A Tale of Two Disciples: Grappling with Thomas’ Grief and Judas’ Cynicism in The Chosen Season 4

[contributed by Yusuf in India]

Spoiler Alert! You may want to watch Season 4 before you read this article.

The Chosen is an immensely popular TV series about the life of Jesus and his disciples. Unlike the Jesus Film, which sticks closely to the letter of Luke’s gospel, The Chosen imaginatively integrates passages from the different Gospels and creates a plausible narrative that stitches together the remarkable scenes. For instance, readers of Luke 5:1-11 might wonder: why was Simon fishing all night? In The Chosen’s telling (Season 1, Episode 4) it is because he is deep in tax trouble, desperate to pay his debts otherwise Matthew might have his boat seized.

The recently released Season 4 has perhaps been the most imaginative of them all, with some major scenes that are not drawn from the gospels. However, these scenes build beautiful, biblical themes that resonate with life in the slum. Ramah’s death in Episode 3, followed by Thomas’ mourning throughout the season, explores God’s seeming inaction in the face of heart-wrenching suffering and earnest prayer. Meanwhile, Judas’ increasingly skeptical questions about Jesus’ ‘inefficiency’ can resonate with viewers who sometimes wish God would get the job done faster.

Ramah’s death: God’s seeming inaction in the face of suffering

In Episode 3, Quintus, the Roman official in charge of Capernaum, gives the order to arrest Jesus, who is preaching in front of the synagogue. But as Jesus escapes through the crowd, the enraged Quintus recklessly starts swinging his sword and strikes Ramah, Thomas’ fiancé. Jesus returns to the scene soon afterward, with Ramah dead. Thomas begs Jesus to raise her, but Jesus responds tearfully: “It is not her time. I love you, Thomas. He loves you. I’m so sorry.” Thomas is racked with grief throughout the rest of the season, with a climax reached in Episode 7. The rest of the disciples and the crowd are astonished and overjoyed as Jesus raises Lazarus from the dead. But Thomas is distraught and understandably angry. For him, it proves that Jesus could have raised Ramah, but chose not to. Jesus assures Thomas that there are deeper reasons for this, but ones that are beyond his comprehension.

These themes are incredibly poignant for me – and perhaps, for many in Servants, who work in contexts of immense suffering. For every miraculously answered prayer, I’ve seen many that go seemingly unanswered. Perhaps the deepest questions in Christianity are those of theodicy: why a good, all-powerful God allows evil and suffering? And while many of the conventional answers – the inevitability of free will leading to suffering, the need to allow scope for compassion, the meaningless of a life of pure pleasure – have truth to them, they don’t explain everything. Jesus wisely does not give Thomas (or those of us who suffer with him) a philosophy lecture. Instead, Jesus sits with us in our sorrow and, indeed, drinks from the same bitter cup.

This is a deeper, truer, richer faith than that of Christian triumphalism and the prosperity gospel, the idea that God will immediately make our lives full of pleasure and success if we have faith in Him. The prosperity gospel looks attractive and is easy to sell – but, like the house built on sand, it comes crashing down when the rain hits. A faith that lasts is one that can grapple with the mystery of God’s seeming inaction in the face of suffering.

Judas’ questions and the drive for efficiency

Season 4 portrays Judas’ evolution from a zealous disciple to one who is increasingly skeptical and embittered. As the disciples perform various mundane tasks – from washing clothes to threshing wheat – Judas wonders why they do not hire people to do the chores for them, to ‘maximize time and resources’. He becomes increasingly concerned about the disciples’ finances, coming up with various schemes to fundraise and becoming frustrated at some of the disciples’ spending on gifts. In Episode 6, he finally plucks up the courage to talk with Jesus but is rebuffed.

Judas    I want to see your kingdom come.

Jesus     Well, that’s, uh… that’s quite a conversation starter.

Judas    And I want to remove any obstacles that stand in the way of that.

Jesus     Obstacles?

Judas    Limitations. Barriers. Whatever your vision is, and I know it’s beyond my wildest dreams, I want to make sure that you’re never held back by not having enough resources. You told us to be as gentle as doves, but also wise as serpents. Is this not wisdom?

Jesus     You’re right. My vision for the world is bigger than you can dream.

Judas soon starts dipping into the common purse, initially setting aside money for contingencies, then for himself. He becomes enraged at the wasteful inefficiency of Mary pouring the priceless nard on Jesus’ feet. And he feels perplexed by why Jesus is healing a Roman centurion’s child, and (literally) going the extra mile for Roman soldiers on the road – instead of calling people to arms against them. Judas wants Jesus’ kingdom to come – but his own version of it.

I sometimes have thoughts and feelings mirroring Judas’. When the power goes off at night, interrupting sleep, I groan: surely there’s a more efficient way of helping people that doesn’t involve living in a slum! Like Judas, I too see financial constraints and systemic obstacles and want to remove them (my enemies are usually corrupt hospital officials, not Roman soldiers). Efficiency is fundamentally about maximizing how much we can achieve while minimizing time and costs. Efficiency is great if our goal is perfect – but what if, like Judas, our goals are misguided? Maximization and efficiency can then become perilous, as we are willing to sacrifice other causes – and even other people – all for the greater good. In a world obsessed with success, efficiency, and maximization, the damage manifests in myriad ways: it is the story of the slum demolished to build a highway, the lie told to save face, the marriage broken by workaholism.

Conclusion

The Chosen’s imaginative explorations may not be ‘gospel’, but in my view, they help unpack and explore themes that are central to Jesus’ life. Ramah is not a historical character, but we can be confident that some of Jesus’ followers and their family members would have died during his years of ministry. This likely would have created crises of faith: if Jesus is the Son of God, who is healing and raising others from the dead, then why not his own followers? Judas’ motivations remain shrouded in the gospels, but it is likely that he, and other disciples, would have wondered why Jesus wasn’t ‘more efficient’ in bringing his kingdom (or what they imagined of it). These questions remain just as relevant in 21st-century Asian slums as they were in 1st-century Palestinian villages. To go deeper in our faith, we need to grapple with the lack of easy answers rather than shoving these questions aside.