The Chosen (2021) s2e04

One of the features of The Chosen is that it often likes to start episodes in novel fashion. This time around  the episode starts with a long, wordless montage, introducing two brothers. They start as young boys and through the sequence of shots, gradually grow up to become the men. We witness one of them fall from a tree and damage his leg, which appears to have permanent consequences. We see them watch their father remarry. We watch as the younger brother (Simon) begins to seethe at Roman injustice and then leaves the family home. And then the elder brother (Jesse) leaving too to lie and wait at the Pool of Bethzatha in the desperate hope his disability will be healed. Simon, by contrast, joins the zealots. And so it is that two of the relatively minor characters from the Gospels take their shape across a wordless, yet effective and powerful 9 and a bit minutes.

Tabernacles

The context for this episode is the Feast of Tabernacles -- a Jewish festival practised then and still by Orthodox Jews today. This gives the show the chance to show Jesus as thoroughly observing and taking part in Jewish practices. Yet the wider unfamiliarity with the practice among non-Jews, means that we get quite a lot of The Chosen's typical context setting and exposition as dialogue, which is becoming slightly wearying. Matthew and Mary Magdalene -- as seemingly the least observant before -- act as audience surrogates who get to ask the questions so one of the disciples or other can explain to the people at home.

A useful comparison in this respect is the Israeli movie Ushpizin (2004), which manages to explain the essential points of the festival (also known as Succoth/Sukkot/Festival of Booths) and the motivations of its characters without it feeling laboured. It's an excellent film which should appeal to those interested in cinema and religious faith.

For what it's worth, both the healing at the pool of Bethzatha takes place in John 5:1-18, and Jesus going to Jerusalem during Sukkot is in John 7:1-24. Neither incident is mentioned in the Synoptic Gospels. There is, however, some interesting conflation here, because 5:1 starts by saying that Jesus went to Jerusalem for a Jewish festival, but it doesn't say which one. It may have been Sukkot, but if so it would seem to be the previous year's because at the start of chapter 6 he's back at the Sea of Galilee, and then goes onto Capernaum and then in 7:1&2 we read that he initially said he wasn't going to go to Sukkot because some were looking to kill him. So at first look it seems that these two events are quite separate, taking place at two different festivals.

There is, however, another possibility, because while at Sukkot in Jerusalem, Jesus does end up in front of a crowd and as things turn a bit nasty, he says "I perform one work and all of you are astonished" and he goes onto defend healing someone on the Sabbath, even though no miracle has been discussed, let along described. It seems to me, then, fairly plausible that at some point these chapters were in a different order and connected somehow. We know that is plausible because John 7:53-8:11 is entirely absent in the oldest remaining manuscripts of John, and turns up in unusual place in some of the other ancient manuscripts (including in Luke's Gospel after 21:38, where, frankly it fits a lot better).

I don't know if The Chosen was looking to draw attention to these unusual aspects of the text, or if the writers just saw a good opportunity to exercise their creative licence. I suspect the latter -- which is fine -- but personally, I'm glad they did because I haven't looked this closely at these passages before.

Other tensions 

If Jesus is concerned about upsetting people in Jerusalem, he is not showing it. But one person who is, is Schmuel who has set up in one of the poorer quarters of Jerusalem to do some preaching. Meanwhile we're introduced to some Roman soldiers at a checkpoint who are standing guard while some are being crucified (for "murder" Simon is told) as well as Atticus, a member of the "cohort urbanae" ("secret police"). 

The fact that one of the soldiers knows Atticus is "secret" police is a bit of a misnomer, but he's quickly established as a ruthless character, firing the hapless soldier who lets Simon through the checkpoint without proper justification. (Simon says he is visiting family near The Antonia Fortress, but, Atticus, points out, this is a military area. Instead of intervening to stop this person who is lying about their destination / motive, Atticus, is content to observe this potential security breach and hold back.

Eventually it emerges that Simon and his colleagues are planning an attack -- a Roman magistrate has become the target for Simon to assassinate -- and Atticus nor only knows about it, but is planning to intervene at the point that is most politically expedient. There's a discussion in an alleyway with another Roman (Petronius) about it and Atticus actually delivers the line "he wants to 'cancel his reservation'" with the kind of over eyebrow-raising delivery usually reserved for Austin Powers' Dr Evil. 

There's also tension between some of the disciples. Thomas complains to Nathanael that he finds Matthew "irritating", to which Nathanael observes that they're "kind of the same person". Matthew has his own concerns -- he's seen Schmuel and knows that it means potential trouble for Jesus: Schmuel called for Jesus' arrest in Capernaum.  

The healing at the Pool of Bethzatha

Those who know John's Gospel well will know this episode is coming from that earliest montage. Jesus and his followers are staying out of town so Jesus heads to Bethzatha specifically to perform this miracle. He brings Simon (not-yet-Peter), Matthew and John. There's more clunky exposition and then when they reach the crosses at the checkpoint the music changes and Jesus seems pensive. There's a clear suggestion he's thinking about his own crucifixion which, according to this show, he already knows about. 

Jesus having foreknowledge like this is not a big surprise, it's a regular feature of the show. The Gospels are unclear about what Jesus knew and when, but in The Chosen he always seems to act with either divine, or scriptural foreknowledge. Events rarely just happen to Jesus. Any links between them and prophecies in the Hebrew Bible are never just connections made by the author of the Gospel. It's always Jesus initiating them, knowingly fulfilling the words of the prophets. The night before, for example, the group has had a long discussion about a prophecy in Zechariah (14:16) about all the nations coming to celebrate Sukkot in Jerusalem and the show seems to take it as a given that Jesus absolutely knows what its fulfilment would be.

Part of the reason I dwell on this point (which could probably be related to any episode) is because when I was younger and part of a church that took a very similar general approach to the Bible, I heard this story  used as an example of quite a different understanding of Jesus' foreknowledge. According to that speaker Jesus had been emptied of all the divine foreknowledge he had prior to his time on earth and had to rely on following specific words of knowledge he got from the Holy Spirit. 

This story was used as a classic example, because it answered one of the overall puzzles with this story: why did Jesus only heal this one guy? The place was full of people wanting healing. Why just him? To that speaker it was because that was what the Holy Spirit was doing. It gets Jesus off the charge of a lack of compassion, but only defers that question to God himself.

The Chosen has a very different answer. Moments before they arrive, the other Simon (Simon the Zealot) has just been reunited with his brother. Their reunion is emotional, but confrontational (Simon knew where Jesse was and looks down on him as compromised). It ends with Jesse reading out the goodbye letter Simon wrote all those years ago, which ends with the line "When you stand on two feet I will know Messiah has come". Simon leaves to complete his zealot assignment and it becomes clearer that this was some kind of final farewell before his potential death. 

They arrive at the pool and Jesus passes Schmuel and there's a gulp, perhaps the closest the episode comes to acknowledging Jesus' reticence about going to Jerusalem during Sukkot. The passage unfolds largely  as it does in the text (though obviously with plenty of creative decisions), but once healed Jesse goes off into the streets of Jerusalem. And there he is seen by his brother, seconds before Atticus kills Simon in the act of assassinating the magistrate. Simon stops, the exact scenario mentioned in his letter all those years ago (his brother standing on two feet) has just come to pass. Their resulting reunification is genuinely moving.

In other words, it's a double-miracle, the super-supernatural, if you will. The Chosen's answer to the question of "why does Jesus just heal that one person, out of of all those who were there?" is that in so doing Jesus was saving two lives at once, Jesse's and Simon's. 

And perhaps, ultimately, it will save Schmuel's life too. For he witnesses the miracle and is also the one who asks the man why he is unlawfully carrying his mat on the Sabbath in John 5:10  (though Jesus and the other three already seem to have broken Sabbath rules by walking more than 1km). And while is initial response is to go and report this breach of the "oral tradition", there's a longer running story in play, which I suspect may not be resolved until the final season.

Jesus, Peter, John and Matthew leave the city as dusk beds in. Simon's basking in the glow of the confrontation as well as the miracle. John, perhaps, thinking about how best to write it down. But Matthew -- who Jesus hand-picked to witness this miracle, but doesn't then include it, or much like it, in his Gospel -- still has a question about timing. Why did he not wait another 30 minutes until Sabbath was over? Jesus chooses to be enigmatic. "Sometimes you gotta stir up the water" he replies, and he walks off, towards the camera with a satisfied grin across his face.