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God at the Dinner Table

There is a fascinating scene in the  new global success TV series The Chosen. It is fictional dramatisation of events in the life and ministry of our Lord Jesus Christ.
   
Like all works of fiction that depict true in the life of our Lord there is a danger of not only crafting a man made image, literally, of Jesus, which is no Jesus at all but an idolatrous figment of our imagination. 

There is also the wider danger that fictional events can come to dominate the true events that God wants us to know and meditate on the Bible. We already have the true Bible we don’t really need additional fictional details. 

That said, The Chosen has been made, and in the “second best” scenario where you find yourself watching a TV series you are certainly better off watching this one, as long as you keep the above dangers in constant view.  

There are certainly many excellent fictional moments in the film. One of my favourites so far is in Series 1, Episode 2. Jesus has come to a Shabbat dinner, arranged by Mary Magdalene an uninvited guest whom he has earlier delivered from demonic oppression.

As he sits on the table for Shabbat dinner there are other unexpected guests present. One of the people sat on this table is a blind woman who has come, with who we think is her husband. 

She is there totally in blindness. There is no thought in her that there is hope for her blindness. In fact quite the opposite. On the surface she is one of the happiest there at the table. She is not reaching out to Jesus. And to my surprise Jesus appears comfortable with her blindness. 

As I sat there watching I am thinking. This is incredible. Unless Jesus makes the first move here life will just go on. It is all down to Him. This blind woman has no idea that God is sitting down for dinner with her. 

Immediately it dawned on me that we are all like that woman. In our sinful state we are as helpless and lost as this woman. We are not only spiritually blind, we are comfortable with our blindness. We are content with living a life of hopelessness. 

To make matters worse, just like that woman we cannot see the Hope God offers us in Jesus. The only way for our situation to change is if God by His grace alone makes Himself to known to us. He must reveal His power to whoever He chooses. 

It is not enough that God has come in Jesus and sat at our dinner table. That He has gone to the Cross and laid down His life for our sin. The true of the Cross in of itself cannot bring us to salvation unless God by His Spirit opens our spiritual eyes to see the beauty and truth of Jesus. 

So in one fell swoop, that fictional diner event demonstrates to us the lostness and hope of sinners. The lostness is that is that we are blind and contended with our lost condition. The hope that God is at God in Jesus has put on flesh. He has come and sat at our table. 

God by His grace had decided to reach out to us. And He has not stopped there, He has chosen to lift us out of the lost human condition that we are in by revealing to us the light of the glory of the gospel in the face of Jesus through God the Holy Spirit. If God has not done that for us, we would remain completely lost. 

Watching that scene left me feeling thankful to have the one true God in Jesus enter this world for me. He never left me lost in my spiritual blindness. He has sat at my table and open my blind eyes to see His glory and believe in Jesus Christ as my Lord and Saviour.
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