Darkness and Light
Reflection by Christine Crawford on The Chosen
I was grief-spiraling the night I watched an episode from The Chosen that shifted the way I view death and suffering.
Though I really enjoy the series, I hadn't watched it in months. I was behind, and honestly, I wasn't sure I wanted to catch up. I was savoring that particular flavor of grief that sits right next to anger — the kind where God feels far away, and you're not entirely sure you want him closer.
I turned it on reluctantly. And I landed, of all places, on the episode where Jesus raises Lazarus from the dead.
I almost turned it off. The last thing I wanted on a grief spiral night was a miracle story. Why did Lazarus get his miracle? Why does anyone? Why do some prayers get answered and some don't? Why do some healings come and some never arrive?
The Chosen handles that tension with more honesty than I expected. It doesn't rush past the questions. It sits in them. But it was Mary Magdalene's psalm near the end of the episode that stopped me completely.
I rewound it once. Then again. Then eight more times. Then I paused it and wrote down every single word.
She speaks to the coexistence of darkness and light — how one had to come before the other, how it was always that way with Jesus, how it still is. How the bitter remains in the sweet and never fully goes away. How grief wasn't what any of them wanted to see in him — so they tried to look away. And in doing so, fulfilled his very essence: "One from whom people hide their faces."
That line undid me.
Because I had been trying to look away. From my own grief. From the darkness. From the questions I didn't have answers to and the God I could not understand.
But Jesus didn't look away from the dark. He walked into it. He wept in it and over it. He let it be what it was before He did what only He could do.
Darkness and light have always coexisted. That doesn't make the light less. It actually makes it more.
I needed that reminder. Maybe you do too.
The Darkness is not Dark to You
Mary Magdalene’s Psalm from Season 4, Episode 7 of The Chosen
“Darkness is not the absence of light - that would be too simple. It's more uncontrollable and sinister. Not a place, but a void.
I was there once. More than once.
And although I could not see or hear you, you were there, waiting.
Because darkness is not dark to you. At least, not always.
You wept. Not because your friend was dead, but because soon you would be. And because we couldn't understand it, or didn't want to, or both.
The coming darkness was too deep for us to grasp. But then, so is the light.
One had to come before the other. It was always that way with you. It still is.
Tears fell from your eyes and then ours, before every light in the world went out. And time itself wanted to die with you.
I go back. I go back to that place sometimes. Or rather, it comes back to me, uninvited.
The night that was eternal... until it wasn't.
Bitter, and then sweet. But somehow the bitter remained in the sweet and has never gone away.
You told us it would be like that. Not with your words, but with how you lived.
The man of sorrows, acquainted with grief.
That grief wasn't what we wanted to see. So we tried to look away, and in so doing, fulfilled your very essence:
‘One from whom people hide their faces.’
But soon we couldn't hide from it any more than we could stop the sun from setting. Or rising.
I remember you wishing there could be another way. And looking back, I do too.
I still don't know why it has to be this way. The bitter often mingled with the sweet.
Maybe I never will.
At least, not this side of...”
About the RESOURCE
THE CHOSEN
The Chosen is a groundbreaking historical drama based on the life of Jesus Christ seen through the eyes of those who knew him. Set against the backdrop of Roman oppression in first-century Israel, the seven-season show shares an authentic and intimate look at Jesus’ revolutionary life and teachings.
Created, directed, and co-written by Dallas Jenkins.
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