Latest / Eurasia Region Podcast / S1-E25 | Everyday Eurasia | Jason Nike

Transcript

S1-E25 | Everyday Eurasia | Jason Nike · Eurasia Region Podcast

• 0:06
  Welcome to the special advance series of the Everyday Eurasia
• 0:09
  podcast, Inspiring fate for every day.
• 0:13
  In the coming weeks, we'll be journeying together toward
• 0:16
  Christmas, a season of anticipation, reflection, and
• 0:20
  light in the darker days. During this special season of
• 0:24
  Advent, we will journey through the Advent themes of hope,
• 0:28
  peace, joy, and love. This first week of Advent, we
• 0:32
  will join Pastor Jason Nike. Jason is the lead pastor at
• 0:36
  Fresh Ground, a nest wind church, cafe and community hub
• 0:40
  based in Battersea, southwest London.
• 0:44
  He also serves as the Greater London assistant district
• 0:47
  Superintendent. Jason will speak this week about
• 0:50
  the team Advent Hope. Today I would want to just read
• 0:53
  the final few verses from Corinthians 1 Corinthians 13,
• 1:00
  The Way of Love. Maybe a bit of a clue to where
• 1:05
  I'm going to go with today's talk.
• 1:08
  Last couple of verses say this from verse 12.
• 1:11
  For now we see in a mirror, dimly but then face to face.
• 1:17
  Now I know in part. Then I shall know fully, even as
• 1:22
  I have been fully known. So now faith, hope and love
• 1:28
  remain. But the greatest of these is
• 1:32
  love. All week we've been exploring
• 1:37
  this theme of hope from the fragile kind we looked at
• 1:43
  Clockwise, to Active Hope, The Martian, to define Hope in
• 1:48
  Darkness, The Two Towers, and to the tender, realistic hope in a
• 1:54
  suffering God Life of Pi. And today we perhaps come to the
• 2:00
  what is the most cinematic line about hope ever spoken?
• 2:05
  It's a film that's almost universally loved.
• 2:07
  It tops lots of poles. It's one of my personal
• 2:10
  favourites. It's a film that people return
• 2:13
  to again and again when they need reminding that the human
• 2:17
  spirit can endure anything. The film, if you haven't guessed
• 2:20
  it already, is The Shawshank Redemption.
• 2:24
  And if you've not seen it, and you really should, Shawshank
• 2:27
  Redemption follows 2 prisoners, Andy, Dufresne and Red, and it
• 2:33
  follows them over decades of being in prison.
• 2:36
  The prison's called Shawshank, and it's a story of injustice,
• 2:41
  endurance, friendship, and discovery.
• 2:45
  But above all, it's a story about hope.
• 2:49
  Andy believes that his circumstances don't define his
• 2:54
  future. Red, on the other hand, he's
• 2:57
  kind of given in. He's given up, and he's learned
• 3:01
  to expect nothing, to hope for nothing.
• 3:04
  He's he tells us that he's been institutionalized.
• 3:08
  Hope feels dangerous to him. And then comes Andy's line to
• 3:13
  Red. He says this hope is a good
• 3:16
  thing, may be the best of things and no good thing ever dies.
• 3:23
  It's a beautiful line. It's helped countless people.
• 3:27
  It's become almost sacred in the world of film.
• 3:30
  But scripture, I would argue, takes us one step further.
• 3:35
  Paul there in that writing, in Corinthians, he writes that
• 3:38
  these three remain, these three enduring realities in the
• 3:42
  Christian life, faith, hope, and love.
• 3:46
  And then he says something astonishing.
• 3:48
  He says the greatest of these, the best of these, is love.
• 3:54
  Shawshank tells us that hope is the best thing, but the gospel
• 3:58
  says, yes, hope is wonderful, but love is greater.
• 4:03
  Why? Because hope points us towards
• 4:07
  something. Love is the something it's
• 4:11
  pointing us towards. Hope carries us forward.
• 4:17
  Love meets us in the present. Hope gives us a future.
• 4:22
  Love gives us a home. Andy's hope in The Shawshank
• 4:28
  Redemption is really powerful because it frees him internally
• 4:32
  long before he walks out of the prison if he does.
• 4:37
  For those who haven't seen the film, his hope opens up a future
• 4:41
  for him, and eventually for Red too.
• 4:45
  But Christian hope is even deeper than that, because
• 4:49
  Christian hope is rooted in love, the love of God revealed
• 4:55
  in Jesus Christ, the child of Advent who went to die as a man
• 5:00
  in Calvary, the risen Lord of Easter.
• 5:05
  We don't simply hope that things will get better.
• 5:08
  We hope because love himself has drawn near.
• 5:13
  Jesus is the reason that hope is trustworthy.
• 5:17
  His love is the anchor beneath every promise that God makes.
• 5:25
  We live in a world, don't we, that often feels like a prison
• 5:28
  of fear, anxiety, conflict, uncertainty.
• 5:34
  And like Red in the film, some of us find it hard to hope
• 5:38
  because we've been so disappointed before.
• 5:41
  We shrink our expectations to protect ourselves.
• 5:46
  But Advent calls us out of that mindset.
• 5:50
  It invites us to It invites us to hope boldly.
• 5:54
  Not because life is easy, but because love is real.
• 5:57
  Because love has a name. Because love took on flesh and
• 6:02
  walked amongst us, and that love is stronger than despair.
• 6:08
  It's stronger than sin. It's stronger than death itself.
• 6:14
  Hope sets us free, but love leads us into the light.
• 6:20
  Let's pray. Lord Jesus, thank you for hope
• 6:23
  that carries us forward, and thank you even more for the love
• 6:27
  that meets us in the here and now.
• 6:30
  Fill our hearts this Advent with confidence in your promises and
• 6:35
  help us to rest in your unfailing love.
• 6:39
  Lord, we want you to teach us how to live and how to be a
• 6:43
  people of hope, and even more as people who are shaped by your
• 6:49
  love. Amen.
• 6:51
  Thank you for listening to the Everyday Eurasia podcast,
• 6:54
  Inspiring Fate for everyday. For more Everyday Stories,
• 6:58
  subscribe on this podcast channel, follow our socials,
• 7:02
  Facebook and Instagram, or our newsletter Snapshots.
• 7:05
  For our newsletter and further information about the Eurasia
• 7:08
  region, visit our website, eurasiaregion.org.