As so many have pointed out, this Resurrection Sunday has many similarities to the first...everyone holed up at home. But we did have the ability to watch our church services online, so we did. Then, we finished something we have been watching all week, one episode a night.
Earlier this year, I began to see social media posts about something new...a series of videos about Jesus. The pictures and initial clips I saw didn't grab me; won't go into the reasons why but it was mostly just that I didn't have time to explore it. Then someone mentioned that it was done by the same folks who did a short Christmas video about a shepherd threeish years ago. I'd seen that video and thought it was very well done, and began to be curious about the series. I watched some of the short 'about the series' videos, but when I saw this one, I suddenly realized that this was something that had a focus on God that made it different than I originally thought. Episodes 1-4 are available free on the Chosen app, but it was crowd-funded, and sales of DVD's were funding the next series (episodes 9-16). I didn't want to watch the productions without contributing, so I ordered the DVD series, with the intention to watch it during Holy Week.
We watched Episode 1 on Palm Sunday, and one episode a night, then watched the final episode after this morning's church broadcast.
Then we went to the Chosen You tube channel and binge-watched the behind-the-scenes videos.
I cannot begin to tell you how impressed we all were with the whole production. Not just the finished product, but the whole heart behind the product.
See, even if they may not get a few specific minor cultural details exactly right, the overall take on it is solidly scriptural. But, where I got excited is that they took pains to show all the folks as real human beings; folks with back stories. These characters come across as genuine, real, believable.
Now, I don't have a problem with speculation on what characters said and did that was outside of biblical canon, so long as it is consistent with what IS biblical canon. If you've been around BLR very long, you know that I have a tendency to do such things myself (see In Which My Imagination Runs Away with Me), because, well, I think we are so used to the stories that are told in rather abbreviated, compressed, just-get-the-main-details-out narratives that we forget that the people in those stories were real, three-dimensional, breathing, hurting, human beings just trying to stay alive and do the best they could. And I LOVED some of the little details, such as Andrew and John eavesdropping on the conversation between Jesus and Nicodemus...and John had a tablet out, making notes.
So...if you haven't taken time to check it out....check it out.
It's amazing.
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