The Chosen will inspire you to live for God in every situation

Season four of The Chosen premiered in cinemas at the start of this month, and has since dropped on major streaming platforms.

The first multi-series depiction of the life of Jesus has been so successful that its fourth season has been treated with the kind of acclaim that’s normally reserved for major Hollywood films, premiering in London’s Leicester Square. If you needed any more convincing of how big this gospel biopic is, it broke records for the highest crowdfunding media project, and its first three seasons have been viewed half a billion times. It’s been an overwhelming hit with Gen Z and is set to become the most traslated TV show of all time, overtaking Baywatch.

So far we’ve seen Jesus call the twelve, start his public ministry, deliver the sermon on the Mount, send out the disciples and do lots and lots of miracles.

When we see that God cares about all of it, every situation has potential and purpose

There’s also been some content that doesn’t appear in the Gospels themselves, but can be inferred from reading between the lines. And it’s some of these interactions that have struck me the most.

Fully human

As well as miracles and teaching that reveals Jesus as fully God, the everyday interactions he has with his followers, the crowds or the Romans show his human nature too – and that of his disciples. We regularly get to see Jesus’ sense of humour, the group’s squabbles and Simon Peter’s ability to always say the wrong thing at the wrong time.

True, we don’t read these details in the pages of our Bibles – and the show has been criticised by some for taking a few too many creative liberties – but most of these scenes are plausible, and some are likely to have happened in one form or another.

When I read through the Gospels, amid all the supernatural stories and authoritative teaching, I can forget that Jesus subjected himself to the limits, temptations and joys of being fully human too. To lose sight of this isn’t just to divert from a core tenet of our faith – that God did become man – but also undermines the beauty and wonder of the incarnation.

Everyday people

Along with giving us an insight into the humanity of Jesus, The Chosen offers us a glimpse into the lives of the people he hung around with. Again, the back stories created for characters such as Simon Peter or Mary Magdalene will be controversial for some, but the key point is that Jesus’ disciples were everyday people, figuring out how to orient their entire lives and priorities – from preaching the gospel and doing miracles to buying the groceries and doing dishes – around their rabbi.

This is all encapsulated in a scene from early in season four, where two of the disciples are sent to do laundry. One is unhappy about doing such a mundane job, thinking it should be left to others so they can get on with the important (read ‘spiritual’) work. The other disciple points out that, as followers of Jesus, we need to connect with what the people around us do in their ordinary life if we’re to show them how and why faith makes a difference. So, rather than grumbling, instead ask yourself what Jesus might want to teach you, in and through your everyday tasks.

Potential and purpose

The same can be true of us. If we believe that God is only interested in our spiritual lives, then the 95 per cent of our time spent outside of the gathered church context can seem unimportant, or simply a distraction. But when we see that God cares about all of it – right down to the small and seemingly insignificant – then every situation has potential and purpose. Every situation is an opportunity to ask how Jesus might live through us today.

I can forget that Jesus subjected himself to the limits, temptations and joys of being fully human too

And through every email we write, school run we do or film we watch, we’ll become more like Jesus, and make a difference for him that everyone in our workplace, friendship group and neighbourhood will get to see.

The life of Jesus was earth-shatteringly transformational, and yet it still had a lot of mundane and everyday bits – and we don’t need to shy away from that. Right from his first breath in the living room of a Bethlehem home to his final command to go into all of his world, his message is clear: he wants to be with us, wherever we are, whatever we’re doing, because he cares about our whole lives. It’s actually part of the wonder of God becoming man: the miraculous and the mundane, the extraordinary and the everyday, all bound up together.

Perhaps one of the gifts of The Chosen is to remind us, as Jesus’ followers today, he still cares about our mundane and everyday too.