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Reflections on The Chosen

A few days ago a friend of mine shared how teens reacted watching The Chosen (check the video at the bottom).

The Chosen is a series showing Jesus’ life emphasizing his human nature and this short video looked quite amazing. So I decided to watch season 1 which is available on the channel on YouTube.

What I saw gave me some of the most mixed feelings I have for a film or series.

From one side it has more historical and cultural inaccuracies that I could count. It was like the scriptwriter couldn’t be bother to do any actual research on 1st century Palestine. And it’s a bit of a shame because it could have been a quite magnificent series.

And this is where the other side is coming in. The series blows a fresh air in a world of lame Jesus productions. It portrays a Jesus that will offend religious baby boomers but fed up millennials will love.

A Jesus that in the morning heals a leper and preaches about the Kingdom of God, and in the evening makes jocks about Andrew’s terrible dancing skills by saying, some things even Him can’t fix, and the next evening will tell scary stories to kids around a camp fire. I just loved the reception scene at the wedding of Canna (just go a watch it).

It was also very interesting that Matthew’s character was autistic, and that gives a whole new perspective of the people who first loved Jesus.

This a Jesus who’s as human as I am. This is a Jesus that knows what is to be a normal human being, if normal human being was a thing, and not the stoner Jesus of Nazareth (pan intended).

This is the Jesus the church must rediscover because her own existence depends on it.

Christian films and series are well known for the bad production value and half baked evangelism. They cater to your every day evangelical Christian that suffers from a serious persecution complex. Those people live in a parallel universe where their faith is constantly attacked by an invisible enemy. Just look at the success of the ‘God’s not Dead’ franchise amongst evangelicals.

Anyway,one of the worst things the Church did to our faith is stripping Jesus from his humanity and by doing this we end up with a God who lives in a galaxy far far away, a God that his main concern is to make our life miserable.

A lot of the misery Christians created through history it wouldn’t happen if they believed to a Jesus that was truly human.

One on the Salvation Army’s article of faith says, He [Jesus] is truly and properly God and truly and properly man but when it comes to the actual message we preach and live, we don’t really know how to worship and follow Jesus the man. This is the Jesus that the first disciples knew and followed and gave their lives for.

Taking away his humanity we are left with an over spiritualized Jesus that can’t really relate to our joys and sorrows.

His subversive and awkward message is devalued to words we chant or memorise for the sake of memorising them and use them to make people miserable.

His invitation to rejoin God’s family becomes just another party invite we can RSVP if we haven’t got anything better to do and missing the party of our lives.

A Jesus stripped of his humanity, is a Jesus that can’t show us how to be human the way it was suppose to be. This is happening not because Jesus’ message is not good enough but because the feet of the Jesus we sit on are the feet of an imaginary Jesus that exist only in our own dystopian universe.

But, the Jesus I love and follow is the one who religious people call friend of whores because he spends far too much time at the red light district.

The Jesus I love and follow is the one who loves to party with the most common folk and the worst of the sinners.

The Jesus I love and follow is the one who befriends pimps and shows him that the women (and men) he treats like shit are his brothers and sisters.

The Jesus I love and follow is the one who although is God’s only son won’t think twice to put on an apron and cooks for his friends, and enemies.

The Jesus I love and follow is the one that his piss is boiling when church elders saying to the abused wives to just shut up and go back to their husband or turned a blind eye when their superstar pastor grooms younger girls, and boys.

The Jesus I love and follow is the one who buys coffees to homeless junkies and illegal immigrants.

The Jesus I love and follow is the one who cries his guts off outside of detention centres where snatched children of ‘illegal immigrants’ are imprisoned.

The Jesus I love and follow is the one who healed my own deep wounds and left the scars as a remembrance for his amazing love and friendship.

The Jesus I love and follow is the one who’s tattoos are the scars of my own sins.

Bilbo

PS: For any comments follow my post on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/JesusInTheMoshpit

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Messy thoughts inside a moshpit

On the 2018 Download festival at Donington Park, it was my first time as a volunteer with their welfare team. The main reason I end up with them was because is run by The Order of the Black Sheep, a Metal church based in Chesterfield, England.

As someone that received a vision from God to start a metal church in the area where I live at the moment it was a catalytic experience to get involve with them.

At that specific Download something weird and the same time exciting happened.

Between two of my shifts I went to see At the Gates. Not that I’m a big fan of them, but I was free, they play Death Metal and there was a mosh pit (of course).

And this is where that thing happened. It was actually inside the pit that I felt the presence of the Holy Spirit becoming really tangible.

It was there, in the middle of a family crisis, that God was telling me, ‘It doesn’t matter what is happening in your life and how desperate you feel about it. What it matters is to where I want you to be.’

That wasn’t the mosh pit, irrespective of how much I love them, but waking in the path He put me in about the Metal community. Another way to say is, God told me ‘My grace is enough’.
The moment you feel God telling this is not like the well known stupid worship song.
It’s a moment that may make your heart sink because there is no indication whatsoever when or if you will able to get yourself out of this shit.
But is also a moment of a bizarre Spirit filled peace.

The even weirder thing that happened in that same mosh pit was that the Holy Spirit gave me the inspiration for this blog.

So, there we are. My own Tale from a Moshpit.

The mosh pit is like God’s presence.

You enter with dread but also with an anticipation to be part of a strong community.

As it should be inside the church, into the pit we are all brothers and sisters. We may never know each other’s names but we share a bond like no other, I can only likened it with the bond Jesus’ followers we have in Christ.

We enter the Pit with the awareness of an aggressive place and sometimes dangerous. Just try to mosh on a Cannibal Corpse set.
The same time it’s also a safe place. We may come out of it with bruised arms but it’s a place where a dad with his 6 years old son can enter and everyone is subconsciously aware that this little lad has to be come out safe and in one piece.

It’s a place that you will never belong if you think only for yourself and don’t give a shit about other people.

The pit looks chaotic but it has something of the Holy Chaos of the Holy Spirit. While it may look completely out of control, when someone fells three things happen.

One, some of us will use our bodies to stop the pit and protect the person on the ground. On a Wall of Death I went down with someone else landing on the of me, the next second a circle of people formed around us to stop others stepping on us. All this time didn’t feel unprotected at all.

Second, someone will lift you up.

And third, will be thrown again inside the pit.

God’s presence is a dangerous place but most of all is a safe place where we should be having fan.

When a brother or sister fells, active worship has to stop. People on the ground of despair first of all they need protection, and we must create a circle of protection around them and make aware the rest of us what happened.

No one’s is allowed to remain on the ground but when you been helped up you join the fan and the worship, even if have to be carried for some time.

During my darkest times in life, it was really therapeutic when I allowed the Holy Spirit to make His presence visible and enter actively into worship. Something like entering God’s presence.1

The mosh pit is a place where people with disabilities they’re not left out, as it happens of many of our churches. Just have a look on the countless pictures of wheelchairs crowd surfing.

Now you may tell me that there are also a few twats in the moshpits, and yes you are right but I found more inside churches and the wear suits.

Bilbo

Due to a lot of spam comments I had to switch off commenting. If you would like to comment or share your thoughts then feel free to do so on my Facebook page. https://www.facebook.com/Jesus-In-The-Moshpit

1I know that when Jesus Spirit comes in us, God’s presence is with us all the time but we have let it manifest in through our bodies