Latest / The Speak Life Podcast / Christmas Preaching - What's Missing? || SLP437

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Christmas Preaching - What's Missing? || SLP437 · The Speak Life Podcast

• 0:06
  SPEAKER_00: Hello and thank you so much for downloading episode 437 of the Speak Life Podcast.
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_00: My name is Thomas Thoroughgood, media producer at Speak Life, and in today's episode, Glenn Scrivener and Nate Morgan Locke from Speak Life are talking about Christmas sermons, preaching at carol services and the like, evangelistic events around the Christmas season, and certain traps that are easy to fall into.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_00: Just a reminder that we now have a YouTube channel specifically for the Speak Life Podcast.
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_00: If you go to youtube.com forward slash at the Speak Life Podcast.
• 0:43
  SPEAKER_00: When I say at, I mean the at symbol that you use in email addresses and such like.
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_00: So if you go to that uh YouTube channel, you will find our podcast episodes.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_00: So today's conversation as a video, you can watch the full thing on that YouTube channel, and that's where all our podcast episodes, interviews, things like that, long form content will be released.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_00: Our other YouTube channel, our main YouTube channel, youtube.com forward slash speaklifemedia, is where we put our short form content.
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_00: So reactions, um, Nate Morgan Locke doing his franchise storytelling, talking about popular culture from a Christian perspective, and also clips from our podcast and interviews that we've done, they will all go on that regular channel, youtube.com forward slash speaklifemedia.
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_00: So all our videos kind of sub 20 minutes will go on there.
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_00: Um so two YouTube channels for you to check out and subscribe to if you haven't done so already.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_00: But without further ado, I will hand straight over to Glenn and Nate.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_01: Well, hello and welcome to Speak Life.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_01: My name is Nate Morganlock, and I'm joined by Glenn Scrivener.
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_01: Hello.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_01: And today we're going to talk about Christmas.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_01: Christmas Christmas chat.
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_01: Because you're uh in a few minutes about to go and get in the car and drive quite a long way.
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_01: Internationally.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_03: I'm speaking internationally today, going across the border to Wales, to Cardiff, and uh speaking to a whole bunch of Cardiff University students.
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_03: The Christian Union there is putting on carols, and they've invited me to to speak.
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_03: Are these carols by candlelight?
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_03: I'm not sure.
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_03: I'm not sure how they're gonna jazz them up.
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_03: There are all sorts of ways that people can kind of embellish uh the sort of the Christmas packaging that has been left to us by two thousand years of tradition.
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_03: Um some of those repackagings are more successful than others, I will say.
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_03: And uh for for most people, I think they just want to come in and have a sing song with the old favourites.
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_01: They do like to I think people want to sing along, they really want to, and so as any anyone choosing the music for Christmas this year, um pick things that people are gonna know.
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_01: Now is not the time for a brand new carol that you've just written.
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_01: I think.
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, and while shepherds watch their flocks by night, I think the there's that Yorkshire version the while shepherds watch their flocks by night, we'll see it on the ground or the ground.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_03: That's a great sing song one.
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_03: I don't know.
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_03: Okay.
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_01: But maybe it's just me.
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_01: But people know the words.
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_01: Even if the tune's unfamiliar.
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_03: Oh, do you think people don't know that tune?
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_01: No, I don't know that tune.
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_03: An angel of the law came down, angel down, an angel of the law came down, angel down, and glory shana round, and glorish on around, and glorishana.
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_03: No.
• 3:33
  SPEAKER_01: I've literally never heard that in my life.
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_01: Um please write in if you are the other person who's heard of that person.
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_03: Really?
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_03: You've never heard that?
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_03: No.
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_01: It's probably the way I'm singing it, but yeah.
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_01: Well, there we go.
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_01: Well, it's a new one on me.
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_01: So if I went to a church.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_01: That's the one I know.
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_01: Let's ask Thomas.
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_01: Thomas.
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's a bit crotchety for me, that one.
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_01: What have you ever heard the version that he's singing?
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_01: This Yorkshire.
• 4:01
  SPEAKER_01: Yorkshire version.
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_01: That was already for Christmas Day.
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_01: Don't sing that one.
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_01: Well, if you are gonna sing that song, you have to sing the updated version.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_01: We should do a parody next year.
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_03: That'll be our parody next year.
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_03: I was thinking the other day.
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_03: In fact, yesterday, I was thinking, like, how we have corrupted you, Nate.
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_03: Twelve months ago, you were producing the high art form that was Die Christmaus.
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_03: Yes, the widow and the mouse.
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_03: This year we've dragged you right down to it's coming home.
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_01: But it's still coming home.
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_01: Look, I've got my I've got my scarf.
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_01: And those three lions are resplendent upon it.
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_01: Because as it currently stands, we're still in the World Cup.
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_01: Still in.
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, Australia are out, but um so Spain are out.
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_01: You're in.
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_01: I know, I know.
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_01: Very uh well, we could have a long conversation about the football, couldn't we?
• 4:57
  SPEAKER_01: But uh as the football is still going on, uh you can still use um it is still relevant to use our Christmas video this year based upon um the Three Lions song.
• 5:11
  SPEAKER_01: Um and if England do beat France, then on Sunday for December the eleventh for your nativity services, candle-lit camerals.
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_03: That is the one to do.
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_03: And then do the Jack Grealish illustration and your quid's in.
• 5:25
  SPEAKER_03: That's what I'm planning on doing.
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_01: Anyway, let's give them more to talk about by thinking about Christmas preaching and preachers.
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_01: And the sort of I don't know, what the what's the kind of the tone we need to have?
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_01: What's the Well the hold on, there's a there's there is a kind of a a classic rhetorical um triumvirate that's used, which is uh ethos, logos, and pathos to refer to the way that someone is gaining credibility or presenting to an audience.
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_01: These obviously aren't drawn scripturally, but they can be quite helpful in giving characteristics.
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_03: Aristotle was all over it.
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_03: So that's the kind of rhetoric you want to go for.
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_03: So should we start with ethos?
• 6:12
  SPEAKER_03: The ethos of the Christmas preacher.
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_03: Because I I I think preparing yourself as the sort of as the sort of preacher to whom people will listen at Christmas.
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_03: I think that's kind of important.
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_03: So I've I've been at sort of big cathedral carols um services where sort of the person in charge has said to like a packed church building, and it's been the first time it's been packed all year, and they've barely suppressed the urge to say, Where were you the other fifty-one Saturdays of the year?
• 6:43
  SPEAKER_03: You know.
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_03: And and they haven't and I think there there is that sense, there can be that sense in Christmas preachers where where you almost you almost berate people for being in church, getting into church.
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_03: Finally.
• 6:57
  SPEAKER_03: Yes.
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_03: As opposed to praise God, oh, we're so glad you're here.
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_03: Um preparing the preparing your own heart so that that's that's because I I remember twenty years ago I was preaching at a carols for um local business people in the area, it was in central London.
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_03: And again, we packed out the church.
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_03: But I I I just said this off the cuff thing that I still wake up with a cold sweat, like every other night, thinking about in my Christmas sermon, we had just sung O Come Let Us Adore Him.
• 7:33
  SPEAKER_03: And I just I and it sort it bugged me that here were some people singing Oh Come Let Us Adore Him.
• 7:39
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_03: Do you really adore him?
• 7:41
  SPEAKER_03: Do you?
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_03: You know, and and in my and in my thoughts.
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_01: I mean that's that is kind of uh there's been a bit of a staple to get up after a song and just cut everyone off at the knees and just go.
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, did you really mean that?
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know if you really did, did you?
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_01: You didn't really mean that.
• 7:59
  SPEAKER_01: And and I've seen I've seen that done at conferences, I've I've sort of heard it, you know, in in churches.
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_01: It's a very, very easy way to get a whole bunch of people to go, oh no, I don't think we really did.
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_01: And to do it not to sing at all for Christmas clan with guests.
• 8:18
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, that's like please come round for dinner.
• 8:21
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, I wonder why you're here.
• 8:25
  SPEAKER_01: I see, I see, I know why you've turned up.
• 8:29
  SPEAKER_01: You did all very well.
• 8:31
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 8:32
  SPEAKER_01: How the tables are turned.
• 8:35
  SPEAKER_03: So you're just here for the casserole, aren't you?
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 8:39
  SPEAKER_03: So preparing yourself such that you are overflowing with Christmas joy and glad, glad for the people who are there who are not usually there.
• 8:47
  SPEAKER_03: Um and there are other ways, I think, of of being being a bit of a Grinch, being a bit of a Scrooge at Christmas, and and you could spend your whole time berating the consumerism of Christmas sort of thing.
• 9:02
  SPEAKER_03: And I'm not saying that that's not appropriate at some point, you know, to mention.
• 9:06
  SPEAKER_03: Um and I'm sure if the Lord leads you and the passage of scripture that you selected kind of diagnoses the sins of the culture, and maybe that's appropriate, but spending your whole time kind of um saying Christmas is not everything you th you've thought of.
• 9:21
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 9:22
  SPEAKER_03: That is to come at it from a very negative framework, I think.
• 9:26
  SPEAKER_01: So be be glad if there are people have turned up to hear your sermon this Christmas.
• 9:31
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 9:32
  SPEAKER_01: Be appreciative of the fact.
• 9:35
  SPEAKER_01: And and it's interesting, is there's a thing called a warm welcome that's happening at in various places at the moment, um in which, because of the rising cost of fuel and and electric and gas bills and things, that uh churches are inviting people into their buildings uh for a few hours, maybe for a hot meal as well, to kind of give them a warm welcome.
• 9:59
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_01: Um now church is notoriously cold buildings just purely on a temperature footing.
• 10:07
  SPEAKER_03: But yes, but they they managed to be about three degrees centigrade warmer than the uh the pavement outside.
• 10:12
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 10:13
  SPEAKER_03: Um but what is Christmas?
• 10:14
  SPEAKER_03: And and I guess like people asked what our Christmas video was all about, and sort of the answer that I came up with was um it's festive joy to which the world is invited.
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_03: And I and I guess yeah, Christmas is is that kind of thing, and and our Christmas services they are they are a family affair, you know, and this is you know, and church is for the sheep, not the goats, and all that kind of thing, you know.
• 10:35
  SPEAKER_03: It's about it's about feeding the sheep, not entertaining the goats and all that kind of stuff.
• 10:39
  SPEAKER_03: But but it's being a welcoming kind of a sheep that says you'll you're really welcome from outside this flock.
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 10:45
  SPEAKER_03: Come and warm yourselves by the same truths that we are being warmed.
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_03: And and that it that again I think is an ethos point.
• 10:54
  SPEAKER_03: Let's not do bait and switch.
• 10:56
  SPEAKER_03: Let's not do um, hey, come for mold wine and mince pies and a sing song, and then lock the doors.
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_03: Now we're gonna walk you through a gospel presentation that has very little to do with the incarnation.
• 11:09
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, you know.
• 11:10
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I'm all for you're in here, let's talk about Jesus, because that's who this whole thing is about.
• 11:17
  SPEAKER_03: What I don't like is, you know, we've got a nativity play with a live donkey! The whole village turns out, and then you're like, Lock the doors, let me tell you s let me tell you a story that has very little to do with the nativity that we've just been exploring.
• 11:31
  SPEAKER_03: Okay, yeah.
• 11:32
  SPEAKER_03: And everything to do with Golgotha.
• 11:34
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 11:34
  SPEAKER_03: You know, and I I am all for getting to Golgotha in the end, and and by um by natural means, but yeah, the bait and switch thing leaves people with a bad taste, I think.
• 11:45
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 11:46
  SPEAKER_01: Because if you name the donkey Golgotha, that would be quite an interesting way of doing that bait and switch, wouldn't it?
• 11:52
  SPEAKER_01: But yeah, do they name the donkey?
• 11:54
  SPEAKER_01: They rarely do.
• 11:55
  SPEAKER_03: Um there's another ethos thing at that because at this point certain preachers would say, There wasn't even a donkey, right?
• 12:02
  SPEAKER_03: Okay.
• 12:03
  SPEAKER_03: And you do the whole demythologizing thing.
• 12:06
  SPEAKER_03: And you spend the entire time saying, actually.
• 12:10
  SPEAKER_03: The magi and the shepherds were never there at the same time.
• 12:13
  SPEAKER_03: Yes, I said magi, not three kings.
• 12:15
  SPEAKER_03: Yes.
• 12:15
  SPEAKER_03: Because they weren't kings, but there weren't three of them.
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_03: And you just deconstruct everything.
• 12:21
  SPEAKER_03: I yeah, I I question the wisdom of that.
• 12:25
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 12:26
  SPEAKER_01: No, there's there's something that's uh it's sort of deeply unsettling when someone's desperate to tell you what something is not when you've actually not you know you've you've you weren't really basing a whole lot of your life on those details of the uh nativity.
• 12:48
  SPEAKER_01: Like what was it what did it mean to me that I thought there were only three wise men?
• 12:54
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 12:54
  SPEAKER_01: Well, not a lot, so I don't know why you're spending this long, you know.
• 12:58
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, it's a very hard pro thing to do, a very Protestant thing to do to kind of deconstruct, get back to the historical detail.
• 13:05
  SPEAKER_03: Um but but may maybe the reason why tradition has kind of grown over the years is in order to proclaim gospel truth, such that, you know, alright, we know that the shepherds and the magi weren't there at the same time, but isn't it amazing that you've got Jew and Gentile in the same nativity scene?
• 13:25
  SPEAKER_03: And you've got the very rich and the very poor in the same nativity scene.
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 13:29
  SPEAKER_03: You know, and so that there's a reason, you know, it's like the Chesterton thing.
• 13:33
  SPEAKER_03: You don't you don't knock down a fence or a you know or a wall without knowing why it was there.
• 13:37
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 13:38
  SPEAKER_03: It might be load-bearing, you know, in in terms of the gospel content that it's supporting.
• 13:42
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 13:45
  SPEAKER_01: Hello, Nate Morganlock here to invite you to our next actually interesting Zoom call.
• 13:51
  SPEAKER_01: We would like to invite you to what many people, that's basically us, are calling Blue Sky Monday.
• 13:58
  SPEAKER_01: Blue Sky Monday, it's January the 16th, and it's often called Blue Monday because apparently it's the most depressing day of the year.
• 14:07
  SPEAKER_01: But we're here to change all that.
• 14:10
  SPEAKER_01: We will have the special guest known by her name, Rachel Jordan Wolf.
• 14:16
  SPEAKER_01: And she's gonna be talking us through the Talking Jesus survey, which was done in 2022, and we'll be getting excited about what these statistics show us about evangelism in Britain at this current time.
• 14:29
  SPEAKER_01: We'll have games, we'll have giveaways, and we're theming it on blue because of the blue sky Monday thing.
• 14:35
  SPEAKER_01: Uh so wear something blue, uh, bring something blue, uh, paint yourself like a Smurf or a member of the Blue Man group.
• 14:43
  SPEAKER_01: Uh but oh, one more thing.
• 14:46
  SPEAKER_01: Why don't you not just come along yourself but invite three, that's three, that's three friends to come with you?
• 14:54
  SPEAKER_01: That'd be fun, wouldn't it?
• 14:56
  SPEAKER_01: You'd be on Zoom, they'd be on Zoom, we'd be on Zoom, a few snacks, uh a little bit of uh lighthearted banter.
• 15:04
  SPEAKER_01: Join us then, January the 16th, Blue Sky Monday.
• 15:11
  SPEAKER_01: What about the logos?
• 15:13
  SPEAKER_01: I suppose that's a fairly natural one to move on to.
• 15:16
  SPEAKER_03: The capital L Logos and and as we seek to communicate the heart of Christmas, um, what should we be aiming at?
• 15:25
  SPEAKER_03: Um one one sort of drum that I beat at Christmas is that let's not see Christmas as the beginning of the story, but as the beginning of the end of the story.
• 15:36
  SPEAKER_03: And what I mean by that is is very often people preachers have a very understandable desire to get beyond the manger and to get to Golgotha.
• 15:46
  SPEAKER_03: The donkey, you mean Golgotha the donkey.
• 15:50
  SPEAKER_03: Get get from the crib to the cross.
• 15:53
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 15:53
  SPEAKER_03: Because that's where salvation really happens, and um and the the effect of that can often be, okay, you you've you've put the nativity on with a live donkey called Golgotha for for no reason at all, but then it'll help you to crowbar the cross in later.
• 16:09
  SPEAKER_03: And you end up actually having brought people in to celebrate Christmas, but you hurry past Christmas very quickly and say, But really, you're all here to sell celebrate Easter, aren't you?
• 16:22
  SPEAKER_03: And people are like, that's not what the last three songs have said, and that's not what every decoration in this church is all about.
• 16:27
  SPEAKER_03: So and I think part of the problem is we see that Christmas is the beginning, and it's just okay, so Jesus, he's just a baby, but he grew up and he became a carpenter and he swung a hammer hammer and he's not, you know, he's not weak anymore.
• 16:40
  SPEAKER_03: And we like so one issue is that we we don't like the weakness of the little Lord Jesus and we hurry past him because we've kind of got a theology of glory and not a theology of the cross.
• 16:51
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, yeah.
• 16:52
  SPEAKER_03: Because Luther, you know, talked about that in in um 1517.
• 16:58
  SPEAKER_03: He was talking about in his Heidelberg disputation, he said the real issue in the Reformation, even before the Reformation really really got going, was there are some people who think um you've got to ascend your way to the God of Glory, and there are some people who think that the God of the Cross came down and met you in the gutter.
• 17:17
  SPEAKER_03: That's the theology of the cross, and then there's the theology of glory.
• 17:20
  SPEAKER_03: And if the theology of glory is represented by a ladder, the theology of the cross is represented by the the cross, which is the rescue rope down.
• 17:27
  SPEAKER_03: And I think at Christmas it can be a sign that we've got a theology of glory where we're just hurrying past the manger and we're like, yeah, yeah, yeah, but he grew up and he got more powerful and he's not little anymore.
• 17:40
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, yeah.
• 17:41
  SPEAKER_01: And he got so powerful that he was wheezing, bloody, beaten, bruised.
• 17:48
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, yeah.
• 17:49
  SPEAKER_01: And I mean, and that's the interest, it's like, well, at what point in Christ's incarnation are you going to sort of say, look how look how utterly powerful and macho and um I suppose you could you could talk about the the transfiguration as being a point of like wow and um as everyone sort of bows down to uh speechless um or saying strange things about building tabernacles.
• 18:24
  SPEAKER_01: Um but but certainly Christ's you that maybe they want to get to the resurrection.
• 18:33
  SPEAKER_02: Because these people never get to the resurrection.
• 18:37
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 18:37
  SPEAKER_01: Well but but interesting that they that the the view of his his power is also his weakness, is is the s the the power of the cross, which is foolishness.
• 18:49
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 18:50
  SPEAKER_03: Um Yeah, I was just looking up a a little poem I did on Twitter the um a few Christmases ago.
• 18:55
  SPEAKER_03: God in a manger defenseless and fleshed, Emmanuel crying and fighting for breath.
• 18:59
  SPEAKER_03: God at Golgotha pierced in his flesh, Emmanuel crying and fighting for breath.
• 19:04
  SPEAKER_03: And it's it's that that real sense, um you know, God in a manger wriggling and roar, laid on the wood, enthroned on the straw.
• 19:12
  SPEAKER_03: The crib and the cross are cut from the same piece of wood, and where that baby is headed is once again to be gasping for breath, stretched out on the wood.
• 19:26
  SPEAKER_03: Um and if our whole episode of Christmas preaching is, oh don't leave the baby in the manger, we need him to get bigger, in a sense I want to say, no, no, no, he stoops further.
• 19:36
  SPEAKER_03: What you're seeing at Christmas is a man falling, and if that's the snapshot, then you know that the end is gonna be uh him plummeting right to the very depths.
• 19:46
  SPEAKER_03: So so and so part of this problem is we've got a theology of the glory rather than the theology of the cross.
• 19:52
  SPEAKER_03: And part of the issue is that we've started we've sort of started the clock at Christmas, mm-hmm and that's the beginning of the story.
• 20:00
  SPEAKER_03: And therefore well, if if that's the beginning of the story, then we need to hurry along to the end of the story.
• 20:06
  SPEAKER_03: Whereas if you've just s done a nine lessons and carols service, for instance, you've you've probably started in Genesis chapter three, and you've had this prophetic hope of the the seed of the woman who crushed the serpent, and and you've had Isaiah nine and the prophecies, and and you've come and you've just sung Ocame Okame Manuel and Ransom Captive Israel, so that when you get to Christmas, it's like ah, it's the end of the story.
• 20:29
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 20:29
  SPEAKER_01: Late in time, behold him come.
• 20:31
  SPEAKER_01: Late in time.
• 20:32
  SPEAKER_03: It's not like, oh yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 20:34
  SPEAKER_03: Um it's not a sense of firstly when you get to the the crib.
• 20:39
  SPEAKER_03: It's finally when you get to the crib.
• 20:41
  SPEAKER_03: And that really helps you because if you've got that um oh come oh come emanual framework, then oh he came and why did he come?
• 20:53
  SPEAKER_03: To ransom captive Israel, I think, right?
• 20:56
  SPEAKER_03: And you can you can run the crib and the cross together, I think, much more organically if it's coming at the end of the story rather than the beauty of the story.
• 21:03
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah, yeah.
• 21:04
  SPEAKER_01: So the need to properly see the unfolding, the story of of God's salvation in which Christ comes as the second Adam.
• 21:15
  SPEAKER_01: Come on.
• 21:16
  SPEAKER_01: And he's coming, you know, um doesn't even turn up to the second half, did he?
• 21:22
  SPEAKER_01: Um no, but um but in terms of the incarnation as part of the last days, and when you know, this is where he's Yes.
• 21:30
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I mean that's a very short he's only got thirty-three years or so.
• 21:35
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 21:36
  SPEAKER_01: And then we're into, you know, he's now having been humiliated in you know, and and then been raised up, his exaltation, he has now completed his work seated at the right hand of the father.
• 21:50
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 21:50
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 21:51
  SPEAKER_01: That's bit done.
• 21:52
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 21:53
  SPEAKER_01: We're between the final now between the final whistle and the the trophy presentation.
• 21:59
  SPEAKER_01: But if You think that the beginning of the game was the first you know that first Christmas in in Bethlehem, there was a very, very short match in terms of getting from from birth to uh to resurrection.
• 22:17
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 22:18
  SPEAKER_01: Not seeing that actually you've got to go from creation through and feel the the the tension of the of the Ocama Kama manual.
• 22:29
  SPEAKER_03: And that's why I I love when Isaiah 9, so Isaiah Isaiah 9 is one of the readings for um tonight in Cardiff, and you know, the people walking in darkness have seen a great light on those who live in the land of the of deep shadow, a light has dawned, for to us a child is born, to us a son is given.
• 22:46
  SPEAKER_03: And and it is that that sense of um as Christ comes, atonement is coming.
• 22:55
  SPEAKER_03: So that it's not oh okay, here's one precondition for you know the the efficacy of Golgotha.
• 23:04
  SPEAKER_03: One precondition is okay, he he now has a full humanity tick.
• 23:07
  SPEAKER_03: Okay.
• 23:08
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 23:08
  SPEAKER_03: As opposed to what does atonement mean at one moment?
• 23:12
  SPEAKER_03: Well, here is Emmanuel.
• 23:14
  SPEAKER_03: Here is God with like literally we've been waiting for somebody to uphold humanity's side of the covenant.
• 23:22
  SPEAKER_03: You know, I will be your people and you will be I will be your God and you will be my people.
• 23:26
  SPEAKER_03: Well, God is very good at being our God.
• 23:28
  SPEAKER_03: We are terrible at being his people, and then suddenly God says, How about I fulfill both sides?
• 23:33
  SPEAKER_03: Should we do it that way?
• 23:36
  SPEAKER_03: I will be your people.
• 23:37
  SPEAKER_03: I I will be the people and I will be the God held together in the single person of Christ, so that he is atonement, he he is the at one-ment because he is Emmanuel.
• 23:49
  SPEAKER_03: And and at that stage, you can I think you can celebrate what is happening at Christmas a lot more and not just see it as the necessary precondition for the uh for where the real action happens.
• 24:03
  SPEAKER_03: And I still believe in the cross and I still believe in preaching the cross at Christmas, but there are there are organic ways of doing it, and there are just kind of leaping over the whole reason of Christmas, just to get to the cross.
• 24:16
  SPEAKER_01: But then often we leap over the cross when people do that bridge to life diagram because the cross comes in as the thing to bridge the gap between God and man, and then and the the chasm of sin that none of us by our works can can cross.
• 24:31
  SPEAKER_01: You then put the cross in to say Jesus paid the price for sin, and then you jump over the cross.
• 24:36
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 24:36
  SPEAKER_01: Thanks, Jesus.
• 24:38
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, it um that could have been awkward, but you just you know, you you're now in.
• 24:44
  SPEAKER_01: But there's something about the an overlapping in a sense of God and man.
• 24:56
  SPEAKER_01: Um you know, he became what we are, that we might become what he is, um in the sense that become you know, sons of men become sons of God because the son of God became a son of man.
• 25:08
  SPEAKER_01: Um and the incarnation is that bridge across, but then it's not now, would you like to walk over?
• 25:19
  SPEAKER_01: It's right, I've got you now, picked you up, and I'm carrying you as the you know, the lost sheep across my shoulders.
• 25:27
  SPEAKER_03: Yes, yes.
• 25:28
  SPEAKER_03: And that joyfully home.
• 25:30
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, and isn't that interesting?
• 25:31
  SPEAKER_03: Is that in Luke 15, I th I think for for most of church history, you would have you would have said to a great theologian in the classic tradition of of uh of Christian theology, you would have said, Ah, salvation is described in Luke 15.
• 25:45
  SPEAKER_03: They'd say, Absolutely, it's the shepherd hoisting the lost sheep onto his shoulders, right?
• 25:50
  SPEAKER_03: And we, as modern people, are going, Oh, that's not the bit of Luke 15 I was thinking of.
• 25:55
  SPEAKER_03: Where like, no, for us, salvation is the bit later on in Luke 15 where the prodigal son is in the pig sty, recognizing that he had it better back in his father's arms, and he makes his little pig sty plan, rehearses his little sorry spiel, and says, Sorry, Dad, can I come home?
• 26:13
  SPEAKER_03: And we're like, Oh yeah, that's what salvation is.
• 26:16
  SPEAKER_03: It's us deciding to cross over, go back to the father, kind of all by ourselves.
• 26:22
  SPEAKER_03: But that that story was meant to be read in conjunction with the lost coin and the lost sheep.
• 26:28
  SPEAKER_03: Because Jesus says in Luke 15, you know, he told them this parable.
• 26:32
  SPEAKER_03: And then it's the three, and you meant to sort of combine the three.
• 26:35
  SPEAKER_03: Not to like pull it apart and I am the prodigal son making my way back to God.
• 26:41
  SPEAKER_03: No, Christ is in his incarnation taking the beast of our humanity onto his own shoulders and marching home.
• 26:51
  SPEAKER_03: That's Christmas.
• 26:52
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 26:52
  SPEAKER_03: And I don't I I'm not sure I hear very much at Christmas of what most of the church has preached on, which has been the Athanasian line of he became what we are, that we might become what he is.
• 27:07
  SPEAKER_03: And I don't know why why would you why would you not do that?
• 27:10
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 27:11
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, to be fair, most of the Christmas preaching you're hearing is you preaching.
• 27:16
  SPEAKER_01: So you do actually have the opportunity to remedy that.
• 27:20
  SPEAKER_03: Like most of my hearers, I just switch off.
• 27:22
  SPEAKER_01: Um we've very, very loosely talked about ethos and logos.
• 27:29
  SPEAKER_01: Pathos.
• 27:30
  SPEAKER_03: Pathos.
• 27:31
  SPEAKER_03: What's going on with that?
• 27:33
  SPEAKER_03: It's all woven in together, isn't it?
• 27:35
  SPEAKER_03: And and it and it's about um how you connect with your hearer at an emotional, at a at an affective level.
• 27:45
  SPEAKER_03: And aga and and some of this is sort of covered in let's not just do the actually thing.
• 27:51
  SPEAKER_03: That that seems to me to be uh an over-emphasis on logos at the at the cost of pathos to say, I want to strip back your Christmas and and leave you with something different.
• 28:04
  SPEAKER_03: Similarly, when you berate um consumerism, similarly when you and I've heard this many times, people kind of say, um everyone says Christmas is about family.
• 28:16
  SPEAKER_03: It's not, it's about Jesus.
• 28:18
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 28:19
  SPEAKER_03: I'm like, okay.
• 28:21
  SPEAKER_03: Could we phrase that differently?
• 28:24
  SPEAKER_03: Could we could be because it kind of is about family as well.
• 28:28
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 28:28
  SPEAKER_03: Um in Jesus, he has defined this family, and if you go with the old nativity scene, then you've got the holy family right there, to which the world is invited, both shepherds and magi, both angels and donkeys.
• 28:45
  SPEAKER_03: And it's it's a very extended family.
• 28:48
  SPEAKER_03: And I guess you can't have the world for Christmas, but you can have grandma and grandpa and aunts and uncles and cousins, and you can sort of approximate this little world that you're building at Christmas.
• 29:03
  SPEAKER_03: Um and I think there's a there's a way of saying it's not about Christmas, it's about Jesus, where you say, um, well, Christmas obviously the spotlight is on family.
• 29:14
  SPEAKER_03: And I think there's something true and good and right, and you're resonating with the heart of heaven when you go for family.
• 29:23
  SPEAKER_03: I'll all almost always say, you know, we all know what the best thing about Christmas.
• 29:28
  SPEAKER_03: You'll tell me what the best thing about Christmas is, you'll say it's family.
• 29:31
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, yeah, you're right.
• 29:33
  SPEAKER_03: We all know what the worst thing about Christmas is, don't we?
• 29:35
  SPEAKER_03: We all know the worst thing.
• 29:36
  SPEAKER_03: Family.
• 29:37
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, right?
• 29:38
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 29:38
  SPEAKER_03: And and I'll make a little joke about it, and and and what you can do at that point is you can say, um, what is worst about it is, you know, in our family Christmas this year, you know, there will be uh an empty chair at the table and we will feel that loss extremely keenly.
• 29:57
  SPEAKER_03: Um as much as you love family, they will even the best family will let you down because they'll die.
• 30:03
  SPEAKER_03: You know.
• 30:04
  SPEAKER_03: Let alone why is it that we can, you know, say that we love the people that we you know.
• 30:11
  SPEAKER_03: I sometimes I I I talk about some five minutes of hell at Christmas.
• 30:15
  SPEAKER_03: I I wrote about this in my uh my little Christmas book, The Gift.
• 30:19
  SPEAKER_03: And Emma and I managed to have a fight on Christmas morning about a present we gave our daughter, which she loved.
• 30:28
  SPEAKER_03: And we managed to have a fight about it.
• 30:30
  SPEAKER_03: You know, this little you know, we we whispered or rather whispered up in the guest bedroom because of I I can go into it another time, but when it whenever I sort of talk like that, there's a sort of a quietness in the room and people are like, Yeah, I get that.
• 30:46
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 30:46
  SPEAKER_03: Get what?
• 30:47
  SPEAKER_03: That's the stupidest thing in the world, the person I love more than anything else.
• 30:50
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 30:51
  SPEAKER_03: We bought a present for a kid who adored the present, the most wonderful time of the year, and still family man is it hard.
• 31:00
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 31:00
  SPEAKER_01: Is there a sense in which the p the pathos of your of your preaching as a you know, particularly at Christmas, when you might have guests, might have people who've who've no idea who you are, and you're just someone who's gonna stand at the front talk for twenty minutes.
• 31:13
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 31:14
  SPEAKER_01: There is actually in in in communicating moments of mutuality and saying, This is my experience.
• 31:23
  SPEAKER_01: Does that, you know, can you relate?
• 31:26
  SPEAKER_01: Sort of thing.
• 31:27
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 31:27
  SPEAKER_01: And that in doing that, there is something actually, dare I say, incarnational about the the preaching that is that is taking place.
• 31:37
  SPEAKER_01: You're emotionally tabernacling among them.
• 31:40
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, very much so.
• 31:42
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 31:43
  SPEAKER_03: Can we make up a meme?
• 31:44
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 31:45
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 31:46
  SPEAKER_03: Emotionally tabernacling.
• 31:48
  SPEAKER_01: That is the ugliest phrase I think I've ever heard.
• 31:54
  SPEAKER_01: Especially when it's trying to be about connecting with people.
• 31:57
  SPEAKER_01: Oh goodness me.
• 31:59
  SPEAKER_01: You tried to emotionally tabernacle with me.
• 32:01
  SPEAKER_01: I was felt absolutely disgusting afterwards.
• 32:05
  SPEAKER_01: But but certainly in connecting with people and saying these this is our experience, is it not?
• 32:13
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 32:13
  SPEAKER_01: And here is how the gospel has met with met me in those circumstances, and how the gospel meets you in those circumstances.
• 32:27
  SPEAKER_01: How Christmas is the only solution to our human condition.
• 32:33
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 32:34
  SPEAKER_03: Which is a kind of a subversive fulfillment type thing, which is Dan Strange's phrase about how you connect with people, because you don't just affirm everything in the world, neither do you just deny everything in everyone's experience.
• 32:45
  SPEAKER_03: But there is that there is that movement of no but yes.
• 32:49
  SPEAKER_03: Yes.
• 32:49
  SPEAKER_03: Um and even the the no is said for the sake of a greater yes, if you come on in to the the truth that is in Jesus.
• 32:57
  SPEAKER_03: So But the I think that's that's interesting about pathos as connecting people with whom you're a stranger.
• 33:05
  SPEAKER_03: To whom you're a stranger.
• 33:07
  SPEAKER_03: And and I I think that's so I was in Durham Cathedral last week and I sort of wore a dog collar, and people were sort of asking, why would you wear a dog collar?
• 33:16
  SPEAKER_03: Well, partly the rest of the building dressed up pretty nicely.
• 33:20
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, yeah.
• 33:21
  SPEAKER_03: It felt it felt wrong for me.
• 33:26
  SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
• 33:27
  SPEAKER_03: Here it felt wrong for me either just to wear a Rudolph the Red Nose.
• 33:32
  SPEAKER_03: If if I was going to wear something different, it would just be a silly Christmas jumper.
• 33:37
  SPEAKER_03: Um what what I think would be inappropriate was would be to dress up like a used car salesman or a, you know, um just just put on the business suit in a cathedral.
• 33:48
  SPEAKER_03: But also because I think whatever cultural memory people have, and there there will be higher levels of cultural memory of of Christianity if they come to a cathedral.
• 33:57
  SPEAKER_03: What are they going to expect?
• 33:58
  SPEAKER_03: Oh okay, alright.
• 33:59
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, yeah.
• 33:59
  SPEAKER_03: Here we go.
• 34:00
  SPEAKER_03: So there is that level of connection with the person who okay, they seem they seem to be doing the Christmassy thing.
• 34:07
  SPEAKER_03: They they seem to be um someone who is involved in this and therefore yeah, it's not a barrier, you know, necessarily to dress up like a like a Christian clergyman.
• 34:21
  SPEAKER_03: Um and that that can that can open up doors of trust.
• 34:26
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, certainly this the sense that, you know, to wear a dog I mean I couldn't wear one.
• 34:31
  SPEAKER_01: No.
• 34:31
  SPEAKER_01: I mean if I didn't know.
• 34:33
  SPEAKER_01: Is there still a capital charge in this country?
• 34:35
  SPEAKER_01: Impersonating a minister.
• 34:37
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 34:37
  SPEAKER_01: Um hanging's too good for him.
• 34:39
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 34:40
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I can dress as a donkey.
• 34:41
  SPEAKER_01: No one no one bats an eyelid.
• 34:43
  SPEAKER_01: Dresses Mary, goodness me.
• 34:45
  SPEAKER_01: Um but uh yeah.
• 34:47
  SPEAKER_01: So the and and that sense that you have a kind of you know, you're a person who's got some experience with this topic.
• 34:55
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 34:55
  SPEAKER_01: Which of course is is partly what's what's built into that.
• 34:58
  SPEAKER_01: That you're as a sense in which um you know it's a very uneven situation.
• 35:07
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 35:08
  SPEAKER_01: In the fact that of the however many hundreds or thousands of people who are in the fifteen hundred at Durham.
• 35:15
  SPEAKER_01: Fifteen hundred Durham.
• 35:17
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, only one of them it gets to talk and everyone else shots up at us the list.
• 35:22
  SPEAKER_01: That's why I love it.
• 35:22
  SPEAKER_01: You know, you're hoping the guy who gets to do the talk is qualified to do so.
• 35:27
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, right, right, right, right.
• 35:28
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 35:29
  SPEAKER_03: Yes.
• 35:29
  SPEAKER_03: And in terms of pathos for you, Nates, what what has helped you to connect at Christmas?
• 35:35
  SPEAKER_03: What what what are you aiming for?
• 35:38
  SPEAKER_01: Um I think as as you know, to use your great phrase emotionally tabernacling, um I think I think speaking honestly about some of the you know the the m patterns of thinking you get into around Christmas or particular things that you find yourself drawn to, particular ideas that will make it a good Christmas this time.
• 36:10
  SPEAKER_01: Um and yeah, we've all I think of the last couple of years, particularly you know, there being better Christmases, have they not, than ones which are governed by by kind of COVID restrictions, and obviously this time round is you know, is another winter of discontent with um uh many strikes planned and things.
• 36:34
  SPEAKER_01: So you think, well just saying what people are experiencing and not pretending that this this stuff isn't relevant.
• 36:45
  SPEAKER_01: I think that's what's probably helped.
• 36:47
  SPEAKER_01: Um and yeah, I mean, I suppose for me, p particularly around the the the nativity story is a story and therefore and it the way that it functions and the way that um we're drawn into it and you know what are the moments of tension and release within that, what are the things that um that that meet with us and you know and and I think that's the sort of stuff that m means that we just culturally cannot get away from the nativity.
• 37:25
  SPEAKER_01: It is not going anywhere.
• 37:29
  SPEAKER_01: Whatever people think about numbers of Christians within the UK or people professing, you know, to to be Christians, um the nativity, it doesn't matter what comes at us, it's it's man it remains in the face of um a Santa Claus narrative around Christmas, a whole bunch of other um sort of Christmas uh competing stories, people's favourite Christmas films, all that sort of stuff.
• 37:58
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, like the nativity is just not going anywhere.
• 38:02
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 38:02
  SPEAKER_01: Um and even even when football comes with its, you know, badges and scarves and goals and superstars.
• 38:13
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, um, it's you know largely be forgotten by the time we get to December the twenty-fifth.
• 38:20
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 38:20
  SPEAKER_03: The whole world stops to to celebrate one boy born in that shed.
• 38:25
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, pretty pretty astonishing.
• 38:27
  SPEAKER_03: So there we go.
• 38:27
  SPEAKER_03: There's some logos, ethos, pathos to think of.
• 38:30
  SPEAKER_03: Yes.
• 38:31
  SPEAKER_03: This Christmas.
• 38:32
  SPEAKER_01: And uh loosely tied together with some some great phrases like emotionally tabernacle.
• 38:39
  SPEAKER_01: Emotionally tabernacle.
• 38:40
  SPEAKER_01: Incarnationally emote.
• 38:42
  SPEAKER_01: Well, we've loved uh emotionally tabernacling with you, um, dear viewer or listener on the podcast.
• 38:48
  SPEAKER_01: Um we will catch you again uh very soon, I'm sure.
• 38:52
  SPEAKER_01: Uh we'll chat before Christmas, you know.
• 38:54
  SPEAKER_01: Um but um if we don't, we do wish you uh a very Merry Christmas.
• 38:59
  SPEAKER_01: And it's goodbye from me, Nate Morganlock, goodbye.
• 39:02
  SPEAKER_01: And it's goodbye from me, Glenn Scripner, goodbye.
• 39:08
  SPEAKER_00: Well, there we go.
• 39:08
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you so much for listening.
• 39:10
  SPEAKER_00: I hope you enjoyed this conversation, found it helpful.
• 39:13
  SPEAKER_00: Do subscribe to the Speak Life Podcast on your podcatcher of choice if you haven't done so already, and then you'll get all the new episodes as soon as they come out.
• 39:22
  SPEAKER_00: God bless.
• 39:23
  SPEAKER_00: See you next time.