'47 Days with Jesus' Movie Brings Fresh Perspective to the Power of Easter

Have you ever had a hard time connecting the powerful, undeniable life of Jesus Christ and the Easter story with your family? If you have spent any amount of time in and around a Sunday School class or church youth group I’m sure you have heard it all.

“So, after He died, he actually went to heaven but he’s coming back to earth again? How is that even possible?”

“If this Pontius Pilate guy was truly in charge and couldn’t find any criminal charges against Jesus, why did he just let the people take charge of his case?”

“Why didn’t the disciples try to stop what was happening to Jesus?”

A new movie for the entire family releasing next week as a Fathom Movie event hopes to answer these questions and put the story of Christ’s resurrection into practical perspective. Opening in more than 800 theaters on March 11, 12, and 14, 47 Days with Jesus follows a disconnected family that finds hope and unity through a cinematic retelling of Jesus’ final 47 days on earth.  Starring Yoshi Barrigas (The Chosen) and Catherine Lidstone (The Chosen), the movie reminds us of the Gospel’s life-changing message and its enduring impact on humanity.

I recently sat down with Barrigas to discuss why it is important to blend a modern day family into the final days that Jesus walked the earth, how vital it is to make the “right” choices for the sake of family, and why he is happy to take on a more “modern” acting role.

This movie has a very interesting concept, one that mixes modern day events with the retelling of Jesus’ final 47 days on earth. If you don’t mind, in your words, could you sort of take me through the base premise and your role in it?

Playing some of the ambiguity of sacrifice was really interesting to me, and how to translate that to the screen. My character Joseph Burdon, he's convinced that what he's doing is a sacrifice and he's convinced that he's working with a company, the National Association of Firefighters, which is a company his father used to work with. So, he's got that. Then he's also convincing his wife that he's doing this as a sacrifice to make some wealth for the family and maybe put the kids through college. He's fully convinced that his workaholic tendencies are for the betterment of the family, but quickly he learns that  he is what he's sacrificed. He's claiming to be doing this for his family, but all his family really needs is his presence and attention. He's quickly losing everything that he claims to be fighting for.

For every actor, there always seems to be a trigger, a tipping point, a moment where you say to yourself, “I have to be part of this project!!” For 47 Days with Jesus, what was that moment?

When they approached me with this opportunity, I was excited, first and foremost to play a modern man for the first time in some years. I could ditch the accent and just discover as a performer, more parts of myself that I can bring to the screen. The people involved in this project, we had a great conversation about what we are trying to say in this film and, and I was just excited at the prospect of doing something sort of completely original. There hasn't been a film like this, I don't think ever, where we're sort of taking this magic school bus dive into the Bible and having the Bible come to life with music and dance. It is just a more gentle way to learn the Easter story, but it's combined with this very relatable family drama.

As you mentioned, at the core of this story is taking a modern day family back in time to see the miracles of Jesus. Why is it important to show that and share this story within the context of this movie?

The family in our film, you could say the relationship between Joseph and his wife is sort of dead and stale. The winter sort of represents the deadening of things, the deadening of relationships, the deadening of parts of yourself that you need to let go. And the spring represents the rebirth, the opportunity for you to burn away those excess parts of yourself that are no longer useful. You are giving in to the hard work that is associated with rebuilding yourself and rebuilding relationships.

And I think in some big part, that is what the Easter story represents. It is the rebirth of (Jesus) Christ. I think that we all need to recognize when we're in sort of a winter season, in our own lives. It’s important to know when it is time to rebuild the relationship between Joseph and his wife. It needs a rebirth if it's going to survive. In order to do that, you have to take a hard examination at what things or what parts of yourself are holding that up. The Burdon family does that through learning the Easter story in our movie. Seeing the last 47 days of Jesus' life on Earth is sort of a kickstarter for Joseph to remember what's important and to stop walking in fear and start walking in faith again.

To me, a core theme of this movie seems to be having the ability to make the “right” choices for the sake of family. Why do you think this is such an important theme of 47 Days with Jesus?

In the West, we put so much emphasis on career and it's not entirely obvious how to handle that when it comes to taking you away from your family. I have empathy for parents who are working 9 to 5 jobs, and raising children. I imagine there are scenarios where they have an opportunity to sacrifice more of that family time to dedicate to their career so that they can have more resources and wealth to make their family happy. And if they don't take those opportunities, I imagine there's someone else who will. Right? It's a line that is not clearly drawn in the sand. At what point is the sacrifice no longer appropriate? I think it's an interesting subject matter that we haven't really seen too much of in the theater. It's very relatable for that reason.

You have spent time as a cast member of the hit video series The Chosen where you played Philip.  How does that experience compare to your time filming 47 Days with Jesus?  

These archetypal issues are timeless. So, even playing a disciple from 2,000 years ago, I found that some of the issues that Philip was dealing with – for example, in Season 3, he deals with a lot of self-doubt. That's a timeless dilemma and feeling. So in that sense it wasn't too different. But of course, when you're playing a man from 2,000 years ago, it's a period piece. You have an accent. You're dressed differently. Your sensibilities might be a bit dated. So, it definitely was refreshing to play someone who didn't have an accent. And I think at the end of the day, when you are doing a period piece and you're playing someone with an accent, you're in somewhat of a box creatively.

You can't really go too far outside that box. Playing Joseph in this movie, I felt like some shackles were sort of let loose a bit. I was able to kind of focus more on the humanity of the character and the specific dramatic elements of the scenes without having to, as a performer, think about my accent and all that. That was definitely refreshing. But again, a lot of these archetypal situations are timeless. So, at the end of the day, it's just humans.

After people have had a chance to see 47 Days with Jesus what would you like to see audiences take away from the movie? What is your greatest hope for the film?

I hope that families go in and some children have an opportunity to learn the Easter story really for the first time. I hope parents are reminded of what's important and maybe families will walk out of the theater feeling a little bit closer, feeling they can maybe breathe a little bit and recognize why they are making the sacrifices that they're making in their lives. Maybe they'll learn about some things, some parts of themselves that are ready to die. Hopefully, they will be motivated to be better versions of themselves, so that their family can prosper.

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