Watch: Mary calls to God for help in a new clip from Journey to Bethlehem
Also: the studio has released three new videos to play in church services, plus an endorsement video from The Chosen's Dallas Jenkins.
Journey to Bethlehem didn’t exactly have the greatest first weekend at the box office, but the studio behind the Nativity-themed musical is doing what it can to help the film find its audience over the next few weeks leading up to Christmas.
Today, they released several new promotional videos for the film—one of which went online literally as I was writing this post—so here’s a quick rundown.
First, we’ve got our third full clip from the film, in which Mary sings ‘Mother to a Savior and King’, which just might be my favorite song on the soundtrack:
In the point-form review of the film that I posted earlier today, I had this to say about the song:
I love, of course, the fact that this song fleshes out a biblical character and some of the emotions she may have been feeling, but I also like the way this song draws attention to the paradox that a created being like Mary was tasked with bearing the Creator himself in her womb for nine months. Believers turn to God for help, and we assume that God is responsible for us. But Mary, as mother to God-in-the-flesh, was responsible for him.
The paradox in question comes through most clearly in two parts of the song. First:
Give me eyes to see
Just how I can be
Carrying Your son when I need You
To carry me
And then, at the end:
You said, “Do not fear”
So Lord if You are here
Help me have the faith You have in me
Give me eyes to see
Just how I can be
Mother to a Savior
When I need saving
I’ll have more to say about this song later. But for now, I do want to note a few things:
This song is admittedly very different, in tone and emphasis, from the song that the biblical Mary sings in Luke 1:46-55.
In that song, which is known as the Magnificat, Mary is brimming with joy and confidence: she begins by saying, “My soul glorifies the Lord and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, for he has been mindful of the humble state of his servant,” and she then goes on to talk about how the poor have been lifted up and the rich brought down, etc., etc.
The Mary of this film, on the other hand, says she still “needs saving”, and when she calls herself “just a poor and simple virgin”, there is no sense that she has been elevated from her poverty or humility just yet.
This song and its melody get a callback at the end of the film, when Jesus is born and Mary is marveling at the child in her arms. You can see and hear a brief glimpse of that scene at the 2:55 mark in the featurette here.
Between this and the other two clips that have been released so far, there are now almost 9½ minutes of full scenes from the film on YouTube.
That represents about a tenth of the film’s 98-minute runtime.
And because all three clips feature songs from the film, they also represent almost a third of the film’s soundtrack album.
Fiona Palomo, the actress who plays Mary, discussed the importance of this song to her character in a featurette that came out last week.
Meanwhile, the studio has released three new videos for the film through a website that specializes in downloadable “visuals for the local church”. These videos, I assume, are meant to be shown in churches that play video clips within their services.
These videos have also been posted to the studio’s YouTube channel, so that’s what I’m embedding here. First, ‘Christmas: A Story Worth Sharing’:
History-minded nit-pickers will, of course, get a kick out of the idea that “this is the story . . . where BC turns to AD.” The historical Herod died in 4 BC, so obviously Jesus had to be born no later than that, which means BC didn’t turn to AD until a few years after this story takes place. But why quibble. We know what the narrator means.
Second, ‘Christmas: God Is with Us’:
And finally, ‘Christmas: What We Know’:
Two quick comments, about the bit where the narrator says “we don’t know” when Mary “fell in love with Joseph”:
First, it’s very Protestant.
Second, it assumes modern attitudes about courtship and marriage that don’t necessarily fit with the story’s first-century Palestinian Jewish setting. I mean, the film itself leans heavily into the idea that the marriage between Mary and Joseph was an arranged marriage, and if that’s true, it’s possible they never “fell in love”—not the way we now use that phrase—even if they did come to love each other on some sort of practical level. (Think Tevye and Golde in Fiddler on the Roof.)
Finally, and literally as I was writing this post, the studio has released another video, in which The Chosen creator Dallas Jenkins endorses the movie:
I have to say, it’s very interesting to hear the creator of The Chosen comment on another film’s “anachronistic” elements. It’s also striking to see how Jenkins has kind of become the go-to guy for Christian-movie endorsements these days; a decade ago, it would have been The Bible producers Mark Burnett and Roma Downey.
Anyhoo, I think that brings us up to speed on Journey to Bethlehem’s promotional-video output. Now we just have to wait and see how the film does in its second week.
Previous videos for Journey to Bethlehem:
The teaser trailer (April 28, 2023)
The official trailer (September 14, 2023)
The ‘Heart of Journey to Bethlehem’ featurette (September 20, 2023)
The Mary and Joseph featurette (September 29, 2023)
The Mary’s sisters featurette (October 3, 2023)
The Antipater featurette (October 6, 2023)
The Fig (donkey) featurette (October 10, 2023)
The ‘Can We Make This Work’ clip (October 13, 2023)
The King Herod featurette (October 20, 2023)
The Gabriel featurette (October 25, 2023)
The ‘Brand New Life’ music video and featurette, the ‘Gift of Giving’ promo, and the Catholic and Protestant screening reactions (October 27, 2023)
The Wise Men featurette (October 31, 2023)
The ‘Married Collaborators’ featurette (November 3, 2023)
The ‘In My Blood’ clip (November 4, 2023)
The Mary featurette (November 7, 2023)
The Joseph featurette (November 9, 2023)
Other previous posts on Journey to Bethlehem:
‘Has The Road to Bethlehem not been filmed yet?’ (August 19, 2022)
‘Adam Anders’ Nativity musical now filming in Spain’ (February 23, 2023)
‘Adam Anders’ Nativity musical gets a title’ (April 3, 2023)
‘Exclusive: Journey to Bethlehem director Adam Anders on his years-long quest to make a musical about the Nativity’ (October 23, 2023)
‘The Journey to Bethlehem soundtrack is here’ (November 3, 2023)
‘Box office: The Marvels, Journey to Bethlehem get the holiday season off to a rocky start’ (November 13, 2023)
‘A few thoughts on Journey to Bethlehem’ (November 16, 2023)