girl in this episode, Abigail, is not shy about asking questions of Jesus or inviting her friends to meet him. Jesus hasn’t begun to speak publicly. He is a traveling carpenter with a tent, a fire pit, and tools. He teaches some and works some. It is a risk for Abigail to seek out this strange man on the edge of her village. He could be dangerous. “I am, to some, but not to you,” Jesus tells Abigail.

Finding the Love: Faithifying Your Viewing

In the Gospels, when children surround Jesus, the disciples try to shoo them away. Instead, he tells them, “Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these. Truly I tell you, anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it” (Mark 10:13-16 NIV).

When the children return again and again to meet and interact with this stranger, Jesus isn’t too busy with his work. He isn’t too important or too occupied with adult things. He shares the work he has to do with the children. He brings them alongside him. He invites them to ask him questions. He welcomes them into the fold of his daily life. He exchanges their curiosity for love and attention.

It made me think about how powerful and important our presence with children can be. Who doesn’t remember an attentive adult who set aside what they were doing so they could spend time with us, ask us questions, and entertain our own questions?

I walk my youngest son to school each day. It’s a short walk, just ten minutes or so, but those ten minutes can be filled with the most wondrous conversations… or they can be robbed by my own distracted mind. If I am not fully present mentally, I miss out on that opportunity to hear my son and let my son know that I see him, his questions, his wonders, and his thoughts. I miss out on an opportunity to love him.

There are a dozen ways I can be sucked away from the moment—social media, text messages, even my own rambling mind—but what a gift it is to occupy the present, to be fully engaged with the people who are in your immediate space, to love the ones you’re with, so to speak. This is what Jesus models for us, in the Scriptures and on this show.

Children still possess an openness and tenderness to the world around them, a tenderness I am anxious to preserve in my youngest son. He’s ten now, just a few short years away from the nearly unavoidable cynicism of young adulthood. Jesus tells the little children they have a unique faith, a faith they should cling to as hard as they can. There are bumps and bruises coming; the world will try to break you, but hold tight to your faith. 

Paul instructed the Christians at Ephesus on how to manage the world’s attempts to break you: “Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand. Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place, and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace” (Ephesians 6:13-15 NIV).

These are the defenses Jesus encourages the children to take. Perhaps we can take up our own belts of truth, breastplates of righteousness, and shoes of peace to walk forward into today.

Angel Studios has secured crowd funding for the first two seasons and are working towards funding season three. If you want to make sure all seven seasons of The Chosen are able to be produced, go binge watch something that will enrich your faith and then support the future production by visiting The Chosen’s website.