Latest / Abide In Me / August 20 - Ordinary Time 2026 with Dillon Bramlett

Transcript

August 20 - Ordinary Time 2026 with Dillon Bramlett · Abide In Me

• 0:01
  SPEAKER_01: Jesus says, I am the vine, you are the branches.
• 0:05
  SPEAKER_01: If you abide in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit.
• 0:09
  SPEAKER_01: Welcome to the Abide in Me podcast.
• 0:13
  SPEAKER_01: This summer, we will be hearing from different voices, each bringing you reflections, songs, and liturgy to help us stay connected to the vine.
• 0:21
  SPEAKER_01: This week, we are joined by our student ministries director, Dylan Bramlett.
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_00: I want to read you a story from a beloved book, The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe by C.S.
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_00: Lewis.
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_00: For those of you who may be unfamiliar, in this story there are four siblings who have ended up in the magical world of Narnia Peter, Susan, Edmund, and Lucy.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_00: Previously in the story, Edmund had made a big mistake and was indebted to the White Witch.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_00: In a conversation that we don't get to hear, Aslan the Lion makes a deal with the White Witch, and Edmund is freed from her grip.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_00: No one knows what kind of deal was made or why Aslan looks so sad, but Susan and Lucy suspect something, so they follow him when night falls.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_00: He allowed them to join him for a little while until they came to a stop, and he said they could no longer follow him.
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_00: At this moment, Susan and Lucy saw the white witch and her gang bind Aslan and place him on the stone table.
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_00: They began to drag the bound and muzzled lion to the stone table, some pulling and some pushing.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_00: He was so huge that even when they got him there it took all their efforts to hoist him onto the surface of it.
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_00: Then there was more tying and tightening of cords.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_00: The cowards, the cowards, sobbed Susan, are they still afraid of him?
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_00: Even now?
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_00: When once Aslan had been tied, and tied so that he was really a mass of cords, on the flat stone, a hush fell on the crowd.
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_00: Four hags, holding four torches, stood at the corners of the table.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_00: The witch bared her arms as she had bared them the previous night when it had been Edmund instead of Aslan.
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_00: Then she began to wet her knife.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_00: It looked to the children when the gleam of the torchlight fell on it, as if the night were made of stone, not of steel, and it was of a strange and evil shape.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_00: At last she drew near.
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_00: She stood by Aslan's head.
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_00: Her face was working and twitching with passion, but his looked up at the sky, still quiet, neither angry nor afraid, but a little sad.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_00: Then, just before she gave the blow, she stooped down and said in a quivering voice, and now who has won?
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_00: Fool, did you think that by all this you would save the human traitor?
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_00: Now I will kill you instead of him, as our pact was, and so the deep magic will be appeased.
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_00: But when you are dead, what will prevent me from killing him as well?
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_00: And who will take him out of my hand then?
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_00: Understand that you have given me Narnia forever.
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_00: You have lost your own life, and have not saved his.
• 3:11
  SPEAKER_00: In that knowledge, despair and die.
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_00: The children did not see the actual moment of the killing.
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_00: They couldn't bear to look and had covered their eyes.
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_00: As soon as the wood was silent again, Susan and Lucy crept out into the open hilltop.
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_00: The moon was getting low, and thin clouds were passing across her, but still they could see the shape of the great lion lying dead in his bonds.
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_00: And down they both knelt in the wet grass and kissed his cold face and stroked his beautiful fur, what was left of it, and cried till they could cry no more.
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_00: And then they looked at each other and held each other's hands for mere loneliness and cried again, and then again were silent.
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_00: I hope no one who reads this book has been quite as miserable as Susan and Lucy were that night.
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_00: But if you have been, if you've been up all night and cried till you have no more tears left in you, you will know that there comes in the end a sort of quietness.
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_00: You feel as if nothing was ever going to happen again.
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_00: I love the way that Lewis articulates the emotions that Susan and Lucy experience in mourning Aslan.
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_00: He doesn't skip ahead to the part where Aslan breaks the stone table and comes to life again through the power of the deeper magic.
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_00: He lets our reader sit in the sadness of this moment, that Aslan sacrificed himself for their brother because he loved him.
• 4:39
  SPEAKER_00: In times like this, it can feel like you're wandering.
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_00: Lewis speaks to this universal human experience, sitting in silence with one another.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_00: When you receive bad news, it seems like the world stops, or as he says, you feel as if nothing is ever going to happen again.
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_00: What matters most is presence, being there for and with one another in your suffering.
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_00: There have been times in my own life where I've experienced this pain.
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_00: I distinctly remember my youth pastors sitting with me.
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_00: Like Susan and Lucy, we sat in silence for a long time.
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_00: They didn't offer theological platitudes like God has a plan or your friend is in a better place.
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_00: They were simply with me, and then they prayed for me.
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_00: I want to leave you with this quote from the story.
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_00: I hope no one who reads this book has been quite as miserable as Susan and Lucy were that night.
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_00: But if you have been, if you've been up all night and cried till you have no more tears left in you, you will know that there comes in the end a sort of quietness.
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_00: You feel as if nothing is ever going to happen again.
• 5:49
  SPEAKER_00: Lewis gives us a promise that Christ is with us in the silence.
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_02: Thanks for joining us.
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_02: If you have any questions, comments, or would like prayer, we would love to hear from you.
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_02: Reach out to us at abide at pillarchurch.com.
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_02: And for now, if you're willing, receive this blessing.
• 6:15
  SPEAKER_02: May the grace of God freely given through Christ our Lord and sufficient for all our needs.
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_02: And may the fellowship of the Holy Spirit, who testifies with our spirit that we are God's children, guide and sustain us this day and forever.
• 6:32
  SPEAKER_02: Amen.