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The Resurrection Makes SO MUCH SENSE (Four Reasons to Believe You've Probably NEVER Heard) || SLP581 · The Speak Life Podcast

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: When Weshuff went on Joe Rogan, Joe said this about Christianity.
• 0:03
  SPEAKER_02: I know a lot of Christians that are hardcore Christians, that are some of the nicest people you'll ever meet in your life.
• 0:08
  SPEAKER_02: So it does work.
• 0:11
  SPEAKER_02: Right?
• 0:11
  SPEAKER_02: Like if you do live like a Christian and you do follow the principles of Christ, you will have a richer, more love-filled life.
• 0:19
  SPEAKER_02: So it is true.
• 0:21
  SPEAKER_02: Right?
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_00: Christianity is actually very attractive to a lot of people right now.
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_00: Joe's story is a lot of people's story.
• 0:27
  SPEAKER_00: But at the moment, Joe and others feel on the outside of faith.
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_00: There's a big part of them that wants to believe, and a big part of them that they feel they cannot believe.
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_00: Here's how Joe puts it.
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_02: But you have to submit to this concept that this guy was the child of God who came down to earth, let himself be crucified, came back from the dead, explained a bunch of stuff for people, and then said, Alright.
• 0:51
  SPEAKER_02: See you when I come back.
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_00: I think Joe's put his finger on how many people feel.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe it's how you feel.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not surprised if that's the case.
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_00: In a lot of ways, it's Christians who have been giving the impression that this is how faith works.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_00: It's the Indiana Jones view of faith.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_00: You know the scene.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_00: Indy is faced with a chasm.
• 1:11
  unknown: It's impossible.
• 1:13
  unknown: Nobody can jump this.
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_00: How's he gonna get across?
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_00: And get the holy grail that grants you immortality.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_03: It's a leap of faith.
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_00: The phrase leap of faith is often used to describe this gateway into Christianity.
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_00: If you want in on the whole immortality thing, then what do you need?
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_00: Indie's father, played by Sean Connery, will tell you.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_03: You must believe, boy.
• 1:37
  unknown: You must believe.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_00: In the movie, Indiana Jones breathes deeply, he puts his hand on his heart, he closes his eyes, and he steps out onto this unbridged chasm, and then FUT.
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_00: His foot lands on something solid.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_00: Because he believed, Indy discovers an invisible bridge that sees him safely across to the other side.
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_00: It's this one-off, heartfelt, heroic leap of faith that is rewarded.
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_00: He has successfully believed a bunch of stuff somehow.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_00: And the John Williams music swells to a crescendo because surely this is what faith is, right?
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_00: It's an ability to shut your eyes to reality, put your hand on your heart, and force yourself to take a step that looks ridiculous.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_00: This view of faith is nonsense, but it is widespread.
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_00: It's the Buddy the Elf view of faith.
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_00: You know, a bunch of jaded New Yorkers need to help Santa's sleigh fly out of Central Park.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_00: How?
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_00: Well, they work up a sense of Christmas spirit by singing Santa Claus is coming to town.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_00: And the spirit meter on the sleigh goes from 8 to 88, which I don't know, I'm just thinking now, is that a nod to Back to the Future?
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_00: 88?
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_00: Anyway, just a thought.
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_00: And and then when the most jaded of all New Yorkers, Buddy's dad, joins in, whooshka, the power of belief is enormous.
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_00: But the question is, how do you do it?
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_00: Do you just summon up belief like Alice in Wonderland?
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_00: She forces herself to believe six impossible things, and by believing, she can slay the Jabbawockie.
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_03: One, there's a potion that can make you shrink.
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_03: Two.
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_03: Three.
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_03: Animals can talk.
• 3:33
  SPEAKER_03: Oh cats can disappear.
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_03: There's a place called Wonderland.
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_03: I can slave the job here.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_00: And by believing, she has the victory.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_00: This is the you have to believe a bunch of stuff, school of faith.
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_00: Now, is that what Christian faith is?
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_00: Joe Rogan and others would be forgiven for thinking that's how it works because often Christians speak like this.
• 4:03
  SPEAKER_00: Christians often say things like, in order to be saved, you have to believe, which is true as far as it goes, but that so easily sounds like Jesus is at the gates of heaven with a clipboard and a pen asking questions like, uh, virgin birth, do you strongly agree?
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_00: Agree, neither agree nor disagree, agree, strongly disagree.
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_00: You know, and you are meant to, at that stage, affirm certain concepts as the bridge to life.
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_00: Is that is that how it works?
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_00: Is faith just a bunch of concepts you have to submit to?
• 4:33
  SPEAKER_00: As though Christians have done an Indiana Jones, we just shut our eyes, we put our hands on our heart, and we just say, dang it, virgin birth, why not?
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_00: If that's the price of entry, sign me up, sure.
• 4:43
  SPEAKER_00: Um, if that were true, then the process of becoming a Christian would be about adding items to our list of unpopular opinions.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_00: You know, okay, I believe that pineapple can go on pizzas and that a corpse reanimated on Easter Sunday.
• 4:57
  SPEAKER_00: Happy now?
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_00: This video is all about saying that is not how faith works.
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_00: It's not how life works, it's not how God works.
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_00: It's not that some people are believers and other people manage to get by without faith.
• 5:11
  SPEAKER_00: It's not that faith heads have taken a leap while the rest of the world lives at ground level, navigating the world by facts and logic.
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_00: Everyone is a believer, all of us.
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_00: All the time.
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_00: We all believe in things that you cannot see, touch, taste, or feel.
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_00: We live our lives by core convictions that are not the result of mathematical proofs or scientific studies.
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_00: I'm going to talk about a bunch of them in this video.
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_00: I'll summarize them under four headings.
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_00: We all believe in an Easter-shaped redemption, we all believe in Easter-shaped relationships, we all believe in Easter-shaped recovery, and we all believe in an Easter-shaped reality, an Easter-shaped cosmos.
• 5:49
  SPEAKER_00: You and I, whether we're Christians or not, we already believe in a bunch of stuff.
• 5:53
  SPEAKER_00: You might not think that you have any faith muscles to flex.
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_00: I'm telling you, you use your faith muscles every day in every aspect of your life.
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_00: You constantly expect, trust in, lean into a shape of life, and that shape is a death and resurrection shape.
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_00: You might think to yourself, I'm not sure I can believe in the resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth.
• 6:12
  SPEAKER_00: I think you're already inhabiting a story of this world, and that story that you live by is familiar.
• 6:18
  SPEAKER_00: It has a kind of narrative to it, a death and resurrection pattern.
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_00: And actually, belief in Jesus does not add to the absurdity of that life script.
• 6:27
  SPEAKER_00: Belief in Jesus makes sense of the script.
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_00: Let me show you what I mean by discussing the first of four R's that we are considering.
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_00: We all believe in an Easter-shaped redemption.
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_00: At this point, we're talking about the story arc, the redemptive story arc.
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_00: You know how stories go, don't you?
• 6:43
  SPEAKER_00: Joseph Campbell summarized for us the hero's journey, in which the hero leaves the known realm and voyages out into the unknown, goes through a life and death ordeal which turns into a death and life return.
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_00: Luke Skywalker is on Tatooine.
• 6:55
  SPEAKER_00: He's called to adventure.
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_00: He initially resists the call, but he meets a mentor, crosses the threshold, is tested, goes through a terrific ordeal, but is rewarded.
• 7:03
  SPEAKER_00: There's a resurrection, which is the word that Joseph Campbell used.
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_00: And this resurrection brings back a greater reward than he'd ever had without the adventure.
• 7:11
  SPEAKER_00: Or Frodo Baggins, he's in the Shire, he meets a mentor, he's called to adventure, he crosses the threshold, he's tested, he goes through a terrific ordeal, but experiences a resurrection and a return back to the Shire.
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_00: Or Harry Potter is living under the stairs at number four Privet Drive, he is called to adventure, the call is resisted, he meets a mentor, first Hagrid, but later Dumbledore.
• 7:30
  SPEAKER_00: But again and again he's tested, he endures immense ordeal after immense ordeal, and he triumphs.
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_00: That's the pattern throughout all the books.
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_00: And in his final ordeal he has his life-giving sacrifice, which is turned into glorious resurrection, and we all live happily ever after.
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_00: This is the hero's journey.
• 7:48
  SPEAKER_00: Down we go into the great ordeal.
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_00: Our great stories are all about sacrifice, like in Armageddon, where one man dies to save the world, or I Am Legend, where Will Smith gives himself for humanity, or it's Katniss Everdeen in The Hunger Games, Captain Miller in Saving Private Ryan, or Maximus in Gladiator.
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_00: We love to see a hero lay down their life for the greater good, Obi-Wan Kenobi, getting struck down by Darth Vader, Spider-Man, risking life and limb for strangers, Braveheart dying to free his people.
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_00: When the hero dies willingly to save others, we are in touch with something very deep.
• 8:22
  SPEAKER_00: Self-giving love resonates so strongly with us.
• 8:24
  SPEAKER_00: It has the feeling of ultimate truth, deepest reality.
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_00: But think about it.
• 8:29
  SPEAKER_00: Why should you think it's good or wise or admirable to give up your life for others?
• 8:35
  SPEAKER_00: Isn't natural selection the survival of the fittest?
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_00: Well, this is the sacrifice of the fittest, so that the weakest might survive.
• 8:43
  SPEAKER_00: That's not natural.
• 8:45
  SPEAKER_00: But Easter says maybe it's supernatural.
• 8:48
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe this is what ultimate reality is like, self-giving love.
• 8:53
  SPEAKER_00: Can you believe that?
• 8:55
  SPEAKER_00: Well, every time you watch these stories, you kind of are believing it.
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_00: When you cheer for the hero and affirm their sacrifice, you're believing in something.
• 9:03
  SPEAKER_00: But then a Christian comes along and says, I don't want to add to the absurdity of your beliefs.
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_00: You already believe in the sacrifice of the fittest, and that's absurd, right?
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_00: But if Jesus is the hero of heroes and if he defines reality, well then you have a reason to believe in sacrifice, the deepest reason.
• 9:22
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus doesn't give you an added absurdity to believe, he gives you the foundation to really believe in sacrifice.
• 9:30
  SPEAKER_00: You kind of already believe in sacrifice, don't you?
• 9:33
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus allows you to really believe in it, and not only in sacrifice, but in the redemption that comes through sacrifice.
• 9:41
  SPEAKER_00: Easter is not just about death, but about death and resurrection.
• 9:45
  SPEAKER_00: And the hero's journey is not just a tragic journey down into the ordeal, it's up again, into the happy ending.
• 9:52
  SPEAKER_00: Do you know about tragedies and comedies?
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_00: Have you ever studied Shakespeare at school?
• 9:56
  SPEAKER_00: I remember at high school one one year we studied Midsummer Night's Dream, and my teacher told me, at this point, Puck is making a joke.
• 10:04
  SPEAKER_00: And my response was, was he?
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_00: Was he though?
• 10:07
  SPEAKER_00: I would shrug and I would just write down in my exercise book, Puck is making a joke, apparently.
• 10:12
  SPEAKER_00: I I didn't laugh, my teacher didn't laugh, but that's not what makes a comedy a comedy, not classically.
• 10:18
  SPEAKER_00: You know how you can tell that the Shakespearean play that you're watching is a comedy?
• 10:22
  SPEAKER_00: Because of the ending.
• 10:23
  SPEAKER_00: At the end of a Shakespearean comedy, there's a wedding, or sometimes two weddings, sometimes four.
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_00: That is the happily ever after.
• 10:30
  SPEAKER_00: Shakespearean tragedy is different.
• 10:32
  SPEAKER_00: It's not that the jokes are different, there are jokes in Hamlet, for instance.
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_00: But you know that Hamlet is a tragedy.
• 10:38
  SPEAKER_00: Why?
• 10:39
  SPEAKER_00: Because at the end of Hamlet, the stage is heaving with corpses.
• 10:43
  SPEAKER_00: So that's the tragedy, right?
• 10:45
  SPEAKER_00: And if that's the difference between a tragedy and a comedy, a comedy ends in a wedding, a tragedy ends in a funeral, the question is, what are we living in?
• 10:53
  SPEAKER_00: A tragedy or a comedy?
• 10:55
  SPEAKER_00: I like the way Robin Schneider put it in her novel, The Beginning of Everything.
• 10:58
  SPEAKER_00: She said, Life is the tragedy.
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_00: You know how they categorize Shakespeare's plays, right?
• 11:03
  SPEAKER_00: If it ends with a wedding, it's a comedy, if it ends with a funeral, it's a tragedy.
• 11:06
  SPEAKER_00: So we're all living tragedies because we all end the same way, and it isn't with a goddamn wedding, right?
• 11:11
  SPEAKER_00: It's a very stark way of putting it.
• 11:13
  SPEAKER_00: But if Shakespeare were to write the story of your life, what would people call it?
• 11:17
  SPEAKER_00: Well, does it end with a wedding or does it end with a funeral?
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, it ends with a funeral.
• 11:21
  SPEAKER_00: I guess it's a tragedy.
• 11:22
  SPEAKER_00: Now it might be a grand adventure, there might be acts of noble sacrifice, but if it ends with death, then we call it a tragedy.
• 11:28
  SPEAKER_00: And yet the Bible comes along and it's a comedy.
• 11:31
  SPEAKER_00: It starts on high in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.
• 11:35
  SPEAKER_00: Heaven is masculine, earth is feminine in the Hebrew language, and you're meant to look at those two and think, ah, they're a great pair, they should get together.
• 11:43
  SPEAKER_00: And then by the end of page one, there are these icons of heaven and earth.
• 11:47
  SPEAKER_00: You've got this Adam and Eve figure, and they are representing heaven and earth, and they do get together.
• 11:52
  SPEAKER_00: They are fruitful and they multiply.
• 11:53
  SPEAKER_00: And the whole Old Testament story is the story of how God is the great husband and his people are like the great bride.
• 11:59
  SPEAKER_00: And Jesus comes, he says, I am the bridegroom.
• 12:02
  SPEAKER_00: You think, well, that's interesting.
• 12:04
  SPEAKER_00: But then Jesus dies on the cross, and you think, is it just a tragedy?
• 12:09
  SPEAKER_00: Well, the way the rest of the New Testament unpacks is the Apostle Paul writes a whole bunch of letters to say, oh no, he is the rich bridegroom who absorbs the debt of his bride, and having paid off her debts, he then rises up again to give her his riches.
• 12:24
  SPEAKER_00: And then they are one forever.
• 12:26
  SPEAKER_00: And the Bible ends with the book of Revelation.
• 12:27
  SPEAKER_00: Heaven and Earth actually unite.
• 12:29
  SPEAKER_00: See, it's a comedy, right?
• 12:31
  SPEAKER_00: Starts on high, goes down into the great ordeal, but it ends with a happily ever after.
• 12:35
  SPEAKER_00: Genuinely, heaven and earth marry at the end of Revelation.
• 12:39
  SPEAKER_00: Now that story that I've just told you, it's a lot to take in, as Joe Rogan says.
• 12:44
  SPEAKER_00: Can you submit to that, that whole Bible narrative that I've just given you?
• 12:48
  SPEAKER_00: It's a lot.
• 12:49
  SPEAKER_00: But here's something to consider.
• 12:51
  SPEAKER_00: You and I cannot help but plug the little stories of our lives into a bigger story.
• 12:58
  SPEAKER_00: Something will go wrong in your life, and you will tell yourself something like, the sun will come out tomorrow, lightning doesn't strike twice, it's all gonna be okay.
• 13:08
  SPEAKER_00: You can't not plug that little story into a bigger story.
• 13:13
  SPEAKER_00: You can't not live with some kind of hope that is shaped by a greater narrative.
• 13:18
  SPEAKER_00: And the story we turn to when our little stories turn dark, those stories are rarely the atheist story.
• 13:26
  SPEAKER_00: When something goes wrong in your life, you don't then remind yourself, don't worry, Glenn, you've come from nothing and you're heading nowhere.
• 13:33
  SPEAKER_00: That's not what you do.
• 13:33
  SPEAKER_00: You you don't think, come on, Glenn, you're a DNA replicator and you're going to pass on your genes somehow.
• 13:39
  SPEAKER_00: Or don't worry, Glenn, it's an uncaring universe and we're flinging out into heat death.
• 13:43
  SPEAKER_00: Like no nobody plugs their little story into an atheist narrative in order to help them through, because we need hope.
• 13:50
  SPEAKER_00: And so the story that we're constantly plugging our little stories into is really the hero's journey.
• 13:56
  SPEAKER_00: We can't help but believe in the hero's journey, in which the ordeal leads to some kind of resurrection.
• 14:03
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, we have to believe in something like the hero's journey, because in the hero's journey, persons are ultimate and purpose and love and sacrifice and redemption and hope.
• 14:13
  SPEAKER_00: All those things make sense on the hero's journey.
• 14:15
  SPEAKER_00: None of them make sense on a purely atheistic story.
• 14:18
  SPEAKER_00: So if you're traveling along in life and you're trying to figure out how to navigate your way through this veil of tears, the Christian does not come along and try to add to the absurdity of your beliefs.
• 14:29
  SPEAKER_00: The Christian comes along and just points out, look, you already believe, you already believe in some pretty Christian-ish things, but they don't make any sense on atheism.
• 14:37
  SPEAKER_00: They actually do make sense if the true hero has come to turn our tragedy into his comedy, to take our debts, and to give us his riches, to take our sadness, and to give us his song.
• 14:48
  SPEAKER_00: And the part of you that resonates with that, I think, is very deep.
• 14:52
  SPEAKER_00: Such that becoming a Christian will not make you more fringe in your beliefs, but more grounded in your beliefs.
• 15:01
  SPEAKER_00: Become a Christian, and you can truly lean into something you've been depending upon all along.
• 15:06
  SPEAKER_00: With Jesus, you can believe in redemption.
• 15:09
  SPEAKER_00: That's the first R.
• 15:10
  SPEAKER_00: Here's the second R you already believe in.
• 15:13
  SPEAKER_00: You already believe in Easter shaped relationships.
• 15:16
  SPEAKER_00: Think about it this way.
• 15:17
  SPEAKER_00: Relationships are the greatest thing on planet Earth, they're also the hardest thing on planet Earth.
• 15:23
  SPEAKER_00: If your head hits the pillow tonight and relationships have gone well, today has been a great day.
• 15:28
  SPEAKER_00: If your head hits the pillow at the end of today and relationships have gone badly, today is a terrible day.
• 15:36
  SPEAKER_00: Relationships are ultimate, and when they go wrong, they are hell.
• 15:39
  SPEAKER_00: I often think of the way that cinema depicts these sorts of things.
• 15:43
  SPEAKER_00: So two films come to mind for me.
• 15:45
  SPEAKER_00: There's Marriage Story, directed by Noah Baumbach.
• 15:48
  SPEAKER_00: Adam Driver and Scarlett Johansson play this doomed couple, and we watch in horror and in recognition as their conversation leads to a disagreement, leads to an argument, leads to a fight, leads to rage, leads to fury, leads to wrath.
• 16:02
  SPEAKER_00: And you see the way it just ratchets up and ratchets up.
• 16:05
  SPEAKER_00: He says one thing, then she shoots back at him, and then he's even nastier, and then she says something appalling, and he goes for the jugular, and it just ratchets up and it ties a knot in your stomach as you watch because you know this is what it's like.
• 16:19
  SPEAKER_00: There's a verse in James chapter four.
• 16:21
  SPEAKER_00: It says, What causes fights and quarrels among you?
• 16:24
  SPEAKER_00: Don't they come from your desires that battle within you?
• 16:26
  SPEAKER_00: You desire but do not have, so you kill, you covet, you cannot get what you want, so you quarrel and fight.
• 16:32
  SPEAKER_00: And this is where it all comes from.
• 16:34
  SPEAKER_00: I want something, you want something different.
• 16:36
  SPEAKER_00: And so instead of negotiating, instead of reconciling, instead of serving one another and deferring to one another, we insist on our own rights, and suddenly we have a fight on our hands.
• 16:46
  SPEAKER_00: We're in competition.
• 16:48
  SPEAKER_00: You stop being my spouse, you stop being the enemy.
• 16:51
  SPEAKER_00: And what causes fights and quarrels?
• 16:53
  SPEAKER_00: It's these desires that we have from within ourselves.
• 16:56
  SPEAKER_00: So trace the relational pain back to its source, and the Bible doesn't ultimately blame society and structures out there, it blames the human heart in here.
• 17:06
  SPEAKER_00: But in the previous chapter of the Bible, there's an even darker, more confronting truth.
• 17:11
  SPEAKER_00: Deeper than the human heart, there's something even more diabolical.
• 17:15
  SPEAKER_00: James chapter 3 says, The tongue is a small part of the body, but it makes great boasts.
• 17:20
  SPEAKER_00: Consider what a great forest is set on fire by a small spark.
• 17:23
  SPEAKER_00: The tongue is also a fire, a world of evil among the parts of the body.
• 17:28
  SPEAKER_00: It corrupts the whole body, sets the whole course of one's life on fire, and is itself set on fire by hell.
• 17:35
  SPEAKER_00: When you picture hell, what should you picture?
• 17:38
  SPEAKER_00: You should picture that argument between Scarlett Johansson and Adam Driver, right?
• 17:42
  SPEAKER_00: Or think of Patrick Marber's film, Closer from 2004.
• 17:46
  SPEAKER_00: He brilliantly depicts the way that relationships can go wrong and conversations turn into disagreements, turn into arguments, turn into fights, turn into hell.
• 17:54
  SPEAKER_00: Turns into hell.
• 17:56
  SPEAKER_00: And you watch these people tear each other apart just with their words, and the Bible says, You want a picture of hell?
• 18:02
  SPEAKER_00: It's love twisted and perverted, it's disconnection from the love we are intended to share.
• 18:09
  SPEAKER_00: But instead, it's hell.
• 18:11
  SPEAKER_00: Do you want a picture of hell?
• 18:12
  SPEAKER_00: It's not so much Dante's Inferno, it's not so much a Hollywood horror film, it's love twisted into disconnection, it's service twisted into selfishness, it's compassion twisted into anger and hatred and competition.
• 18:23
  SPEAKER_00: And what could ever heal that hell?
• 18:25
  SPEAKER_00: Proverbs fifteen in the Old Testament says, A gentle answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger.
• 18:32
  SPEAKER_00: The natural state of the human heart is to answer harshness with more harshness.
• 18:36
  SPEAKER_00: And if they bring a knife to the fight, you bring a gun, and if you bring a gun, they bring a bazooka, right?
• 18:41
  SPEAKER_00: It's escalation, escalation.
• 18:43
  SPEAKER_00: But what will ever de-escalate the situation?
• 18:47
  SPEAKER_00: Well, actually, you've got to absorb the blow and answer with kindness.
• 18:52
  SPEAKER_00: You've got to take the curse and respond with blessing.
• 18:55
  SPEAKER_00: And what does that feel like?
• 18:57
  SPEAKER_00: Have you tried it?
• 18:58
  SPEAKER_00: Then you'll know.
• 18:59
  SPEAKER_00: It feels excruciating.
• 19:01
  SPEAKER_00: The word excruciating is from the Latin excrucis of the cross.
• 19:06
  SPEAKER_00: A gentle answer feels like crucifixion when you're dwelling in the harshness of that fight.
• 19:13
  SPEAKER_00: Harsh words feel like hell.
• 19:15
  SPEAKER_00: Gentle words spoken into the midst of that hell, it feels excruciating because it's turning away wrath.
• 19:24
  SPEAKER_00: It's fascinating that the Bible uses that phrase for this situation.
• 19:27
  SPEAKER_00: When you offer kind words in the middle of an argument, you turn away wrath.
• 19:32
  SPEAKER_00: That's actually how the Bible describes the cross.
• 19:35
  SPEAKER_00: When Jesus came, he turned away wrath.
• 19:39
  SPEAKER_00: And you know what that means?
• 19:40
  SPEAKER_00: It means Easter is woven into everything, including relationships.
• 19:45
  SPEAKER_00: Because who is Jesus?
• 19:47
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus is the one who descends down into our quarrels and fights.
• 19:51
  SPEAKER_00: He descends down into our hell.
• 19:54
  SPEAKER_00: We have been yelling up at heaven, not wanting heaven, desiring our own way and chasing after other things, and we end up in disconnection and hell.
• 20:01
  SPEAKER_00: But then, praise God, there is a gentle answer that comes down from heaven.
• 20:05
  SPEAKER_00: His name is Jesus.
• 20:07
  SPEAKER_00: He is the gentle word spoken to a harsh and hellish world.
• 20:12
  SPEAKER_00: What does it feel for the Prince of Heaven to absorb our anger and to return with grace?
• 20:18
  SPEAKER_00: Excruciating in the original sense.
• 20:22
  SPEAKER_00: He turns away wrath on that cross and he rises up again and he says, I have taken your hell, have my heaven.
• 20:30
  SPEAKER_00: I've taken your wrath, have my grace, I've taken your hatred, have my love.
• 20:35
  SPEAKER_00: And here's the thing, you already know that that is the way out of earthly hell, don't you?
• 20:42
  SPEAKER_00: You know that this is the way out of relational disputes.
• 20:46
  SPEAKER_00: You know how de-escalation works, right?
• 20:49
  SPEAKER_00: De escalation happens when someone chooses to answer with kindness when they have received only curses, and it feels excruciating, but it's the only path to healing.
• 20:58
  SPEAKER_00: Well, if you've ever believed in reconciliation in de-escalation, in gentle words to turn away wrath, believe in Easter.
• 21:07
  SPEAKER_00: Because Easter is the ultimate story in which heaven has come to de-escalate the situation, to absorb our hell, and to give us his heaven.
• 21:17
  SPEAKER_00: You might think that faith in Jesus is submitting to a bunch of stuff, some strange religious concepts that you don't understand.
• 21:26
  SPEAKER_00: But no.
• 21:27
  SPEAKER_00: You are living in an Easter shaped world.
• 21:30
  SPEAKER_00: You already know the wisdom of this.
• 21:32
  SPEAKER_00: Christians are just asking you to look in the face of Jesus and think, He is the embodiment of this.
• 21:38
  SPEAKER_00: He is what this stuff looks like cosmically and supremely.
• 21:42
  SPEAKER_00: But this is not one more absurdity to believe in.
• 21:45
  SPEAKER_00: Here is the grounds for you to actually press into your Easter shaped relationships.
• 21:50
  SPEAKER_00: Here you can find the strength to relate in the way that you should, because you can receive the ultimate reconciliation with Jesus, and then you've got the strength to pass on that reconciliation.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: Reconciling love to others.
• 22:01
  SPEAKER_00: That's the second R that you already believe in.
• 22:03
  SPEAKER_00: You already believe in Easter-shaped relationships.
• 22:06
  SPEAKER_00: Thirdly, you already believe in Easter-shaped recovery.
• 22:10
  SPEAKER_00: I mean recovery in the psychological sense.
• 22:12
  SPEAKER_00: And Joe Rogan knows all about this.
• 22:14
  SPEAKER_00: He had Jordan Peterson on his show many times, and he often talks about the ways in which we must confront our fears.
• 22:21
  SPEAKER_01: Here's the doctrine from all fields of psychotherapy.
• 22:25
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 22:27
  SPEAKER_01: Look at what you're terrified of.
• 22:29
  SPEAKER_01: And you will get braver.
• 22:31
  SPEAKER_01: So the the classic therapeutic treatment for terror.
• 22:35
  SPEAKER_01: And the poisoning that terror induces is exposure, voluntary exposure.
• 22:39
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, so so the the the pattern there is face face what you're face what you're most afraid of, and you will be free.
• 22:48
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 22:49
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 22:49
  SPEAKER_01: That makes sense.
• 22:50
  SPEAKER_01: Voluntarily.
• 22:51
  SPEAKER_01: Now that's a doctrine of psychotherapy now.
• 22:53
  SPEAKER_00: There's a fascinating verse in 1 Peter chapter 3 where it talks about not giving way to fear.
• 23:00
  SPEAKER_00: We are meant to do what is right and don't give way to fear.
• 23:04
  SPEAKER_00: That's because fear is always trying to take ground from you.
• 23:07
  SPEAKER_00: And you need to forthrightly contend against that fear and push back against that fear and enter into something that feels incredibly scary and impossible to do.
• 23:16
  SPEAKER_00: But on the far side of that fear, you find freedom and rest and peace and psychological well-being.
• 23:22
  SPEAKER_00: You go through a death and resurrection.
• 23:24
  SPEAKER_00: And so Jordan Peterson goes on to talk about the crucifixion as the ultimate story, the ultimate and unimprovable story, this limit story describing this journey into our deepest fears.
• 23:36
  SPEAKER_00: But Jesus takes this journey into our deepest fears, he owns them and comes through them into recovery.
• 23:42
  SPEAKER_00: So he talks about the Easter story, the passion narrative, as a story distilling all the fears of all people concentrated down.
• 23:50
  SPEAKER_00: It's like liquid hell.
• 23:52
  SPEAKER_00: Or you could say it's it's like a magnifying glass sharpening the rays of the sun to a single point and burning into this single figure, Christ.
• 24:00
  SPEAKER_00: And the story encapsulates everything that is most fearful, that is most horrific about human life.
• 24:06
  SPEAKER_01: You cannot write a more tragic story.
• 24:09
  SPEAKER_01: It's impossible, technically.
• 24:11
  SPEAKER_01: Why?
• 24:12
  SPEAKER_01: Well, because it's a story of the aggregation of everything that people are afraid of.
• 24:17
  SPEAKER_01: So there was no death more painful than crucifixion.
• 24:20
  SPEAKER_01: That's why the Romans invented it.
• 24:21
  SPEAKER_01: It was to punish political miscreants.
• 24:24
  SPEAKER_01: It was a slow agonizing death by suffocation, essentially, and and and dehydration and exposure.
• 24:31
  SPEAKER_01: It's extraordinarily painful.
• 24:33
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, so that sucks.
• 24:35
  SPEAKER_01: That's pain, man.
• 24:36
  SPEAKER_01: Plus, you know it's coming.
• 24:37
  SPEAKER_01: That's part of the story.
• 24:39
  SPEAKER_01: Plus, your best friend betrayed you into it.
• 24:42
  SPEAKER_01: Plus, your people turned against you.
• 24:44
  SPEAKER_01: Plus, they're led by a tyrant who doubts truth.
• 24:47
  SPEAKER_01: Plus, you're a victim of the Roman Empire.
• 24:49
  SPEAKER_01: Plus, you're completely innocent.
• 24:51
  SPEAKER_01: Plus, everybody knows it.
• 24:53
  SPEAKER_01: Plus, they they choose a criminal to be released from this experience instead of you, even though they know he's a criminal and they know you're innocent.
• 25:01
  SPEAKER_01: So, and you're young and you've done no wrong, and all you've done is help people.
• 25:07
  SPEAKER_01: So it's a limit story.
• 25:09
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, so then you think we've been looking at that limit story for 2,000 years in the image and in the story.
• 25:17
  SPEAKER_01: What are we doing?
• 25:19
  SPEAKER_01: Well, you're supposed to visit the stations of the cross, let's say.
• 25:22
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, here's the idea.
• 25:23
  SPEAKER_01: You hear the crucifixion story and you play with it.
• 25:27
  SPEAKER_01: Who are you?
• 25:30
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe if you're female, you're marrying and why is that?
• 25:32
  SPEAKER_01: It's a pieta.
• 25:34
  SPEAKER_01: Because you have to offer your children to the destruction of the world.
• 25:37
  SPEAKER_01: That's female courage.
• 25:39
  SPEAKER_01: That's the mother that doesn't hold her child back.
• 25:42
  SPEAKER_01: It's like, go out to what?
• 25:44
  SPEAKER_01: Eventually, your death and destruction.
• 25:47
  SPEAKER_01: Go out.
• 25:48
  SPEAKER_01: Leave me.
• 25:49
  SPEAKER_01: Be in the world.
• 25:50
  SPEAKER_01: That's feminine courage, man.
• 25:52
  SPEAKER_01: To let her baby go.
• 25:55
  SPEAKER_01: You're pilot.
• 25:56
  SPEAKER_01: You doubt truth.
• 25:57
  SPEAKER_01: But you're you'll go along with the crowd.
• 26:00
  SPEAKER_01: You're Judas because you betray your best friend.
• 26:04
  SPEAKER_01: You're the mob.
• 26:06
  SPEAKER_01: You're the criminal.
• 26:08
  SPEAKER_01: All of that.
• 26:08
  SPEAKER_01: That's you.
• 26:10
  SPEAKER_01: You look on all those things that you hate and are terrified by.
• 26:15
  SPEAKER_01: That's like that's not a snake.
• 26:17
  SPEAKER_01: It's like the worst of all possible snakes everywhere.
• 26:21
  SPEAKER_01: That's what you're looking at.
• 26:23
  SPEAKER_01: What do you see?
• 26:25
  SPEAKER_01: You see death, you see destruction, pain, terror, tyranny, frailty, betrayal.
• 26:32
  SPEAKER_01: Look harder.
• 26:34
  SPEAKER_01: Look harder.
• 26:35
  SPEAKER_01: Look harder.
• 26:36
  SPEAKER_01: What do you see?
• 26:39
  SPEAKER_01: The death and resurrection.
• 26:42
  SPEAKER_00: You look far enough into the abyss, you see the light.
• 26:45
  SPEAKER_00: That is one of the more powerful proclamations of the death and resurrection that you will see by a man who's not a Christian.
• 26:51
  SPEAKER_00: But he is grasping one aspect of the Easter pattern, and the Easter pattern is that you go down and up.
• 26:57
  SPEAKER_00: You face the horrific and you come through to peace.
• 27:00
  SPEAKER_00: You face the fear and you come through to a sense of security and confidence.
• 27:04
  SPEAKER_00: And it's written into the way you and I tick, isn't that suggestive?
• 27:08
  SPEAKER_00: Easter is inescapably baked into stories and relationships and psychology.
• 27:15
  SPEAKER_00: It's baked into everything.
• 27:16
  SPEAKER_00: Think about this issue of recovery.
• 27:19
  SPEAKER_00: If we shrink back and shrink back and shrink back from what we are meant to do in life, then the fears only increase and we only decrease.
• 27:26
  SPEAKER_00: And that is hellish.
• 27:28
  SPEAKER_00: It is ever increasing disconnection and dislocation and shrinking, and it's the opposite of life.
• 27:34
  SPEAKER_00: It's perishing.
• 27:35
  SPEAKER_00: And what is the gospel?
• 27:37
  SPEAKER_00: Christ comes and he takes all those fears on himself.
• 27:39
  SPEAKER_00: He takes our hell on himself and rises up again.
• 27:42
  SPEAKER_00: And he just says, look and live.
• 27:45
  SPEAKER_00: Be identified with this Jesus.
• 27:47
  SPEAKER_00: What are you afraid of?
• 27:48
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus has become that thing, taken it through the hell that you fear and come out to the other side, and you can trust him on the far side of all that horror.
• 27:56
  SPEAKER_00: It's a story that has given courage to billions around the world and down through history who have now been able to contend forthrightly with the littler fears in their life.
• 28:06
  SPEAKER_00: Easter is not just a limited little story long ago and far away.
• 28:10
  SPEAKER_00: It is woven into the warp and woof of life.
• 28:13
  SPEAKER_00: It's not a bunch of stuff that you've got to say that you believe.
• 28:18
  SPEAKER_00: These aren't some religious concepts disconnected from real life that you need to submit to if you want to be a Christian.
• 28:24
  SPEAKER_00: Being a Christian is about saying, you know the Jesus story.
• 28:28
  SPEAKER_00: That's the most relevant, the most wise, the most sane, the most grounded, the most real story.
• 28:33
  SPEAKER_00: It's not the absurdity.
• 28:35
  SPEAKER_00: It's the thing that explains what would otherwise be absurd.
• 28:39
  SPEAKER_00: Easter explains redemption, relationships, recovery.
• 28:42
  SPEAKER_00: But fourthly, and here's the biggie, Easter explains all reality.
• 28:47
  SPEAKER_00: All reality has a profoundly Easter shape to it.
• 28:51
  SPEAKER_00: Here in this final section, I want to point you to three aspects of your world that are already preaching Easter to you.
• 28:57
  SPEAKER_00: The heavens, history, and him.
• 28:59
  SPEAKER_00: First of all, the heavens.
• 29:01
  SPEAKER_00: We already live in a death and resurrection kind of world.
• 29:04
  SPEAKER_00: And you say, really?
• 29:05
  SPEAKER_00: I say, yeah, really.
• 29:06
  SPEAKER_00: Think of four miracles that you are living inside of.
• 29:09
  SPEAKER_00: The four miracles are everything has come from nothing, order has come from chaos, life has come from non-life, and minds have come from mindless matter.
• 29:17
  SPEAKER_00: Those are four miracles, all of which are orders of magnitude more improbable than Jesus of Nazareth walking out of that tomb.
• 29:24
  SPEAKER_00: But they are miracles that you live within, that you assume, that you lean into.
• 29:29
  SPEAKER_00: They are the foundation of your life already.
• 29:32
  SPEAKER_00: Think about it, everything has come from nothing.
• 29:34
  SPEAKER_00: That's the most extraordinary Easter kind of reality, isn't it?
• 29:37
  SPEAKER_00: Everything from nothing?
• 29:38
  SPEAKER_00: I happen to believe that a guy walked out of a tomb, but this is the conviction that everything has actually come out of nothing.
• 29:46
  SPEAKER_00: It's Easter to the max.
• 29:48
  SPEAKER_00: And once you have a universe, you need to recognize that this universe is not any old universe.
• 29:53
  SPEAKER_00: It's a finely tuned, ordered universe.
• 29:55
  SPEAKER_00: It's not a chaos, it's a cosmos.
• 29:57
  SPEAKER_00: Well, isn't that extraordinary?
• 29:59
  SPEAKER_00: Somehow order has come from chaos.
• 30:01
  SPEAKER_00: You can look up the fine-tuning of the cosmos that allows for life, and you'll see that it's miraculous.
• 30:06
  SPEAKER_00: It's so miraculous that professor of philosophy at Durham University, Philip Goff, has recently given up his atheism and declared himself a Christian.
• 30:13
  SPEAKER_00: When Philip Goff was on Joe Rogan, he wasn't a Christian, but now he is, and it's the finely tuned order of the cosmos that has really made him rethink.
• 30:22
  SPEAKER_00: The Goldilocks zone that we inhabit in this universe is so small, we simply must be here on purpose.
• 30:28
  SPEAKER_00: And the God who has put us here on purpose loves to do this.
• 30:32
  SPEAKER_00: He loves to do this Easter-like thing of bringing life and peace where there was death and disorder.
• 30:37
  SPEAKER_00: So here we are living inside a miracle, a cosmos-sized Easter miracle.
• 30:43
  SPEAKER_00: And not only do we enjoy everything from nothing and order from chaos, we also have experienced this third miracle, life has come from non-life.
• 30:51
  SPEAKER_00: I happen to believe that on Easter Sunday the non-living Jesus became living again.
• 30:56
  SPEAKER_00: But the secular story of the world is that all life has come from non-life, and without a God of resurrection to work the miracle.
• 31:05
  SPEAKER_00: Honestly, Jesus walking out of the tomb is not the absurdity, it's the inner rationale for all those other, much more improbable miracles.
• 31:13
  SPEAKER_00: Like everything from nothing, order from chaos, life from non-life, and fourthly, minds have come from mindless matter, apparently.
• 31:20
  SPEAKER_00: This is the hard problem of consciousness, and it's called hard for a reason.
• 31:25
  SPEAKER_00: It's difficult to even conceptualize how difficult this problem is, let alone to solve it.
• 31:30
  SPEAKER_00: If all you've got to play with is material reality, then the hard problem is hard indeed.
• 31:36
  SPEAKER_00: But if you think all of life is just matter, then the emergence of consciousness is truly miraculous.
• 31:42
  SPEAKER_00: And yet it's something that you lean into on a daily basis.
• 31:45
  SPEAKER_00: So the heavens are already declaring to you life from the dead, these Easter miracles are all far more improbable than Jesus walking out of the tomb.
• 31:55
  SPEAKER_00: But in fact, Jesus walking out of the tomb, if you grant it, is the Easter miracle that makes sense of why we live in an Easter-shaped cosmos.
• 32:03
  SPEAKER_00: We live in an Easter shaped cosmos because there is an Easter shaped God.
• 32:07
  SPEAKER_00: And of course, when he entered into this world in its disconnection and death, of course he would plunge down and rise up.
• 32:14
  SPEAKER_00: The heavens declare this kind of reality because the heavens declare this kind of God.
• 32:18
  SPEAKER_00: The next H we should consider when thinking about reality is history.
• 32:23
  SPEAKER_00: History will teach you the resurrection.
• 32:25
  SPEAKER_00: And I don't just mean the history of the first century, though I do mean that.
• 32:29
  SPEAKER_00: I mean if you press into first century history, you will discover that Jesus lived in Judea, he was arrested in the temple area of Jerusalem, he was tried by Jewish and Roman authorities, he was crucified under Pontius Pilate, he was buried in a known tomb, and that this tomb was empty three days later.
• 32:44
  SPEAKER_00: The body was never discovered.
• 32:46
  SPEAKER_00: His followers had experiences of meeting the risen Christ that went on for forty days and then stopped when they said that he went to heaven.
• 32:53
  SPEAKER_00: And Christianity emerged right there, in the place where Jesus died and was buried.
• 32:59
  SPEAKER_00: You can press into those first century details and you can weigh the competing theories to explain those facts.
• 33:05
  SPEAKER_00: But I like pressing into the history since the first century, because since the first century there has been an incredible Life from the Dead movement called Christianity.
• 33:13
  SPEAKER_00: Think of the analogy of the Big Bang.
• 33:15
  SPEAKER_00: We got the idea of the Big Bang because we observed an expanding universe, and we just thought, okay, if you just rewind the clock back to the beginning point, there must have been a singularity.
• 33:25
  SPEAKER_00: Well, you can do the same thing with the expanding universe of Christian civilization, aka the church.
• 33:31
  SPEAKER_00: The movement of Jesus has been expanding all around the world down through history.
• 33:36
  SPEAKER_00: It's absolutely the most disruptive, the most influential, the most enduring revolution in human history.
• 33:41
  SPEAKER_00: As the historian Tom Holland has said, if you wind back the clock to its origin point, where do you find yourself?
• 33:48
  SPEAKER_00: Well, you find yourself in about AD 30, at the foot of a cross, where Jesus, the leader of this revolution, has been killed in his thirties, and he's surrounded by losers and no hopers without an ounce of earthly power.
• 34:01
  SPEAKER_00: And you think, well, this is an unpromising beginning.
• 34:05
  SPEAKER_00: And yet from nothing has come everything.
• 34:07
  SPEAKER_00: From death has come an incredible resurrection.
• 34:10
  SPEAKER_00: Joe Rogan has already remarked on how strange it is that we're even talking about Jesus.
• 34:15
  SPEAKER_02: Just the fact that it's a question to ponder is a miracle in itself.
• 34:21
  SPEAKER_00: Why should it even be a question to ask, what do you make of Jesus?
• 34:24
  SPEAKER_00: Who's Jesus?
• 34:25
  SPEAKER_00: If he didn't rise again?
• 34:26
  SPEAKER_00: Why are we even talking about him?
• 34:28
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, put it this way, we all already believe in the resurrection of Christianity.
• 34:33
  SPEAKER_00: That's a resurrection we all believe in.
• 34:35
  SPEAKER_00: After all, Christianity was dead and buried on Good Friday, but since Easter Sunday, it has been growing like an expanding universe and transforming lives and civilizations like nothing else.
• 34:44
  SPEAKER_00: What was the bang?
• 34:46
  SPEAKER_00: What was the force, the power, the impetus to get this thing off the ground?
• 34:50
  SPEAKER_00: Because without the actual resurrection, without the God of Easter behind this thing, I think you have immense difficulty accounting for Christianity.
• 34:58
  SPEAKER_00: Christianity is definitely a thing.
• 35:00
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, it is the biggest thing.
• 35:02
  SPEAKER_00: The biggest sociological phenomenon the world has ever seen.
• 35:05
  SPEAKER_00: If your explanation is, well, some fisherman lied about a carpenter, that's the absurd thing.
• 35:11
  SPEAKER_00: Believing in Easter does not add to the absurdity of your beliefs.
• 35:14
  SPEAKER_00: It explains the stuff that would otherwise be absurd.
• 35:18
  SPEAKER_00: Because Christianity is absurd.
• 35:20
  SPEAKER_00: The history and endurance of Christianity is absurd, absurdly successful, especially when you consider it was founded by an executed criminal.
• 35:27
  SPEAKER_00: What should we believe about that?
• 35:30
  SPEAKER_00: Well, however you explain it, you're forced to believe in something very strange.
• 35:34
  SPEAKER_00: That's what Jordan Peterson said a couple of years ago on Jonathan Peugeot's podcast.
• 35:38
  SPEAKER_00: When considering whether Christianity is true or not, Peterson says this.
• 35:43
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I've got the choice between believing two impossible things.
• 35:47
  SPEAKER_01: I can either believe that in the world is constituted so that God took on flesh and was crucified and died and rose three days later.
• 35:56
  SPEAKER_01: Or I can believe that human beings invented this unbelievably preposterous story that stretched into every atom of culture.
• 36:07
  SPEAKER_01: And it isn't obvious to me that the second hypothesis is any easier to believe than the first, because the more you investigate the manifestations of the story of Christ, the more insanely complicated and far-reaching it becomes.
• 36:23
  SPEAKER_00: Either God took on flesh, died, and rose again, or this absurd falsehood nevertheless took hold of humanity and pressed itself into every corner of our world.
• 36:31
  SPEAKER_00: Which is it?
• 36:32
  SPEAKER_00: And a Christian doesn't say, I'm embracing absurdity.
• 36:36
  SPEAKER_00: They say, I'm explaining absurdity.
• 36:39
  SPEAKER_00: I'm explaining what would otherwise be absurd.
• 36:42
  SPEAKER_00: But how?
• 36:42
  SPEAKER_00: How would you ever come to the conclusion that the Christian absurdity is the preferable absurdity?
• 36:48
  SPEAKER_00: Well, that's the final H.
• 36:50
  SPEAKER_00: Him.
• 36:51
  SPEAKER_00: You've got to meet him.
• 36:52
  SPEAKER_00: You've got to be able to see Jesus and say, of course, of course, he's God who's come to die and rise from the world.
• 36:59
  SPEAKER_00: He's the hero of the hero's journey.
• 37:01
  SPEAKER_00: He's the gentle answer that turns away rough.
• 37:04
  SPEAKER_00: He's the uplifted snake lifted in the wilderness.
• 37:08
  SPEAKER_00: You need to get yourself to church, you need to pick up a Bible, you need to pray and say, God, show me Jesus, and then read.
• 37:13
  SPEAKER_00: And as you read through, let's say, the Gospels, the biographies of Jesus, you can do what comic book fans do.
• 37:19
  SPEAKER_00: You know how comic book fans will debate with one another, you know, who would win in a fight between Superman and Batman?
• 37:25
  SPEAKER_00: And they say, Well, Batman has these strengths and Superman has these strengths, and who would win?
• 37:30
  SPEAKER_00: And you can do that with Jesus and death.
• 37:33
  SPEAKER_00: And you can say to yourself, Death is a superhero, it's never lost a battle, it has swallowed men and women, armies and empires.
• 37:40
  SPEAKER_00: But then you can ask the question, what about its matchup with Jesus?
• 37:45
  SPEAKER_00: I know that death has won every other bout.
• 37:49
  SPEAKER_00: But what if there is a heavyweight champion that has come to conquer even death?
• 37:54
  SPEAKER_00: And you encounter Jesus in the Gospels and you think to yourself, could he be bigger than death?
• 38:00
  SPEAKER_00: And at the same time, you are asking the same question as could hope be bigger than despair?
• 38:05
  SPEAKER_00: You're asking the same question as could reconciliation be bigger than disconnection?
• 38:09
  SPEAKER_00: You're asking the same question as could freedom be bigger than fear?
• 38:13
  SPEAKER_00: Open up the scriptures and have a look at him because without him, I guess death is Lord, isn't it?
• 38:19
  SPEAKER_00: Death always wins, after all.
• 38:21
  SPEAKER_00: But have a look at him and think to yourself, maybe with him there is hope, there is love, there is freedom, and it has a name, Jesus.
• 38:29
  SPEAKER_00: A Christian looks at him and says, Whatever force that brings everything from nothing, order from chaos, life from non-life, whatever that creative power might be, Jesus embodies it.
• 38:38
  SPEAKER_00: He is Lord.
• 38:39
  SPEAKER_00: And if he's Lord, the really remarkable thing would be if he rotted in some Jerusalem tomb.
• 38:46
  SPEAKER_00: Christianity is not about forcing yourself to believe a bunch of stuff.
• 38:49
  SPEAKER_00: We don't submit to some improbable truth claims as the entry price to eternal life.
• 38:54
  SPEAKER_00: Christian faith is looking to Jesus and saying, Yep, there he is.
• 38:58
  SPEAKER_00: The inner logic to everything.
• 39:00
  SPEAKER_00: He's the hero of heroes, this is the story of stories.
• 39:03
  SPEAKER_00: And with Jesus, your vision does not shrink down to a small little religious life.
• 39:09
  SPEAKER_00: Your vision expands.
• 39:11
  SPEAKER_00: Now you can see everything with clarity, from stories to relationships to recovery to the cosmos.
• 39:18
  SPEAKER_00: If you think to yourself, I can't believe impossible things, then I invite you instead to believe in Jesus.
• 39:25
  SPEAKER_00: If you want to take this further, please do find out more at 321course.com and see life the way Jesus sees life.
• 39:31
  SPEAKER_00: See his vision for God, his vision for the world, his vision for you.
• 39:34
  SPEAKER_00: Look at the Easter story again and see if it makes sense of your world.
• 39:38
  SPEAKER_00: Start an account, log in, it's completely free.
• 39:40
  SPEAKER_00: But here is a way of either refreshing your Easter faith or perhaps discovering it for the first time.
• 39:46
  SPEAKER_00: We would love you to do that, so go to 321course.com.
• 39:48
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you so much for joining us.
• 39:49
  SPEAKER_00: And please do subscribe to the channel so we can catch you on the next one.
• 39:52
  SPEAKER_00: Happy Easter.